-Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 6:00pm on Sunday
Receive
In the gospel this Sunday Jesus teaches us about faith. He says, "become like a little child". In child-like faith we are called to receive everything from our Father - including most importantly, our Father. For too many it seems, believing or faith has failed to receive our Father, the communion of the Blessed Trinity. So that many very adult-like Christians do not have God dwelling within them.
Such adult-like faith would therefore be experienced as intellectual assent to the truth about Jesus and eternal life but not welcoming the presence of God in adult life. So a Catholic could spent their entire adult life believing in God and not receiving God's kingdom into one's heart and life. This adult-like faith that does not receive God into the heart of life would be noticeable when daily life is perceived as painful and failing. In moments of suffering the intellect is often blinded - we can't think things through - and thus God is absent from our experience. We most often described this "I feel like God has abandoned me, he's forgotten me, he fails to hear my prayers".
Child-like faith has received God into life and in fact has received life from God. Believing that God will never let go of my hand, I experience God's secure presence in all of life's moments. Like a child, as long as mom or dad is with me I am not afraid.
Of course this is why Jesus continually challenged the adult faith of his disciples by asking, why were you so fearful? Why do you have such little faith? Did I not tell you that I am with you always?
Receive him and believe. Emmanuel.
4 comments:
Trust. Childlike trust in the Father is the manifestation of accepting Christ as Lord & Savior as a child which is without doubt. It is resting in the arms & protection of a loving parent. How beautiful is the image of a Father or Mother holding, shielding, and loving their child much greater than their own life. We accept this unconditional love unconditionally by accepting Him. The image of Christ holding me as I would my son in times of hurt, pain or just uncertainty helps me to understand true faith as a child. I come not intellectually but in surrender, & trust in prayer & adoration.
My current experience is that I wear my adult hat so much I forget how to take it off. Short of suffering and pain, I don't feel abandoned, but joyless. Bringing through the motions. So here's another reason to pray. To have the experience of being cared for not just the care giver.
I'm challenging you, Father, for more, to connect the dots more for us. The disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying,
and they were afraid to question him. Why didn't they question him? Were they afraid to look ignorant, clueless, etc.?
My brother is having a 'do over'. He has three children aged 19, 22 & 26 & is engaged to be married to a woman who has a 5 & 7 year old. These two little ones NEVER quit asking questions, it can be maddening! BUT my brother this second time around has the wherewithal to question their question, make them think, patiently directs and redirects their incessant questioning. Look at us as adults!!! We lose that innocence & inquisitiveness/wonder/drive to question & wrangle with thoughts to come to a better understanding of situations & ourselves.
Love what Tom shared, but how to get there is foreign to most & the honesty of sweet Anonymous is a lot of people's reality. A quote from Fr. Thomas Keating: Negative feelings toward oneself tend to be prevalent in our culture due to low self image people develop in early childhood. Hmmm. The 12 were talking things among them but when Jesus came they were mum. Is this where our inner thoughts/pain/experiences don't meet faith, the love of our Lord. Do we regard faith something out there APART from the love of our Lord?
Okay, so figure out what I'm saying & give me more!
In some of my recent theological reading I came across a line that said, "All of us are children of the Enlightenment." Whenever I read a line with that inherent message my immediate reaction is, "Uh-oh." That's because I know what's being said is true, and I know what the next message will be: that we have become so taken with our own knowledge and our own reason that we forget the "omniscience" of God - the all-knowingness of God that is beyond us. We forget the relationship of dependence on God that is the truth of who we are. That response of "uh-oh" is the only childlike thing in that scenario - because the reality is I am guilty of the constant thirst for knowledge and constant quest to figure things out.
While I have spent the first half of my life being busied about the learning of things, I am seeing that I need to spend this next half of my life being busied about the surrender of things, while keeping the treasure of wisdom that the first half of life provided through God's grace.
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