Good News Reflection
Thursday of the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time
November 11, 2010
Today's Saint: Martin of Tours
Pray for those serving in the military:
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/MartinTours.htm
Today's Readings:
Philemon 7-20
Ps 146:(5a) 7-10
Luke 17:20-25
http://www.usccb.org/nab/111110.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_11_11.mp3
Jesus is coming! Jesus is here!
Many people are looking for signs that the Second Coming of Christ is going to happen soon. Tired of suffering, we hope that God's total victory will hurry up and arrive. We want evil-doers to get punished and removed from the world and from our lives and even from our thoughts. We want Satan's butt to get kicked the hell off of Earth.
Today, Jesus is telling us the same thing he told the Pharisees in today's Gospel reading: God's reign is already here!
The Catholic Church teaches that the "end times" were initiated in the resurrection of Jesus and began when the Holy Spirit descended upon the earth and came to live in all believers. It's an era of mercy, forgiveness and love, an era in which we continue the mission of Christ, overcoming evil with our own holiness. We are the Body of Christ on Earth and we do what Jesus did, through the Holy Spirit, to take others to Heaven with us.
So why are we waiting for Jesus to show up? We need to live as if his Second Comingis going to happen tomorrow, but instead of standing at the window watching for signs that Jesus is going to soon rescue the world from evil, we are supposed to go out and do the rescuing – in the name of Jesus and through the power of the Spirit of Jesus.
Instead of watching for Jesus' return to Earth, we're supposed to be finding him right now in the people of our Christian community, and we're supposed to BE Jesus, serving as his hands and feet and voice ministering to those who are afflicted by evil.
This is the point God makes in today's first reading. This short letter from Saint Paul was written to a believer named Philemon whose slave, Onesimus, had cheated him and run away. The name "Onesimus" means "useful", and Paul took advantage of that to tell Philemon that the formerly useless slave was to be respected and compassionately reinstated in his job.
How many Onesimuses do we know? These are the persons who seem worthless to us, and the people who have cheated us. We are to treat everyone as if we are meeting Jesus himself. Saint Francis of Assisi knew this, so he genuflected at the feet of each person he encountered. Does that seem too drastic? Well, we could at least smile at them.
The reign of God comes to us every day through every person we meet. If we bring Jesus into the encounter, the occasion becomes sanctified, holy. And isn't it interesting that God likes to speak to us through those who seem useless and ignorant. (He enjoys irony.)
"Welcome him as you would me" is Paul's invitation to Philemon. He is speaking the words of Christ himself, who says in Matthew 25 that what we do to the least, the very least liked of all people, we do to him. We must train ourselves to recognize the reign of God where we least expect to find it!
© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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Actually the Christ has already returned this year.
ReplyDeleteYou just need to recognize him for yourself. This may not be that easy, since he will appear as an ordinary man until most people acknowledge him. The way to recognize him is thru his words or the message that he brings - the message of peace, brotherhood and justice.
See www.christmaitreya.org for more info.
he is false like many other
ReplyDeletethis thief will make his splash so obvious that all others will appear like puddles
so keep waiting...
and the thief will come