Be Filled with Hope

MY PERSONAL REFLECTION:

“The Contradiction of Stewardship”

My reflection on the 15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1.     The first reading gives me the assurance that God’s Word and His promises are true.  One could imagine with the prophet Isaiah with the vision of dew drops coming from heaven and spreading themselves and nourishing a verdant earth.  So is the Word of God. The assurance is clear that what He promised He will do.  But will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He comes again?  Have we forgotten about the reality of the second coming and the truth about the resurrection?  Why is it that as if all our plans are directed on earthly concerns?  Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto thee, says our Lord.  For the pagans seek for money and food, but we are reminded that God knows that we need of all of these.  Are we in doubt of God’s providence that we take into our own hands our lives and future?  We have to be reminded that our charitable work and even our social action is the product of a deep spirituality and not vice-versa.  We should not mistake “integral evangelization” so called, as emphasis on social justice and anti-poverty alleviation.  Some said, an empty stomach is not capable of receiving the gospel, so they say they have to fill the stomach first.  But I beg to disagree.  This is a wrong notion.  In the Bible we read that Christ first preached the gospel to the people and confirm it with miracles of healings.  It was only after the preaching that He multiplied the loaves of bread and the fishes. Let us make our Sunday worship the most beautiful.  Let the Church and her priests attend to the sacraments and the teaching of the Word of God.  Only after doing an excellent job on this can the feeding of the literal bodies is done.  For even the daily food that we eat is a token of God’s providence and not solely by our own effort.  For without Him we can do nothing.

2.     Reflecting on the second reading – I was impressed by the thought that the Sin of Humankind is so great that even the whole of creation was affected and was corrupted because of original sin.  The corruption of material things is a sign of our own struggle with sin and suffering.  These thoughts move us to come to the foot of the cross and behold what redemption it took to bring us to the door or paradise.  For we behold Him, the pledge of our redemption.  His grace sowed hope in our hearts.  Each time creation is renewed we are given hope that God will someday bring to a close the cycle of decay and bring us to the glorious redemption of our Bodies to be in God’s Kingdom.  Let us be filled with hopeful thoughts and trust in His grace all the time.  Let it be by prayer and supplications.

3.     In the gospel reading for today, I was initially confused when Our Lord said, “To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Does it look that the master was unmerciful to take away even the little things that remains with the least of these men?  I don’t think so.  I got the idea that perhaps our Lord was telling us that as Christians we are expected to be fruitful to abound with fruits.  The Lord emphasizes the gravity and the importance He places on stewardship.  Once he entrusts us with something good then we have to capitalize on it.  For anyone who hears the Word of God and keep it will have an abundant life in Christ.  Let us thank the Lord for giving us this grace to see and understand and let us ever pray that we will always have this grace.

Be filled with hopeful thoughts this Sunday!