Looking at life through a faith-colored lens is a powerful way to live. Lord, help me to see Your world the way You see it! Even if I do not fully understand, increase my faith to believe that You have a plan for my life and it is a plan for good. Amen!

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63 or 16:59-63

Isaiah 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6

M atthew 19:3-12 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" (4) He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, (5) and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? (6) So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." (7) They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" (8) He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (9) And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." (10) The disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." (11) But he said to them, "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. (12) For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."

Meditation by Brian Kokensparger

As I’m sitting here writing this, my youngest daughter is in surgery to get her screws and plate removed from a broken ankle that occurred a year-and-a-half ago.  It’s a very simple procedure, as surgeries go.

Yet I worry.

What if she reacts badly to the anesthesia?  What if she acquires an infection from the incision?  What if . . . what if . . . what if . . .

In the first reading, Jerusalem is personified as a girl weltering in her own blood.  The Lord washes her with water and anoints her with oil.  She becomes . . . beautiful!

Blood and cleansing are on my mind today, too.  My daughter is in the surgical suite, somewhere nearby.  Someone – a virtual stranger – is cutting her with a knife. There will be blood. I sit by, idly, letting it happen. Letting the pain happen.  Why?

Because I trust the surgeon.  I have faith that he knows what he is doing, and I have hope that life for my daughter will be better after she recovers. Better than ever.

This makes me think of baptism. The parallel is real. When one becomes baptized, she or he submits to being submerged in water.  Despite our natural reaction to protect that person, we let it happen, ironically, because we want to protect that person (from the effects of sin, original and actual). We allow it to happen because we have faith that our community of believers will support and nurture the new member. We have hope that life for that person will be better after the baptism. Better than ever.

Perhaps you have been thinking about joining a community of believers, a church. Yet, like electing surgery, you hesitate. Will it really be better? Is it really what I want? Is it really what God wants for me? What if I realize too late that I made a mistake?

Certainly, you have to trust your heart, but it may just be that you are waiting for an invitation, some kind of sign that it’s the right thing to do.  Consider this your sign: Today I am telling you that, if you’ve been considering joining a benevolent community of believers, you will probably read this reflection a little differently than the person next to you. Today might be the day that the Grace you’ve been given to approach the community is transformed into action. It will not happen for everyone. As written in today’s Gospel reading, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted.”

The surgeon just came into the waiting room to tell us that all went well with the surgery, and we can have our daughter back again soon. The chapter of trauma and pain ends. A new chapter, one with hope for a brighter future, begins.

How about that invitation I just mentioned earlier? Jesus said it best: “Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Supplementary Reading

Through Faith-Colored Glasses

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. -I Corinthians 13:12 (NKJV)

T he other day I was sitting in a Starbucks in Laguna Beach with my husband. We were looking out the window at the ocean in front of us when I noticed that the palm tree fronds looked like peacock feathers. I proudly pointed out my aesthetic eye to my artist husband: "Jim, the tint on these windows makes those palm fronds look like they are tinged with an iridescent green."

Jim laughed. "Sheila, I don't see them that way. I don't think it's the tinting on the windows. I think it's your sunglasses."

Well! Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't! I looked around the store with my sunglasses and there was no green tinge. When I looked out the window again, I saw the green tinge. It was the combination of the window tint plus my sunglasses that made everything look like I was in the Land of Oz.

We look at our world today through one lens or another. We have a perspective on life that is uniquely ours. But, we do have a choice as to the way we frame our viewpoint and the tint we select through which we filter what we see.

Today, we see in a mirror dimly. We cannot fully understand why our world is so hard, why people suffer, why there are wars and tragedies. But, we can choose to believe that God is good and loving. We can choose to see the good in spite of the bad, believing that someday in Heaven we will fully see clearly! Looking at life through a faith-colored lens is a powerful way to live.

Lord, help me to see Your world the way You see it! Even if I do not fully understand, increase my faith to believe that You have a plan for my life and it is a plan for good. Amen!

How does the lens of faith color your world? – Sheila Schuller Coleman

GOD BLESS US ALL!

O Theos Na Mas Evlogisi!
PRAY as if everything depended on HIM. ACT as if everything depended on YOU.

For past gospel meditations, you may visit the following:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=216458741502#!/home.php?sk=mynotes

http://his-ways-better-than-our-ways.blogspot.com