Greetings on this the Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: 1 Thes 3:7-13; PS 90:3-5a, 12-13, 14 and 17; Mt 24:42-51
Notes: Having the practice of self-reflection is a critically important thing to do. As often as you are able, in fact. The Church calls for all to do an examination of conscience each night before sleep. Ask for openness, forgiveness and sleep resting in God’s love.
Good read: Moral Wisdom by James F Keenan, S.J., Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
First reading
Remedy the deficiencies of your faith.
When reading this letter one could ask about being reflective.
- Do we reflect on the lives of those who have progressed on the path of holiness?
- Do we reflect on our own path, the successes and failures, while we too take the path of holiness?
Responsorial Psalm
Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!
What work is that? The Divine Work of the Lord.
Alleluia Verse
Stay awake!
For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
Gospel Portion
Woe is the consequences of a wrong action or inaction.
Yesterday Jesus described a stunning example:
You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.
Even so, on the outside you appear righteous,
but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
What is hypocrisy and evildoing if not “every kind of filth” and the emaciation of a man to bone.
A thinness of moral character as to be nearly nonexistent.
Startling!
Even more so today:
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and eat and drink with drunkards…
Eek!
What is this all about?
A failure to love.
Jesus is complaining not as much about what they did wrong as much as what they failed to do.
They were COLD to the needs of others.
Empathy, compassion (co-journeying), kindness, forgiveness and mercy.
These are the actions of love.
Do not fear the Lord’s words as your fate but as your breakthrough opportunity.
Pray with me too:
May I not be cold to love.
May the fruits of love strengthen in me and be given to all around me.
Amen.
Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry
Deacon Gerry Palermo 