Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - May 14, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
“Since you have been raised up in the company with Christ..., be intent on things above rather than on things on earth. After all, you have died! Your life is hidden now with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-2). Believing by our faith and baptism that the risen Christ is already living in and operative in us is the framework within which Christians can see the less appetizing facts of life.
If we are sorrowing because of enduring disagreements in the family, pain and illness, financial difficulties, Colossians encourages us. We read there how a deep down confidence that our life is in God will enable us to live through this. If our faith makes others ignore us or consider us out of touch, even attack us, that is all a sharing in the cross of Christ which precedes a full resurrection.
Having risen with Christ, in other words, is no simple cure-all for serious, even desperate human situations. But it encourages us to hope and trust that God does not mean this desperate situation to be the end. God can, with the available human resources, help us through this, even bring good from it.
Faith in Christ and his risen life in us do not take us out of the mess and misery of human life. It offers us a way through all this with hope and strength. Celebrating Christ's presence at the Eucharist under the forms of such simple things as bread and wine reminds us that even amid the agony, discouragement, and drudgery of daily life we have God-given strength for facing them.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
