Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016
“Taste and see how good the Lord is!”
1. “Taste and see how good the Lord is!”, the words of response to the psalm in today’s liturgy, beautifully sum up for us the invitation and challenge within the three readings of today’s liturgy.
They state, matter-of-factly and without argument, what our response should be to the challenges and difficulties we face in our daily lives.
We are blessed and resourced with grace to face all the difficulties life may throw across our path.
Poor Elijah, our hero prophet, has had enough fighting the battles of the Lord. He sits under a tree and wants to call it quits. An angel orders him to get up and eat for there is a long journey still ahead of him.
He does eat and drink. Then he sets out on a forty-day journey to the mountain of the Lord where he learns a lesson about gentleness and the silent power of God’s presence that transforms him, gentles him, and sets him off on the second half of his mission in life.
2. In the second reading we hear Paul telling his Christians in Ephesus “not to grieve the Holy Spirit” in their manner of relating to one another with bitterness, anger or malice, but instead to be compassionate and forgiving knowing they too have been forgiven through Christ.
He reminds them that their lives have been sealed through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He says they are to be imitators of God who has loved and handed himself over to them in the gift of Jesus the Christ.
3. Finally, there is the Gospel reading from John that opens with the statement from Jesus, “I am the bread that came down from heaven” and concludes with these words, “whoever eats this bread will live forever and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
What an invitation: ‘taste and see how good the Lord is!’
Like Elijah, at times, we can feel very dispirited, down and out, but who knows what angels can come along in small, almost insignificant ways, but ways that invite us on, that give us hope and reveal to us the energies for life in and around us.
How often has that happened to us?
Many times, I am sure!
Like Elijah, our fears and fatigue can be gentled and that helps us to discover wisdom and loving ways of responding. So, we not only do not grieve the Holy Spirit but we also do not grieve our own spirit. We are more true to who we really are and who we are called to become!
Taste and see how good the Lord is! There is that personal, intimate invitation from Jesus to live from His life.
Conclusion:
The readings of today’s liturgy call us to confidently reflect on how I meet my daily challenges and what resources of the Spirit and of my faith that I bring to them.
Frank Gerry SVD