Greetings on this the Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: MI 7:14-15, 18-20; PS 85:2-4, 5-6, 7-8; MT 12:46-50
The Rabbit Hole
In today’s society you are invited to the Rabbit Hole – a troubling surreal state or situation. You are invited into the bizarre and irrational experiences of excessive emotionality, illogical frame of reference, lack of perspective, with insensitive relations that are yet highly reactive in expression.
Commentary has become not an exchange of ideas but a vehicle for the discharge of verbally lethal weapons which are forged in the bowels of Mount Doom in the region of Mordor. OK – I borrowed the location from fictional places in the Lord of the Rings because I think it’s funny.
We are called otherwise. To a different place and a new mindset. There is a battle – yes! But the battle is interior and not of weapons but of the heart.
The New Places
These are places not in the Promised Land but adjacent (and on the way to) to the Promised Land [poetic license]. They represent the battle of moral and spiritual growth within us and the rest found for us in the moral victory.
- Carmel – A place centered on prayer where one speaks with God heart-to-heart.
- Bashan – A place of strength, fruitfulness.
- Gilead – The beauty and meaning of ordinary life and peaceful ways of love and forgiveness.
It is good to remember the spiritual journey of the Exodus. Each successive invasion and combat is not profitable to understand as military excursions but rather a series of battles within the person who at each place sets down the unholy to take up the ways of holiness.
Summary
In our gospel portion today we have those who love Jesus and are related to Jesus waiting to be seen and heard by him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.”
Jesus converts the “ask” into an invitation.
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Reflection
- Bashan was a place of brutal strength then holiness of fruitfulness.
- Carmel was a place of idolatry then the Lord comes.
- Gilead a place of control and domination then healing and reproductive freedom (to be mothers).
Personal Reflection
We are on a pilgrimage where we travel from one state of being to another. From places of conquest to places where we conquer our failings and live in the freedom of God. Our PLACE becomes holy. Our FAMILY becomes refreshed into the family of God.
Forget the Rabbit Hole. Become brother, and sister, and mother of Jesus.
Conclusion
- What rabbit hole have you fallen into?
- What does the WIll of the Father mean to you?
Sacred Writings
Full link: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072324.cfm
First Reading
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, That dwells apart in a woodland, in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old; As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt.
Responsorial
Lord, show us your mercy and love.
Gospel Acclamation
Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him.
Gospel
But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry