Freed from slavery!

In today's first reading, Exodus 12: 37-42, we are told about the night that the Israelites rushed out of Egypt.  To this very day, this night is remembered by the Israelites as "a night of vigil for the Lord".  God kept watch over His people and, at the right time, freed them from the slavery of the Egyptians.  God also keep vigil for us. He knows the chaos or the slavery into which we have fallen or could fall each day. He watches. His timing of freedom for us is the perfect timing.  God is not turned back by what He sees. The turmoil, the chaos, the sinfulness, the divisiveness, the deficits in our lives do not cause God to distance Himself from us. No!  On the contrary, God draws near to us.  God is always near, watching and waiting for the right moment to set us free, to draw us closer and closer to Himself and to others in love.

For 430 years, the Israelites stayed in Egypt! That certainly is a long time!  Where was God, you may ask? God was at their side, empowering them to rise up to the occasion and do what had to be done as slaves.  Was God pleased that they were slaves? Of course not!  God, in no way, wishes us evil or rejoices when life is difficult for us.  God is the liberator, the One who reconciles us with those who  bring us harm or frees us from those who hurt us!  Our freedom may come in a variety of ways. Sometimes as dramatic as with the Israelites' passage out of Egypt. Most times, in less dramatic ways and sometimes we are not even immediately aware that we are being led to freedom.  We simply start making choices by which we let go of attitudes that enslave us to others or that allow others to abuse us.  We begin making choices that give us peace or we keep company with persons who are supportive of us and give us the courage to be our true selves, not another person's slave!

Am I, are you, choosing ways that limit our authentic freedom to be the best person we can be? What behavioral changes do I, do you, need to make to experience greater freedom to serve God with joy and in peace?  What attitudes do I, do you, need to change that will lead us more deeply into the truth of who we are, who God is and how to become our better selves?

The Graciousness of our God

In today's first reading, Dt. 6: 4-13, Moses reminds the people that "[t]he Lord is our God, the Lord alone!"  For that reason, he tells them that they are to "love the Lord...with all [their] hearts, and with all [their] souls, and with all [their] strength."  The Lord God is so essential to their lives of well-being and plenitude, that they are to drill these words into their children minds, wear these words "as a pendant" on their foreheads, "bind them at your wrist" and "write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."  In other words, never lose sight of this message!

Further on in this passage, Moses reminds the people that the land they possess, the cities they live in, the houses in which they reside are pure gift:  "you did not build"  the cities; you did not "garner the goods" in the houses in which you reside; you "did not dig the cisterns"; you "did not plant" the "vineyards and olive groves," and also remember "the Lord, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, that place of slavery."

And how true for many of us, most of the time, that the fruits of our lives--the goods we enjoy, the houses in which we live, the food we eat--we did not plant, we did not build, we did not sweat over!  God blesses us every day with an abundance; and, it is the grace of God that brings us out of that place of slavery that threatens to devour us of the peace, the joy and the love that God desires of us each day!  God wants to free us, as Jesus freed the boy in today's Gospel, Mt 17: 14-20, of any "demons" that deprive us of the freedom purchased for us by the blood of Christ.  Do we frustrate Jesus by our lack of faith, as did the disciples in the Gospel of today?

Thank you, Jesus, for saving us, healing and putting at our bestowal every day an abundance of God's graces!

You Are Sacred to the Lord, Your God

Today we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a feast about love poured out without reserve. Jesus’ heart was pierced upon the cross. Blood and water flowed from His Sacred Heart, a heart so filled with love for humankind, for you and me,  that Jesus willingly accepted His passion and death to save us from eternal death.  In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Dt 7: 6-11, and from the cross, God says to us personally:

• You are…sacred to the Lord, your God
•   …[God] has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own
• …the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the Lord loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he has sworn to your…[ancestors] that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

On the cross, God brought you and me out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed us from the hand of Satan, from his lies and his determination to snare us in such a way that we alienate ourselves from God for all eternity.  No way would God allow that to happen. God  would go to any extent to save us from Satan's lies and from eternal damnation, sending His Son to show us God’s love and determination to keep us as His own!

Have I set my heart on God as God has set His heart on me? Do I realize that I am sacred to the Lord, my God?  Do I grasp the fact that God has chosen me to be peculiarly His own?  How grateful am I that God has sent His only begotten Son, who was obedient to the Father unto death, to save me from  my disobedience to the Father’s will?