Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
“The Lord will be passing by.”
The prophet in our first reading is standing there, not in an ego-gratifying posture but to receive a mission—which we will hear about at the end of the passage. It is a mission that glorifies the grace of God at work in the prophet and produces in him a deep, abiding joy and affirmation. We are the inheritors of that prophetic mission. Its deepest joy comes from the realization that we are being invited into God’s own life and work – the life of the Blessed Trinity and the work of the redemption of the world.
It’s all pretty fantastic if one can only begin to comprehend it! The problem is that we must surrender to God’s loving action in our lives and, judging by the precedents—Jesus and his sent-ones—it does not look glamorous at all!
Where then does not leave us? I suggest it leaves us right at the point of our greatest fear: that God is going to ask us to enter his stream of divine love. Hear this from the opening lines of Pope Francis’ Gaudete et Exsultate:
“Rejoice and be glad” (Mt 5:12), Jesus tells those persecuted or humiliated for his sake. The Lord asks everything of us, and in return, he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were created. He wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence.”
“The Lord will be passing by.”
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections