In today's first reading, Isaiah 41: 13-20, Isaiah continues to prophesy about the Messiah, the One who God sends "to thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff." As we face mountains of violence in our world and sin within and around us, we may wonder where God is. What a mystery that God enters this world in the darkness of the womb, in the darkness of night, in a manger among cattle, as a helpless infant. Or is an infant helpless? The hearts of "giants," of proud, cold, heartless men and women melt in the presence of an infant. Infants change men and women into compassionate, loving, caring adults. Lives, sometimes centered on self alone, suddenly or gradually become more concerned about the well-being of another--a helpless, dependent child--than their pursuit of riches, or material things, of catching up with the Joneses of our society, of being proud owners of luxury items, and so on and on into infinitude. Parents of helpless infants learn to live for others, to put others first, to spend their lives in love!
O the Wisdom of our God! We learn how to live according to God's will God from weak infants, needy children and adults and our own neediness. We learn to seek God in the dark moments of life and when encountering a weakness that has the power to awaken us to our need for God. We also learn to seek God above all else when we find ourselves in the deserts of life from which we cry out in thirst. Are we seeking God when we encounter these human realities? God's heart pines for us to know Him. In this passage from Isaiah God says to us: I, the Lord, will answer [you]; I, the God of Israel [put the name of your city, your village, your nation here], will not forsake [you]. I will open up rivers [of grace, of divine power] on the bare heights, and fountains in the broad valley [of your life]; I will turn the desert into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water. I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that [you] may see and know, observe and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel [put the name of the place where you live] has created it."
Everything in life is meant to show us God's power to "thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff." Do we wait upon the Lord to do this or do we take things in our own hands? In our frustration, do we play God?
So helpful, as always,Sister Dorothy.
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