Most
gracious Lord, continue to pour out Your love and truth upon us by doing all
that will awaken our hearts and minds to You and so allow You to become our all
in all. Amen.
Reflection
One bitterly cold day Saint Martin of Tours came across a half-naked
beggar shivering in the cold. Many
people had passed this man, and seen him shivering, but no one had stopped to
help him. Moved with compassion, Martin
used his sword to cut his cloak in two and gave one half to the beggar to keep
him warm. Martin was not owned by his
possessions; he was able to leave them behind in order to help a stranger. And from this he came to know Christ more
deeply – that very night he had a dream in which he saw Christ wearing the half
of the cloak he gave to the man.
As I compare that to my own experiences, I fall way short of what is
expected of me. I have given money to
people on the street, bought meals for the hungry, and even gave a sweatshirt
of mine to a homeless man who told me he was cold. But I didn’t EMPTY my pockets (after all, I
may need something myself later on), I stopped at feeding just one hungry man
today (although I was asked twice), and the sweatshirt was an extra one (in
fact, it was an identical sweatshirt to another I had in my car!).
The book of Wisdom says, “All
men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God” (Wisdom 13: 1-9). To have true wisdom, then, you must know God.
But do we really know God? Or do we let things get in the way?
Wisdom continues, saying, “though they seek God and wish to find him…[and] they search busily
among his works, they are distracted by what they see, because the things seen
are fair”. Do we get distracted by
the things of this earth: our belongings, our attitudes, and/or our wealth? It’s easy to get distracted by the things of
this earth, but we are called today to be like St. Martin of Tours. We need to be willing to leave things behind
that may distract us from gaining a life with God - whether it be our material
goods, or our ideas and prejudices. Leaving things behind is hard. It is difficult to think about parting with
the comforts of this life. But these
distractions prevent us from knowing Christ deeply.
And, to put it in perspective, you never see a
U-Haul behind a hearse* – you can’t take your ‘stuff’ with you after you die,
so why treat these material goods like they’re incredibly important?
Today we are called to question, what in this
life is distracting us from knowing God? How might giving up these belongings help us
strengthen our relationship with Christ? And how can I incorporate the actions of St.
Martin of Tours into my own life?
Sometimes it seems that living a life of sin is a lot easier than
living a Christ-like one. But what would
happen if the Lord came down from heaven right now and passed judgment on us
all? As we are told in the Gospel, our
Lord's last coming will be something sudden and unexpected; it will catch many people unprepared (Luke 17:26-37). God isn’t going to warn us. He’s not going to say, “Hey everyone! I’m
coming next week so you should probably all go to confession and stop sinning”.
And since we don’t know when our last
day on this earth is, and we don’t know when the Lord will come, shouldn’t we
live everyday like it was our last? Shouldn’t
we walk away from our sinful lives?
The
Gospel’s teaching has an urgency about it; Jesus is telling us that we need to
examine our actions now so that the Lord can call on us when we least expect
it. The people during Noah’s time were
going about their sinful lives until the floods came and they died without
repentance. The same can be said for the
people of Sodom and Gomorrah. God loves
us so much that he doesn’t want that to happen to us! He wants us to change our ways so that when
judgment does comes, we don’t have to suffer like the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah. The Gospel is calling us to
reexamine our lives and our actions. It is calling us to stop leading a sinful
life. And it is calling us to instead be an example of Christ’s steadfast love
and kindness.
*Actually, I have seen a U-Haul behind a hearse. After 19 years working for U-Haul, I may have
seen just about everything! Lol. Just for the facts, the hearse’s owner had
just bought the car and was taking it to another city. The trailer was for his few pieces of luggage
that wouldn’t fit in the hearse.
 |
| Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. |
Prayer
Intentions
Now
that the darkness starts sooner in the day, so does the cold. I pray for those who have no blanket or
shelter to keep them warm, that they can find warmth in our Blessed Mother’s
embrace.
I pray
for those who have no money to buy something to eat for themselves or their
children, that the holy Saint Joseph helps them find meaningful employment at a
fair wage.
I pray
for those who are lonely, that they may find solace in Christ’s love for them.
Amen.
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