Who has forsaken you?

Good News Reflection
Thursday of the 3rd week of Advent
December 16, 2010
Available as a Good News Ministries Podcast:
http://gnm.org/DailyReflections/podcasts

Today's Readings:
Isaiah 54:1-10
Ps 30:2, 4,-6, 11-13
Luke 7:24-30
http://www.usccb.org/nab/121610.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_12_16.mp3

Who has forsaken you?

Who has stolen your joy by forsaking you? In today's first reading, God says, "For a brief moment I abandoned you...." How could God abandon us? Haven't we been told again and again: "I will never forsake you"?

Isaiah was writing to the Israelites who had abandoned God and, consequentially, had been captured by the enemy. God was promising that their time of salvation was nearing.

Have you strayed into captivity? What bad habits do you have? What sins are enslaving you? What codependent relationships are controlling you? What sorrow is blocking your joy? While you're in that prison, the Lord does not share your captivity, although he never stops loving you and he never stops caring about you. Thus, it feels like he has forsaken you.

Your escape from captivity is as near as the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Then, as you exit the confessional, you will once again feel the joy of friendship with God.

The Lord calls you back. With great tenderness he takes you back. With enduring love he has pity on you and redeems you.

Who has grieved you in spirit? God? He always loves us and does good for us, but when we can’t feel it, we mourn, don’t we? Our spirits grieve over the loneliness of befriending an invisible God. Well, he has a cure for that, too. He gave us a Christian community – the Body of Christ dwelling on earth – to provide us with his touchable love.

When anyone does a caring deed for you, it is God doing it through them. He inspired it. God is reaching out to you.

All good things come from God, and most of the time he delivers them through human beings. If we say "no" to the gifts of goodness that are offered by others, we're rejecting God's plan for us, just like those who rejected the gift of God offered by John the Baptizer in today's Gospel.

When we feel cast off, rejected and uncared for, as if God has hidden himself from us, it's because we're not embracing him in the Christian community that he's given us. Sometimes we say no to receiving and sometimes others say no to giving, and in both cases we feel forsaken, grieved, and cast off. God still loves us, God still cares, but we must prepare the way of the Lord by making ourselves available to his blessings. "My love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken," says the Lord, who always has mercy on you.

Examine your bad habits and sins, the relationships that are based on codependent, conditional love, and your lack of joy. To become aware of God's mercy and his loving embrace, humble yourself to receive it from your Christian community, which includes the priest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And when people fail to be Jesus for you, take your eyes off of them and put your focus back on Jesus, who redeemed you and never stops loving you.

© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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