Saturday – 27th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Luke 11:27=28

Not The Momma!

Church of Dormition, Jerusalem

Growing up, we all knew the consequences of talking back to Mom.  The punishment was swift and effective!  Even the slightest hint that we were somehow disrespecting her was met with a simple “you’re not the Momma; I am”! 

At first glance, it seems that Jesus is doing exactly that – disrespecting His Mother Mary.  But in reality He is reminding the crowd (and us) what our real priority must be – Our Father! 

Mary isn’t blessed merely because she carried Jesus in her womb.  She is blessed because she heard the Word of God and responded to it.  It is because she said “Yes” to Gabriel and then spent her life in observance of that “Yes”.

We “hear” a lot of things every day.  We hear the Word of God at Mass.  We respond, in words throughout the course of the Liturgy.  But Jesus calls us to respond with action, to witness to our Faith when we step out of the church and into the world.  Words are not enough!  Respect, real respect for our Father in Heaven, comes from our observance of the Word, from how we live out our Christian faith.  Jesus reminds us today that, yes, family is important; our mothers are important.  But the family of God, our community of faith, is even greater!  Blessed are those who hear the Word of God our Father and observe it today and every day.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Tuesday - Third Week of Easter Gospel – John 6:30-35 Knead to Know Cooking Class Over the past month or so, I gathered together a couple groups of my altar servers for a cooking class!   They learned not only my recipe for zucchini chocolate chip muffins but how to make them from scratch!   And, YES, they took home their finished products, or at least the muffins they didn’t wolf down as soon as they came out of the oven!   It was a fun, wonderful (and messy) experience!   Who knew that cracking eggs and measuring out flour could be so ‘untidy’.   But it brought home the lesson that, in order to get those yummy muffins, it takes time, effort and a heaping cup of patience. And it reminded me not only of their loyal service but those long months of Covid when they missed their Mass ministry.   So from time to time during the pandemic, I stayed in touch with them by dropping off goodie bags filled with chocolate chip cookies, zucchini chocolate ...
Read more
Image
  Second Sunday of Easter   Gospel – John 20:19-31 Faith and Family Us Decades ago, when Jaime was maybe 7 or 8 years old, I was having some stomach issues, bad enough to spend some time in the hospital to figure out what was going on.   Finally, one morning, with Jaime and Ginger in the room, the doctor comes rushing in to tell me in these overly blunt words – you have cancer, we will perform surgery today and start you on chemo treatments tomorrow!   After I got over the initial shock, I basically had 2 reactions!   First, how dare you blurt out such a diagnosis with our little daughter in the room without even consulting us beforehand.   How disrespectful! How insensitive!   And secondly, my personal health, or lack thereof, was the last thing on my mind.   All that mattered to me was Ginger and Jaime and how all this would affect them! Some things never change!   Truth be told, after all that stress and worry, his diagnosi...
Read more
Image
  Feast of the Presentation Gospel – Luke 2:22-40 We Are Family Church of St. Joseph, Nazareth 5 extremely short stories to start the day! Once all the people in a village decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one boy came with an umbrella. That is faith. When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust. Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but we still set the alarm to wake up. That is hope. We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence. We see the world suffering, but still, we get married and have children. That is love. Faith, hope, love, confidence and trust!   Sounds like a perfect list of values/virtues for a happy family! Today’s Gospel tells us of another family – the Holy Family going up to Jerusalem with the baby Jesus to present Him to the Lord in ...
Read more