ON ACCEPTING THE WORD OF GOD
⏰Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time 2 (11 August 2018 – Memorial of St. Clare of Assisi)
📖Ezek 2:8 – 3:4; Ps 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131 (R.v.103a); Matt 18:1-5, 10, 12-14
🎤ON ACCEPTING THE WORD OF GOD
The word of God is instructive, corrective and redemptive. It may not come to us the way we expect or like, and that is why it is at times painful. But its purpose is always for our own good. Some other times, it may be very sweet to our hearing but its demands, very painful to us.
Consider that in the light of the experience of the prophet Ezekiel in Ezek 2:8 – 3:4. The prophet was told to eat the scroll containing the word of God on woes and suffering. Yet, this scroll was sweet in his mouth. The mixture of the two opposites, sweet and sour, in the same scroll confirms the corrective and redemptive nature of the word of God. Through the sufferings that people encounter in life, God intends to bring them into the joy of his own community.
Remember that Jesus is the Word of God personified (cf. John 1:1-3). He faced opposition especially from the Jews (cf. Matt 11:1 – 13:58) because his teaching brought pains them.
To be able to accept Jesus, the Word of God, and follow him well in building a harmonious community of God’s people, Jesus teaches his disciples on the importance of humility and forgiveness of one another (Matt 18:1-5, 10, 12-14).
If we can really overcome our ego and embrace those two virtues, we shall assist in building up a community of love for God. In this way, we can really heed God’s call to us today to be different from the world (cf. Ezek 2:3).
St Clare, whose Memorial we celebrate today was an epitome of those virtues. Through the practice of detachment, self-emptying and trust in God, she was able to give herself wholly to God.
She was born of a noble family in Assisi but she abandoned the affluence of his father’s house and followed the simplicity of the way of St. Francis of Assisi, thus becoming the first female member of his group, and with whom the foundation of the female body of the followers of St. Francis would be formed.
May God give us the grace to accept his word always and use it to build up our life and that of others for God.
Have a loving and grace-filled day ahead. Peace be with you.
