The Church--the House of God and the Family of the Living God

St. Paul, in today's first reading, 1 Timothy 3: 14-16, speaks about the Church as"the household of God", the "pillar and foundation of truth," the "Church of the living God."  God is alive, active, caring, loving. God is parenting, mothering, fathering. God is actively disciplining us as his daughter/son. God is guiding us, celebrating us, comforting us, coaching us, counseling us!  As members of the Church we are members of God's household where truth reigns, justice abides, grace abounds.  We are members of a household where love grows, peace abounds, good thrives, differences are accepted, talent is given an environment where it is developed and expanded.  In God's household, each person is cherished, loved, understood, lifted up, challenged, made strong in weaknesses, led to his/her truth, taught to cope with difficulties and confront that which is evil and unwelcome!  No one in God's family is left to be bullied, abused or shamed--bullying, shaming, abusing of one another is brought to a halt and replaced with that which accepts another as a work of art in process, as one on the way to the eternal Kingdom, as one dear to God and possessed by God, the Potter molding the clay, strengthening the person as a vessel of grace, and making one a manifestation of God's image here on earth!

We are members of the household of God, a spiritual palace, where the work of God may remain invisible to some but not to others, a place where each person is listened to, where each person's needs are met and the Spirit reigns supreme!

What a gift, Lord, Thank you for making a place for each of us in Your Kingdom here on earth, the Church, your household, your family and being our Shepherd here on earth until we come to our place in your eternal Kingdom!

Communicating with God Honestly, Intimately and Confidently

In today's first reading, Gen 18: 20-32,  God tells the people that He must come down and check out the information he is hearing about Sodom and Gomorrah.   Are the people as evil as He is hearing that they are.  "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them, that comes to me. I mean to find out." As Abraham and companions are approaching Sodom, the Lord stands next to him. So Abraham asks the Lord whether He will spare the city if he find 50 innocent people there and God says yes. Abraham goes on until he asks God if He will spare the city if he find just 10 innocent people there and, again, God says yes.

Abraham is not afraid to approach the Lord and to be honest with Him. God welcomes Abraham's requests and is pleased that Abraham speaks honestly and shares intimately and confidently with Him his concerns about Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us to also approach God confidently, to be intimate with the Lord, calling God Father, praising the Lord, seeking what, daily, we need and desire of Him as well as asking for protection and forgiveness for ourselves and others. In Abraham's sake, he is asking for protection of the innocent people who live amidst evildoers in Sodom.

I think of the world in which we live today. It, too, is filled with evildoers, as was Sodom and Gomorrah, a world filled with people engaged in wicked deeds--human traffickers, sexual predators, those involved in slave labor camps--world leaders who are violating basic human rights of its citizens, exerting control and power over others in a variety of devious, oppressive, deceptive ways; those bent on making billions at the expense of the poor, at the cost of lives, jeopardizing even Mother Earth; those seeking revenge, who take other people's lives as they vent their built-up anger and jealousy upon others, sometimes total strangers.

Lord, have mercy on the innocent while you bring justice to evildoers.  Lord, as we pray in today's responsorial psalm, "the lowly you see, and the proud you know from afar"--[evildoers will be brought to justice]. And, we thank you,  Lord, that, "though [we] walk amid distress, you preserve us; against the anger of our enemies you raise your hand.  Your right hand saves us. You will complete what you have done for us; your kindness, O Lord, endures forever; forsake not the work of your hands" (Psalm 138).  Let us not succumb to the evil that we see others doing but cling to what is good and just and admirable in your sight!

The Lord's Prayer and Ours

In today’s Gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples to pray.  Jesus tells them to say “our Father, who art in heaven”.  He is asking us to go to God in prayer as a child would go to a loving, caring, understanding parent, one’s dad, or, in some cases, a surrogate father.  For some children that is a teacher, a coach, a counselor one regards with great trust.    “My Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”  As a child proudly speaks the name of his/her loving, caring, compassionate and wise father, or surrogate father, so, too, Jesus asks us to address God as a Father whom we highly respect, whose judgment and wisdom, love and concern, we highly revere.   “Your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth as in heaven.”  Jesus encourages us to approach God desiring that things happen in our lives according to the way God plans them to be. In Jeremiah 29:11, God says to us through the prophet: “For I know the plans I have for you.  They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  From that faith, we pray: “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”

In the second half of the Our Father, Jesus turns our attention to relationships with others and to our own need for our “daily bread,”  forgiveness, not being led into “temptation”  and deliverance  from evil. For what more can we ask! And we know that God is eager to answer this prayer, as eager as any parent is to protect his/her children from evil, to ward off temptation that will lead a child onto the wrong path—a path that will lead to misery, suffering and pain—and to provide the child his/her daily bread for the day, that is, all that the child needs to realize his/her potential, his/her greatness, his/her ability to make a difference in the lives of others, to bring peace, justice, love and forgiveness to the world that day, one person at a time, including oneself. 

Our Father, who art in heaven

On The Bachelor last night Sean visited the homes of the four young women who might be chosen to receive the engagement ring and continue serious dating prior to a lifelong commitment in marriage.  Each of the women’s fathers was very protective of “his little girl,” not wanting her heart broken.

The Gospel today opens with the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven.”  Like these four women, we have a Father in heaven who cares about us more deeply and protectively than any human father.  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” we pray.  May we honor and acclaim God as our Father as much as God, our Father, honors, cherishes, and protects us, His sons/daughters. That protection is intense when we most need God to shield us from evil, be that coming from within or outside of ourselves. God is there through the good Samaritans of our lives when we have been injured (spiritually, physically, emotionally).  God is there when we feel abandoned or scared, when we are in agony as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross on Calvary. God is there when the Spirit leads us into the deserts of our lives.  Yes, as Jesus said as He returned to His Father in heaven, "I am with you always until the end of time."

Looking for a perfect father?

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, Mt. 6: 7-15, tells us “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”  We are talking about a Father who is perfect, full of compassion, who understands what is good for us, what would be detrimental for us and who knows how to say “no” when saying so is what we need to hear.  e is the kind of Father who is present to us all of the tim,e who cares for us in the “good” and “bad"He is the kind of Father who is present to us all of the time, who cares for us in the “good” and “bad” times of our lives, who always treats us with respect, who does not withhold the truth from us or treat us immaturely but in ways that build our self-esteem, challenges and empowers us to greatness. God, as father, leads us to choose what is right and just and life-giving and teaches us to reject all that would harm us spiritually, psychologically and physically. 

This is the kind of father we highly respect, are eager to “visit”, to consult, to obey. We naturally pray as Jesus did: “Hallowed be thy name…Thy will be done” in us as it is in You. God desires our best, a best described by St. Paul’s prayer for us in Ephesians 3: 15-21: 

“This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name.  In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, with all God’s holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God.

“Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory be to him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.”