Monday - 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel – Matthew 12:38-42

What’s Your Sign?

Sign, Mount of the Beatitudes

In case you haven’t noticed, we live in a world of signs!  Traffic signs and price tags, for sale signs, detour and animal crossings! And remember how much more dependent we were on signs during Covid.  Shops had only one entrance and one exit door.  There were one-way signs for the aisles in grocery stores.  Arrows to direct us which way to go to communion in church and signs to warn us about wearing masks! And even today, if you look carefully, you can still see faded images on the floor – 6 feet apart!

Signs!  They protect us, provide us with information, they give us direction.  And in today’s Gospel, that is exactly what the Scribes and Pharisees are looking for from Jesus!  Give Us A Sign!!  Show us the way!  Show us who you really are!  Prove yourself! 

I must admit, given the world we live in – natural disasters, floods, violence, the sharp spike in childhood measles, unrest in the Mideast and Ukraine, a general lack of empathy and compassion for our fellow man - I am guessing we are all in the same boat as the Pharisees on this one.  Give me a sign.  Give me some idea of where we are going, how is this all going to pan out.  Give me some hint that things are going to get better!

Of course, the Pharisees were just looking for a way to trip Jesus up, to embarrass Himself.  We, however, are looking for encouragement, comfort, even hope.  We are all praying to find some meaning and purpose to all that is going on.   But maybe that is the sign.  Maybe all that is going on is the signal for us to re-examine all that is “normal”, all that is “routine”, all that we have taken for granted.  Maybe we all need to take the time to really appreciate all we do have in our life – family, friends, faith!  To take the time to re-order our lives and our priorities!  Maybe the sign really is a sign – to refocus, to re-direct my life!

Creator, help me not to be discouraged during this time of unrest and instability.  Give me the strength and wisdom to refocus my life and rededicate myself to You and my brothers and sisters, to re-energize my heart and my soul.

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