God's Plan of Salvation and Our Part in It

In today's readings, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a and Luke 1: 5-25, we meet two barren women,  a person who doubts God's plan to transform that barrenness into fertility, and two little boys taking shape in their mother's wombs who are destined  to be very important persons in our salvation history.  We also encounter two angels, both of whom open their conversation with : "Do not be afraid".  Zachary, who doubts God's power to transform Elizabeth's barrenness into fertility consequently loses his ability to speak for nine months.

You and I may identify with the barren women in this story or with Zachary who scoffs at the angel's announcement that his elderly wife will bear a child.  Are we experiencing a barrenness in our faith life, in our relationship with our loved ones, in our work environment, in the giving of our best selves in all that we do?   For sure, we are,like John the Baptist and Samson in that, we, too,  have an important part to play in salvation history now in the 21st century.  Do we know what that part is?  Perhaps we identify with Zachary in his doubting of God's plan of salvation, in His promises of great things to happen for a family member or for ourselves.

Lord, give us the knowledge of who we are in this Scripture passage and the courage to address the issues that we need to address for the plan of God to bear fruit in our life and the lives of those we love and in the lives of those to whom You send us to proclaim the good News in word by the way we live the Gospel message.

God Multiplies Those Who Have Faith in God's Covenant

In today’s first reading, Is 54: 1-10, we read about a deserted wife, one whose womb is barren.  The Lord God tells her “to enlarge the space for her tent”, as her offspring shall be numerous. “…[Y]our descendants shall dispossess the nations and shall people the desolate cities.”  We are on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem and all who believe shall be saved!

Here on earth, we may be barren, desolate, abandoned, feeling hopeless and neglected, left to die, ignored by many, but not by God!  God sees the plight of the poor. He sees the plight of those sold to or kidnapped  by human traffickers, those fallen into the hands of  sexual predators and violent criminals,  those involved in slave labor, being used by their unjust employers to produce a product at a cheaper price to increase their bottom line. God sees the unborn about to be slaughtered in the womb. He sees the innocent children and men and women killed in our streets. He sees  orphans in war-torn countries with on one to protect them from the violence of war.  God sees it all and, I believe, weeps with us in our powerlessness.

Is it possible that God is fed up with nations, countries, cities, individuals given to unjust and immoral practices, driven by greed, hatred, prejudice, and involved in worshiping false gods.

God comes to save us, we are told in Luke 19: 10, remembering His promise of mercy!  In today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah tells us, “This is for me [for God] like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah should never again deluge the earth; so I have sworn not to be angry with you, or to rebuke you.  Though the mountains leave their place and hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you.”

God came to us in human form 2000+ years ago. God came in the disguise of  a helpless infant, one devoid of hatred  and full of mercy and love,  for the fallen world, in no way, can save itself from the snares of Satan.  Satan, who roams the world seeking someone to devour, shall be cast back into hell. Our Savior has come!

I believe that God is a Warrior God who will strike at Satan’s head, taking his power away from him and all of the fallen angels who, with Satan,  work so hard to deceive humankind and bring us down into hell with them.  Evil will not triumph in the lives of those who hear and heed the call of John the Baptist: “The time has come near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15).

I believe in the good news of our salvation! Do you? I believe that evil will be exposed and destroyed. Do you?

What evil in you and me needs to be destroyed? What sin needs to be forgiven? What graces do we need from our Savior God?

Our Destiny: Written by the Hand of God

In today's first reading, Acts 18: 1-8, Paul encounters opposition in Athens and leaves for Corinth, where he meets a man named Aquila and his wife Priscilla, Jews who were expelled from Italy.  To this very day, people are discriminated against for various reasons.  Within our very nature both sin and holiness abide. Good and evil battle each other in our very thoughts and emotions and at times we follow the voices within us that direct us to treat others disrespectfully. At other times we listen to the good spirit within, the voice that flows from our God-self. 

The Spirit in Paul directs him to stop proclaiming the Good News to his fellow Jews and enter Gentile territory to bring the news of Jesus Christ to them.  He becomes known as the Apostle to the Gentiles. At times we might be unaware of our destiny, yet everything in our lives will direct us to carrying out God's plan for us, the purpose for which we were created. Many times we are directed to other tasks, other locations, other situations to be an instrument in the hands of God. We may say "I can't believe I did that or accomplished that. I didn't know I had it in me but with the grace of God I endured, I worked, I made a difference in the lives of others sent to me for reasons God alone knows.

Maya Angelou, a black woman who was the victim of rape and of racial discrimination.  She rose to her potential and made a great impact upon the world. She became a woman of inspiration, of courage and incredible talent shared with the entire world. Who would have thought that such was her destiny.  Everyone and perhaps the person/s considered the least among us in elementary, high school or college surprised us when we learn of the wonderful things that person did in building up God's kingdom in a world of discrimination, hatred and ignorance. Yes, in God's plan,  no one is left behind, neither  you or I. We have a purpose that will be achieved even if it is like the tree growing out of the side of a mountain because of Master is the One who triumphed over death itself.

Realizing the Gift of Salvation

Imagine the emotions of those Jewish people who had come to realize that the man that was put to death “by the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders was, in fact, the fulfillment  promised to them  in all of their Scriptures, as we read in today's first reading, Acts 13: 26-33. “God,” they testify to fellow Jews, “ raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem….We ourselves are [now]proclaiming the good news to you that what God promised our fathers he has brought to fulfillment for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second psalm, You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”  They realized that for decades they had been blinded and deaf to the Truth. 

Think of a time when you suddenly realized that you were believing the wrong thing, were listening to the wrong people, and all of a sudden came to the Truth that set you free from years of enslavement, misery, hopelessness, and faithlessness.

Yes, you and I, the redeemed, have been set free and  given life by God shedding the blood of His only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In Him and through Him and with Him, all honor and all glory and all power belong. You and I participate in all that is divine because of this incredible act of love on God’s part.  The power of God, the honor of God, the glory of God, the goodness of God, the greatness of God, the holiness of God, the Wisdom of God—God’s very essence dwells and grows --within us through the redemptive act of love that we celebrate in Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. Alleluia!

Fishing according to God's plan

In Today’s Gospel,  Mk 1:14-20, the lives of Simon, Andrew, James and John were totally changed, turned upside down, if you will.  They are fishermen steeped in that way of making a livelihood, probably doing well from a business perspective.  They leave their families and their business and follow Jesus, who simply says to them:  “Come follow me. I will engage you in another form of fishing. Your bait: My Words, the Good News of salvation, the news of another Kingdom not of this world, the royal kingdom promised to your ancestors, a kingdom that will last forever.  And for whom will you be fishing? People of good will. People of faith, the faith of their Father Abraham, people wandering in “the wilderness” of their lives, hungering for the “Bread of Life” and Living Water.”

At our baptisms, each of us was also called to follow Jesus, to bring people to the “Bread of Life” and to Living Water, to bring people to Jesus and Jesus to people.  We were called to be heralds of the Good News that Jesus dwells among us in the Scriptures, in the Eucharist, comes down upon our altars in the sacrifice of the Mass every second of every day somewhere in the world.  We are called upon to teach our children that God is the true Treasure of our lives, that God is the one who empowers us to do good, that God is the One who saves us from this world’s idols and that what the world offers us as the answer to our unhappiness and lack of peace are false promises. Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life—that is why Simon, Andrew, James and John left everything to follow Him. 

“Come, I will make you a different kind of person, not one seeking “fish” or that which the world says you must have to be happy and powerful and above others  but persons seeking the Truth, the Way, the Life of the Kingdom that last forever!