TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR

MONDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR (Luke 4:16-30) About whom is the Lord speaking? Quite obviously it is Himself. Does it stop there? I think not. He is reminding us all that the Spirit has come upon each and every one of us. The same Spirit which called Jesus is calling us to proclaim the Good News to the poor, to the captives, to the blind. This passage has so far to go before it is fulfilled. The Church does not seem to attract the poor, but rather the middle class. There seems to be a wall of comfort that so many of our parishes have built. They are more than willing to give money and even time to help the poor but the “not in my neighborhood” mentality is still there. Until that goes we are working against the Spirit which the Lord has given us.

TUESDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR(Luke 4:31-37) The Word of the Lord does marvelous things. We come into contact with this same Word every time we read Scripture but especially the Gospels. This Word is not limited by time or space. It is not hindered by any human structures or cause and effect. To be open to it is one of the great opportunities we have. The Word will come into our lives in many different ways, it will speak to us in the business of the day, or the quiet of the night. All we have to do is listen and say “yes.”

WEDNESDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR(Luke 4:38-44) Gifts from the Lord, in today’s Gospel a physical healing, are not only for the individual but for the community. They are an invitation to service. Spiritual healings, the forgiveness of a sin, should remain only in the heart of the forgiven. The gift should go out and give to others what you yourself have received. They are meant to open up ones heart so that the world may enter in a new way and that the one healed may respond to the world in the light of the new wholeness.

THURSDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR (Luke 5:1-11) Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that we can find many reasons not to do. There seems to be something inside of us which will find the reasons not to do something much easier than to find the reasons to do something. People standing around us will either say: good common sense or what a fool. Peter was faced with such a decision. The common sense thing to do was not to cast the nets, the faith thing to do was to cast the nets. God has given us common sense to use but it must always be covered with the mantle of faith and trust in the Lord. In this way we enter into a new “common sense”, one that the world will be amazed at.

FRIDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR (Luke 5:33-39) Under the beautiful images of bridegroom and new wine lies a message of hope. New wine is the symbol of life. It comes from the crushed inedible grapes of life’s disappointments, sadness. It seems that two paths open when something sad happens. The one path is self-pity. It is the path in which we become captured and life is clouded. It is the path of no hope. The other path is the one of hope. Not the hope that things will become better, that may not happen, the hope that there is a meaning to the things which happen in life. This hope will not take away the human suffering, but it will do something far more important, it will give it meaning.

SATURDAY OF THE TWENTY SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR (Luke 6:1-5) The human heart is such an anomaly. It is capable of reaching heroic acts which amaze those observing, it can love to a degree which only baffles those without the same love. It can be so open as to embrace the whole world. At the same time, the heart can be self centered, cowardly, unforgiving. The contradictions that we experience inside of ourselves are the signs of the continuing call to have the Spirit take more and more possession of us.