Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time
The question comes to us today: what are the scriptures trying to tell us today? Perhaps this: there is, of course, a wisdom that comes from God — a wisdom that we are meant to receive, to share in, to participate in, and to possess. This is the Wisdom of God, the creator of all, who sent Jesus his Son to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to redeem the world.
This wisdom guided the ordering of the world. God revealed his plan to call a Chosen People to be his own special people and God promised to be ever faithful to that People. God guided their wanderings in the desert. God sent the prophets to call the Chosen People to fidelity. Prophet after prophet urged and pushed the Chosen People to form and live in right relationship with the Loving God of Israel.
In God’s plan for us and our salvation, the Eternal Word became flesh to redeem the world, to establish this new reign of God. Jesus is God’s Word spoken in a clear and definitive way forever.
Jesus proclaimed the Reign of God (The Proclamation of the Kingdom – in the Luminous mysteries of the rosary). Beginning the proclamation of the Good News, it is God’s design that we should become part of that kingdom and share in that wisdom and love made real in Jesus himself.
When we possess divine wisdom, we know how to choose good over evil. We discern which path to follow. We come to understand when to turn to the new in place of the old, to go deeper in our living the law of love of God and neighbor, and how to move through life’s experiences on a level path, even in the midst of affliction.
And how is all of this possible? It is because we come to understand that it is the Lord who is the potter, the one who fashions all, the one who created the world and all of us. And we are the clay in the hands of the divine potter. In those hands, we are safe, we grow in holiness and move ever closer to our eternal reward.
Reflection by Fr. Peter Ullrich, OSB
Posted in Articles for Lent, Daily Reflections, Lenten Resources