20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, Luke 12:49-53, were shocking and disturbing to the people who heard them and they are shocking and disturbing to us. Why is this man we call the Prince of Peace talking about setting the earth on fire, division among families and discord? This does not sound like the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus proclaims in the rest of the Gospel.

Sadly, not everyone accepts the Gospel message. We all have free will. Some people choose to follow Jesus, others do not. For those of us who choose to follow Jesus, the path is not always easy. Standing up for our faith can lead to rejection, ridicule, persecution and sometimes death.

Throughout scripture we find that fidelity to God’s word is costly. Jeremiah suffered immense hardship for following his prophetic vocation. In our first reading today from Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10, his enemies throw him in a cistern believing he will starve to death. During his lifetime, Jeremiah was tried for blasphemy, put in the stocks, flogged and imprisoned simply for speaking the word of God to his people. He wanted to quit but his faith in Yahweh kept him going despite the obstacles.

Writing to a group of persecuted Christians, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells them and us in today’s second reading (Heb 12:1-4) that although Jesus suffered the shame of the cross, he now sits “at the right of the throne of God.” As Christians we must keep “our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.” Keeping our eyes on Jesus gives us the strength and courage we need to confront whatever adversity comes our way.

A Prayer for the Way to Peace

Father of love, hear my prayer.

Help me to know Your Will

and to do it with courage and faith.

Accept my offering of myself,

all my thoughts, words, deeds, and sufferings.

May my life be spent giving You glory.

Give me the strength to follow Your call,

so that Your Truth may live in my heart

and bring peace to me and to those I meet,

for I believe in Your Love.

Amen

(From Catholic Online)

I am a Christian

Pull, Buddy, Pull

An out-of-towner drove his car into a ditch in a desolated area.

Luckily, a local farmer came to help with his big strong horse named Buddy. He hitched Buddy up to the car and yelled, "Pull, Nellie, pull!" Buddy didn't move.

Then the farmer hollered, "Pull, Buster, pull!" Buddy didn't respond.

Once more the farmer commanded, "Pull, Cocoa, pull!" Nothing.

Then the farmer nonchalantly said, "Pull, Buddy, pull!" And the horse easily dragged the car out of the ditch.

The motorist was most appreciative and very curious. He asked the farmer why he called his horse by the wrong name three times.

The farmer said, "Oh, Buddy is blind and if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn't even try!"

(It’s nice to know we’re not alone when we know Jesus is with us for his yoke is easy and our burden becomes light!)

Good Luck

It’s hard to detect good luck; it looks so much like something you’ve earned. ~ Frank A. Clark

A little boy wanted a taste of molasses from the large barrel by the door of an old-fashioned country store. He slid a box beside the barrel, stepped up on it and leaned over the rim as far as possible, stretching out his finger toward the sweet goo below. He stretched and strained and toppled headfirst into the barrel.

Dripping with molasses, he stood up, lifted his eyes heavenward and was heard to utter, “Lord, help me to make the most of this fantastic opportunity!”

Most of us will never fall into a barrel of opportunity. We won't be awarded a great sum of money (though I am never sure that is in our best interest), we won't be offered a “dream job,” we won't have all of our needs suddenly provided for. We can spend years waiting for opportunity to knock only to find that we wasted precious time wishing for something to happen that never was to be.

Yet some people seem to luck into these things, don't they? It's as if they were in the right place at the right time and they just fell into it.

But that is not the way it happens. Those people who seize opportunities others seem to miss, find them for one specific reason: they have trained themselves. People who seem more fortunate than the rest of us are those who have taught themselves to look for possibilities in every circumstance and every obstacle.

I think David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, is such a man. Years ago, Boren learned from professional pollsters that he would most likely lose his state gubernatorial race, and lose it big. The professional polling agency he hired reported his strength to be only about two percent of the population.

Many people would quit the moment they receive such news. And in truth, that was his first reaction. Could anything good come out of such a bleak situation? But he had trained himself to look for opportunities, even when confronting great obstacles. He stayed in the race and approached his campaign in a different way. He told his listeners, “I had a professional poll taken and it shows I’ve got great potential for increasing my support!”

That may sound a good deal better than it is. But he didn't give up and people began to listen to what he had to say. Boren eventually won the election and served as governor of the US state of Oklahoma.

People who spot opportunities may simply be people who have trained themselves to look for the best possible outcome in every situation and act on it. It takes a different way of thinking.

To everyone else it may just look like you're lucky. But you will know better.

Myriad Dimensions of Love

Only in the imagination does love promise happiness forever. Through experience, we discover the myriad dimensions of love. Sometimes love is joy. Sometimes passion. Sometimes moments of serenity amongst the laughter and sadness. Generally, love is soft. But it also may sting. Love is forever changing, perhaps a smile will slow our pace one minute, but a sign of danger may push us to act, to respond, to make a decision the next.

All that love is, there's much it is not. Love is not shaming. Nor is it punishing. Love does not gloat, criticize, degrade, or diminish. At times we think we're filled with love and yet we selfishly serve our needs before another's. And when we truly express our love to another, there's no mistaking the warm glow that fills the body.

How simple to be a giver of love and yet how forgetful we are when the opportunities arise.

Love

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which Man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of Man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when Man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position Man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

Victor Frankl

Change

Today I pray that I may understand there are some things I cannot change:

I cannot change the weather.
I cannot change the tick of the clock.
I cannot change the past.
I cannot change another person against their will.
I cannot change what is right or wrong.
I cannot change the fact that a relationship ended.
I can stop worrying over that which I cannot change and enjoy living more!
I can place those things into the hands of The One Bigger Than Me.
Save Energy!
Let Go!

Instead of trying to change someone else:
I can change my attitude.
I can change my list of priorities.
I can change my bad habits into good ones.
I can move from a place of brokenness into wholeness, into the beautiful person God has created me to become.