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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
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Jesus uses daily life images to put across an important teaching about the nature of our calling as believers. The image of a banquet is something that we are all familiar with. We have been engaged in arranging and inviting people to attend ceremonies of various kinds. And by sending out the invitations early, we hope that people will rework their schedules and honor the invitation with their attendance. It is embarrassing if people don’t show up and food has already been prepared.
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You know what's fascinating about airport reunions? We've all seen those videos, People waiting to receive their loved ones after a gap of years. What is fascinating is Not the actual reunion, but what happens in the minutes before. Watch the people waiting at arrivals sometime. They're nervous, excited, checking their phones, craning their necks. They know the person is coming. The flight has landed. They've got confirmation. But that last bit, that walking through the doors part, that's the bit that feels endless. Today, on this remembrance day, we're standing in that arrivals hall. And the readings we've heard, from the book of Wisdom and from John's Gospel, They're giving us something to stand on while we wait.
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Today in our gospel, a Pharisee invited Jesus to his home for a Sabbath dinner, and the Lord accepted the invitation. As we are aware, Jesus had a difficult relationship with the Pharisees. In today’s gospel, however, a Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner at his house, and the Lord accepted the invitation. As expected, there were other Pharisees at the dinner, and the gospel says “they were watching him” – every word Jesus said or every action he performed. The “watching” being described here can be translated as a “sinister spying” on someone. In other words, the Lord was under scrutiny.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
The vow of obedience for us religious is one of the three pillars, that define who we are as religious priest, besides, simplicity of life and Chasity. Basically, it requires us to surrender to the mission and vision shared by the Congregation through the voice of superiors. That implies that when you are transferred from one ministry and place to another, you must move.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
It must have been striking and confusing to the listeners of Jesus when He said that only a few people would be saved or that only a few would enter through the door. His statement on pious religious practices is not enough for someone to enter eternal life. However, this does not mean that eternal life is for the selected few. This is because at the end of the text, He says people will come from different parts of the world, east, west, north, and south, and be part of the Eternal Kingdom. We know that the symbolism of the stretched-out hands of the crucified Jesus is an invitation for all people to come to Him.
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Let me be honest with you: while preparing this homily I had to look up for more details about Simon and Jude the apostles. Not because I'm a terrible Catholic, okay, maybe partly that, but because these two apostles are essentially footnotes in the Gospel story. Simon gets just one description: "the Zealot." Jude gets confused with Judas Iscariot so often that he has basically spent two thousand years saying, "No, not that Judas. The other one." Yet here we are, celebrating their feast day. Not of the famous ones. Not just Peter and John. But Simon the political radical and Jude the perpetually mistaken.
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