Sunday, October 26, 2008

The First Reflection - on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All,

When you were little we shared our faith in community, by going together to Sunday Mass.  Now that you are grown up and living far away, more than a back and forth trip on a single day, the sharing of faith needs to take a new form.  I have been thinking and praying about it for a while and today is my first attempt to get it started.

Every Sunday the Church celebrates the Liturgy of the Word around passages from the Old Testament, from the Letters of the New Testament and from one of the four Gospels.  Reflections about those readings in the sense of what they meant in their time, why it is that our tradition carried them through time (some cases over three thousand years) or what any of them may mean for us today, will be the purpose of this, My Journey of Life and Faith.

A lawyer at the time of Jesus attempts to trip him up by asking the question, "Which commandment of the law is the greatest?" Jesus responds with laws of loving God and neighbor. The first reading from the Book of Exodus describes the compassionate God who hears the cries of the poor, widow, aliens and orphans who are exploited by others. God instructs us to avoid wronging the outcasts.  In the lawyer story, when recounted by Luke (today we read Mathew’s story), Jesus responds to the question of “Who is my neighbor” with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans at the time of Jesus were among the utmost outcasts.  Let us reflect about the outcasts of our time, the immigrants of other races, faiths and traditions, the homeless, etc. and how we may be harming them in any way by our thoughts, words, and deeds or lack thereof.

This last weekend we celebrated the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time and we read:

First Reading from the Book of Exodus tells us about God’s will to help and support the weakest in Jewish society from way back then: foreigners (aliens), widows and orphans.

Saint Paul commends the Thessalonians in the Second Reading for becoming models for believers in their surroundings (Macedonia and Achaia) by imitating him in spreading the word of God. 

The Gospel according to Mathew teaches us about Love of God and Love of neighbor as the foremost commandments.


The complete text of the readings can be found at this website: http://www.usccb.org/nab/102608.shtml

With God’s Love and Blessings,

Rainer

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousNovember 16, 2008 at 11:36 AM

    Thank you Rainer for your sharing. How crucial it is to understand that the man going on a journey is the image of Jesus ascending into Heaven leaving his treasures to His servants, we; the talents, all those God given gifts to be used for His glory are as different as the services we are to provide, we are only asked for good will in using them, faith working through charity. I have learnt that the intention of the giver is as important as the intention of the receiver; both parties should do it as a blessing coming from God in His Divine Will.

    Blessings,
    Pilar

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