In the first reading of today’s liturgy, the prophet Micah reminds us that God is the God of mercy, who does not retain his anger forever because He delights in showing clemency. His faithfulness remains forever from generation to generations.
In the Gospel, Jesus is talking about who would be
real children in the Kingdom of God. In fact, He is teaching the crowd; His mothers and brothers
(mind you, in Hebrew customs brothers and sisters do not strictly refer to siblings, but close relatives as cousins and nephews…)are concerned about his health because He had little time to rest. Therefore, they sent a message to Him that they were outside, waiting for Him. His response to them was: “Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Pointing to His disciples, He said: “Here is my mother and my brothers …”. By saying this He wants to make them and us understand that,
what defines heavenly kinship, is following the will of the Father. Relationship with God is measured by our obedience to His will. In fact,
His mother Mary is the perfect example of obedience to God’s will. She said to the angel: “Let it be done according to your word” (
see Lk 1:38). From this we can then reflect on what
our way of being true and faithful Christians means. In other words, being Catholic would not be automatically measured by the reception of sacraments only, but
on how we live our Christian life and the level of our obedience to God’s Will in thick and thin times. We can therefore say that it is not enough to look and speak piously, but how we live, what we believe. “Not everyone who calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but only those who do what the Father in Heaven wants them to do… (see Mat 7: 21ff).
In the end, I don’t want to discourage any of you, but I would like to invite each one of us to reflect more on our Christian way of living.
Do your best and God will do the rest!
God bless you always.
Fr. Mussie