Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: big picture

  • Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Pay attention.  Keep your eye on the ball.  Don’t ignore the forest for the trees.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  However you want to say it, our Liturgy of the Word today is asking us, as it often, rightly, does, to get things right and stay in the game.

    In our first reading today, Saint Paul tells the Thessalonians not to freak out if they hear about the second coming of Christ. Rather, they should be in the moment and live as they have been taught and formed in the Gospel that Saint Paul preached to them. They need to pay attention to what is going on in front of them, to be attentive to what the Gospel calls them to do, and trust that if the Lord comes in glory, he will find them doing his will and gather them to himself.  That’s the best possible way to enter eternity!  No need to scramble around in fear of what is to come.  When it comes, it comes, so let us pray that on that great day, God meets us doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

    Jesus today scolds the scribes and Pharisees, as he often does, about paying more attention to the minute bits of the law than they do to really doing God’s will. They are so caught up in the ritual cleansing of bowls and cups that they cannot attend to the purification of their own hearts. And that, Jesus tells them, is a complete disaster. Their blindness will eventually leave them out of salvation’s reach.  And we can be that way too sometimes, can’t we?  Sometimes we get so caught up on the little things that we miss what is truly important, and that can be a disaster. 

    And so we too are called today to pay attention, to keep our eye on the ball.  We need to be attentive to the needs of those around us, to reach out to the oppressed and forgotten, to always be mindful of the poor, to stand up for human life, to feed the hungry and take care of the sick – in short, we are to live the Gospel faithfully.  We shouldn’t be caught up in details, nor should we be overly concerned about when the Lord will return.  We can’t have our head in the clouds nor in the sand.  We must be attentive to what’s in front of us, the opportunity to live the Gospel faithfully.

  • Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What I think the folks in our first reading need to learn – and maybe us too – is that the spiritual life is always about the big picture.  The Israelites in today’s reading have completely rejected the God of their salvation.  God had taken them from abject slavery in Egypt, in which they were oppressed beyond anything we could possibly imagine – let alone endure – and led them through the desert, through the Red Sea (covering the pursuing Egyptians in the process), and into safety.  He is going to give them the Promised Land, but they, thank you very much, would prefer to return to Egypt so that they no longer have to sustain themselves on the bread that they have from the very hand of God himself.  They would rather have meat and garlic and onions, and whatever, than freedom and blessing from God.  What a horrible, selfish people they have become.

    And Moses is no better.  He alone has been allowed to go up the mountain to be in the very presence of God.  No one else could get so close to God and live to tell the story.  God has given him the power to do miraculous deeds in order to lead the people.  And yet, when things get tough, he too would prefer death than to be in the presence of God.

    And aren’t we just like them sometimes?  It’s easy to have faith when things are going well, and we are healthy, and our family is prospering.  But the minute things come along to test us, whether it is illness, or death of a loved one, or job troubles, or whatever, it’s hard to keep faith.  “Where is God when I need him?” we might ask.  We just don’t often have the spiritual attention spans to see the big picture.  We forget the many blessings God has given us, and ask “Well what has he done for me lately?”

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the crowds until they are satisfied and have baskets of leftovers besides.  God’s blessings to us are manifold, and it is good to meditate on them when times are good, and remember them when times are bad.  God never wills the trials we go through, and he never forgets or abandons us when we are in the midst of those trials.  God feeds us constantly with finest wheat.  That’s the big picture, and we must never lose sight of it.