Reaching out
(2 Macc 7.1-2, 9-14; 2 Thess 2.16-3-5; Lk 20.27-38)
Today’s readings are a stark reminder that in some parts of our world, our brothers and sisters in faith are enduring imprisonment, torture and even death. Let us reach out to them in prayer and entreaty, for they are part of us and we are part of them.
Most of us reading this do not face that sort of dying. Yet as pope Francis reminds us when he speaks of the ‘saints next door’, holiness also comes from repeated daily moments of reaching out to others’ needs and hurts.
This is specially true of marriage and close friendships. Wendell Berry expresses this so well in his poem The Blue Robe, which, I am sure, is written for his wife:
… now we know
each other, as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories fumbling
to connect, we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made. And now
we touch each other with the tenderness
of mortals, who know themselves.
At the eve of each day, therefore, let each of us reflect and ask, how did my love, my friend, touch me with their self-forgetfulness this day; and when did I enter into tiny acts of surrender of my needs and control to forget myself in serving my love, my friend.
Source: 32nd Sunday year C1
This Sunday