Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time Year 2 2024

Title

Live for God in the Present

Outline

We have two themes this morning

The first is the OT theme that one reaps what one sows, nationally as well as individually, and that the worship of God is the only politics that counts.

But while there is some overlap, I want to focus on the Gospel today.

Here also we have two themes that we can combine as live for God alone in the present

First You cannot serve God and anything else.

Jesus explicitly states God and mammon, that is, money and possessions. Of course, we all have vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, so it may not seem to apply to us.

Yet churches and orders can be living for something more, for larger attendance or a bigger budget or a nicer Priory or a more beautiful chapel. There have been orders and parishes or dioceses that went astray that way. St Teresa of Avila started her reform because mammon had the hearts of the Carmelites she knew.

And we cannot serve God and anything else. We must rather be constantly praying for God to make our hearts more singly devoted to him. Then we will not notice that while not the Sistine Chapel or Chartres Cathedral this chapel is wonderful, for Jesus is here and it is he whom we love.

Second, we are not to worry

We are not to worry because of (dia touto) the call to single-hearted devotion.

Jesus gets basic: do not be concerned with respect to your life (psuche), what you eat, or body, what you dress with (not question of choice for priests or Dominican Sisters unless our clothes are wearing thin or stained and there are no replacements at hand).

I look at the swallows in the carport, their nest is temporary and there is no storage place in it. God provides for them.

[This verse is why St Francis did not like ants - they stored food - but he also would not step on ants because they were always hard at work.]

What about the bluebonnets or the daisies or the like? They are ephemeral yet God clothes them.

Worry or concern is eating out guts out (literally) today about things we cannot control in the future. Pagans do that.

We realize that we cannot control our life span and are thankful for that, while the pagans try to do exactly that.

We are to be children of the Father, and children in a healthy environment do not worry. They trust their parents to provide.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (really, seek only) and all these things (which are temporal needs) will be given you besides.

Sisters, let us constantly remember:

“Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

Sisters, I come from a tradition in which one did not ask for support but rather prayed and trusted God. My grandmother worked in an orphanage run that way. I can think of a Christian worker, Harold McKay, who lived that way even down to transportation. I help start a seminary under Anglican Bp Alfred Stanway who had 25 plus years of living that way as a missionary bishop and led us that way. God brought us to the edge, but he always came through.

Then I turn to the saints who call for deeper and deeper trust in and commitment to our Father.

On a practical level I have learned that when I catch myself concerned about tomorrow (like what will happen when I must leave here) I pray, “O Jesus, king of love, I put my trust in your merciful goodness.” I pray this along with my breathing. I do this even in bed if assailed with concern. And the worry passes.

I want to be concerned only with the kingdom of God other than doing the practical things God has put on the agenda for today knowing that God will give me enough, but not concerned even with that. What I really want is more of the kingdom, more of him.