Reflection for 10/14/17

One of the beautiful things about Scripture is that it is so real.  Our religion is not a religion of pie in the sky ideals or principles.  Yes, there is a lot of theological debate and discussion that goes on in our faith, but at the end of the day, our religion is one of real human experience.  God became human.  He took on a human body, he clothed himself in a human nature, and he lived a life on earth, and he ate, and he drank, and he slept.  He also bled and died at the end of his life, and at the beginning of his life, he had to be carried in a womb and nursed by his mother.

 

Today’s Gospel is a reminder of the very experiential aspect of our faith.  “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.”  Yes, Jesus was indeed human, he was a baby, he was a man.  But if we remain in the experiential too much, if we focus on the human nature too much, then we can begin o forget about the divine nature that is also a part of Christ.  And so what does Jesus say in response, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

 

How often do we see people in society who have lost sight of the spiritual and have begun to focus completely on the physical, on the human.  There are plenty of great organizations that do wonderful humanitarian efforts—name any one of them and it would suffice—but divorced from the spiritual realities and the spiritual needs of the human person, then those philanthropic organizations do nothing more than keep people happy for a little while until their needs grow cumbersome again.  Sure, blessed is the womb that brought the Lord’s human nature into existence, but let us not forget that the Lord’s human nature is meant to reveal to us the divine nature as well.  “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

 

God’s word spurns us on to care for the physical needs of our brothers and sisters, but it also demands that we care his their spiritual needs as well.  Jesus not only examined his Apostles on whether or not they had given food to the hungry or drink to the thirsty, but he also demands that we “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”  We must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, that is we must bring God into our daily interactions.  And just yesterday our Lord reminded us, “Whoever is not with me is against me…”  Can we truly ignore the Lord, neglect the spiritual, in our dealings with others? For, no matter how much good we do, “if we are not for the Lord, we are against him.”

 

Let us begin to prayerfully read the Scriptures daily, to reflect on what we have read, and to live out the very teachings of Christ.  The more we sit with the very Word of God in Scripture, the more living and effective will that Word be in our very lives, and who is the Word of God but a person, Jesus Christ.