Thursday, December 26, 2019

Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 29, 2019: Put on love, that is, the bond of perfection...


How do we live in relationship with God and other?

  To live in relationship is to be blessed. This is the message of Psalm 128, which reminds us that to walk in God’s ways, to live the way God intends for us to live, is to embrace fully our relationship both with God and with other.  Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways, the psalmist reminds us:  relationship is at the core of human existence, and our awe – our fear of the Lord – allows us to cross any barrier to achieve it.

  This weekend we celebrate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph with texts that remind us that relationship – family in its myriad forms – is a state or condition to be lived… and it takes work!  Children, the Book of Sirach tells us, are to honor and revere their father as they obey a mother’s authority.  Relationships change, they evolve, and yet we have no identity without them, just as we have no identity without God.  And so, as Paul tells the Colossians, we must put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility gentleness, and patience, but over all these we must put on love.  That love is the foundation of our relationship, the source of all other virtues combined, modeled in the death and rising of Jesus.  Thus, what we live in relationship in our family is also meant to be lived in our identity as church, as we accept our subordination to God and to other as essential to the bond of love, the bond of perfection that keeps us together.

  In Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph will need to ground himself in subordination as he listens once again to the angel of the Lord who instructs him to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus, and stay there until he is told otherwise.  Out of love for his family, out of obedience to God, Joseph puts relationship first, that the prophecies about Jesus might be fulfilled.  Jesus is blessed by his family as we are blessed with our relationship with God and with other.  May we continue to live out that relationship as we walk in his ways, living the bond of perfection that is God’s love.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

No comments:

Post a Comment