Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

My Dad was a small-town attorney and municipal judge. In his office, he had many law degrees and awards up on the wall. If you were to go there back then, you’d also notice a very strange framed picture among those prestigious plaques. It was a drawing I had made at five years old. It won first place in my age division at the Marion County Fair.

This marker drawing of a monster was the first acknowledgment outside my immediate family of my artistic talents. I suppose looking back on my body of work, one could say they could see the genius in this early work; I would say it’s pretty good for a five-year-old. What I always found most moving was that my Dad saw fit to raise this childhood scrawling to the level of his graduate degrees and civic awards.

This same paternal elevation is what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is saying about what the Father in Christ did for us. So many prophets made little trifles in calling mankind back to fidelity, but in the fullness of time, He sent His Son to win us back. Christ lowered Himself to taste death so that all of us could be raised to eternal life. This is unmerited grace, but it also tells us we can participate in this more than passively. Now, we are consecrated, and our prayer and work done in Jesus are bringing the entire world closer to salvation. Each of us must take what we have been given in Christ and do our part to help the Father raise them to that higher level.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB