Reflection for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Hear and Listen.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of, and dedication to, the Lord.

I’m sure that at one time or another we have all heard the comparison between hearing and listening. We hear parents tell their children: ‘You’re hearing me, but you’re not listening.’ Or ‘I’m making sounds, but nothing is happening.’ It is a frustration employers, workers, parents and children, friends, and nations all have.

Merriam-Webster defines hearing as the “process, function, or power of perceiving sound; specifically: the special sense by which noises and tones are received as stimuli.” Listening, on the other hand, means “to pay attention to sound; to hear something with thoughtful attention; and to give consideration.”

Today, God speaks to us about hearing and listening

God confronts the people of Israel in Isaiah 66, who having returned from exile and having rebuilt the Temple are being warned against a materialistic view of worship. We know the system of sacrifices and offering at the Temple. In the past, Israel had profaned their own sacrifices by doing evil, making a sacrifice to allegedly clear the evil, and then going right back to doing evil. God rather wants a people with true hearts. God knows the people’s works and thoughts and they must listen and be clean. So, to prove His goodness, God says He will gather in the nations, the Gentiles, us – and He will even make some of us priests. He will raise up our dignity, for we will listen, astounded by God’s great mercy toward us.

God asks all He calls to stay on message, to truly hear what He says and to follow it. Jesus shows the leaders of Israel that they will end up as outsiders if they do not listen and stay true to God’s Word, if they would not recognize Who was before them and among them.

The writer to the Hebrews, specifically addressing Jewish believers, once again reminds them that they must stay true to the salvation they received in Jesus, that they should not backslide – that what they heard and received, i.e., listened to, is the way to go. Do not forget or you will be counted as only hearers, not doers, the doers James 1:22 reminds us we must all be.

It comes down to us whom God has included. We are called to listen – to hear with thoughtful attention; and to give consideration.

We have already been called into the Kingdom. We have that privilege. Listening and walking the gospel way is the work Jesus speaks of – entering through the narrow gate. It takes strength and endurance. If we indeed listen and do, we shall recline at table in the kingdom of God.

November 2020 Newsletter – Here Is A Call

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

Revelation 14:12

We start the month of November, as always, with a Solemnity honoring all the saints. Revelation 14:12 challenges the saints to endurance in keeping the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. If there was ever a year in which we have been called to endurance it was this one. What is this saying to us and what can we learn from this? Younger people might say: “I’m gonna hang tough for Jesus, suck it up and stick it out,” but that glorifies our abilities outside of Jesus, saying I can do it on my own. That is not our call, the call to those who would be saints. Rather, we are called to trust fully in Jesus. ‘Here is a call’ is an announcement pointing to the faith of Jesus. It’s the faith of Jesus that must live within us and be our power to face life’s trials. If we focus on ourselves instead of our Savior we set ourselves up for failure. We pose as hardened spiritual Rambos. That promotes self-trust and pretending. Human perseverance is a strength for sure, and God can use it, but that is not enough. God can’t do anything with us when we’re trusting in our own strength or leaning on our own understanding. Paul got it and told the Corinthians to rejoice in weaknesses. For when I am weak, then I am strong. The key to enduring the unendurable is to lift our eyes off present circumstances and ourselves, and to focus on what the Lord will bring about even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us. These challenges and hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us who are called to be saints. What Revelation is saying and what we can learn is this: That Jesus living within us is our true strength, the center of our lives. He calls us to rely on Him and to endure in that truth so that His light shines out of us. Jesus is the treasure within us, called to be saints, with a hope beyond hope and a blessed future.

Welcome to November’s newsletter. This month we focus on the saints and pray for our loved ones in their journey to heaven. There are plenty of thanks to offer as we approach Thanksgiving — so much good has been accomplished by our endurance. We begin planning for our 100th Anniversary, observed in 2021. We invite you to participate in planning, There is a great reflection on what happens on November 4th; what is the Christian to do post election? Also stay tuned for Valentine’s Raffle tickets and our planning for Advent which begins November 29th.

Read about all it in our November 2020 Newsletter.