16th Sunday: Faithfulness to the Child of God

Let’s get this out there right now...Type A personalities and even reformed type A’s do not like this gospel.  Hard workers come off as the bad ones, and the seeming slackers get off easy. Humpf! We are the ones who do it all, right?

Life can seem overwhelming at times.

There does seem to be a lot that needs accomplished, completed.

Paperwork, housework, maintenance all demand a lot of time.

And then throw on this, our mission as Catholics to help God transform this world!  

Our mission to work for God to make this world a place of justice, compassion, mercy; a world in which love flourishes and all people, ALL people are treated with their inherent dignity.

And we look at the chaos that seems so prevalent.  The break down in our political systems, the rise of nationalism and populism with the rise of hatred and racism.

We see children being abused and neglected, even in the so called most rich and powerful country in the world.

There is such fear in our world, in our country and people respond with hateful language.

The rates of depression rises, and the rates of our young persons who hurt themselves also rises.

There is so much work to do.  And what can any of us do to make a difference?

Once, there was a young rich man out and about; spoiled, kind of a playboy.  He saw a man, a poor man, a leper who were to be avoided. Yet, something compelled him to go to the man, embrace him.  Thus began the transformation of Francis to St. Francis of Assisi.

A woman, African American, got onto a crowded bus.  She was told to move to give up her seat for a white male.  She resisted. A movement began.

Groups of women speak up against being abused and treated as objects by the males above them.  A change happens.

Victims speak up after years of abuse by clergy.  Change happens.

Groups of nuns and clergy were arrested this week in D.C. for speaking out against the treatment of immigrants along the southern border.

Teens go and help at Catholic Charities in Northern Nevada.  

A child is honored for the donations of her organs after a tragic death.

Good work is being done.

At the core, I believe, is that this work is inspired by faithfulness.

Faithfulness to the reality that we are children of God, and are worthy of dignity and worthy of this work.

Faithfulness that God created us.  And NOBODY, not any politician or political theory; nor economic system or institution, no man, woman can take that away from us.

Faithfulness to the Child of God we are; this is how we work.

When any person grasps that they are God’s beloved child, then there is the strength to stand up against injustice.

A child of God loves, and love conquers all fears; so change it not so scary.

A child of God knows they can forgive those who have hurt them, and can ask forgiveness when they cause the hurt.

We are generous, compassionate, kind.

Yet, we can lose sight of this.  Then we can get overwhelmed by it all.  Lost in the chaos.

Herein lies the beauty of our Catholic faith:  Contemplation.

Contemplation means to sit at the feet of Jesus, and be reminded of the larger picture:  Mission.

We are reminded too that we are God’s children.

And by spending time in that reflection of our lives in connection to Christ and the Gospel, we can see what we truly can do and be inspired to do it.

We can do this alone at home.  We contemplate too in our faith-sharing groups, in our Bible study groups.

In reality, Eucharist is a form of Contemplation.

We come to see our lives as connected, to be reminded that we are God’s children and we are fed as God’s children.

We are reminded that maybe individually we can’t control some foreign leader, or the President, Governor…

But we can raise our voices.

We can act with justice, compassion, patience…

We can forgive those people in our lives.  We can be great mentors and examples for our youth.

We can do our work, knowing that we are God’s children.

Faithful to who we truly are.