I have a question for you: can you remember the last time that you gave praise to God like the psalmist that we have just heard? A time when you couldn’t help but praising God’s goodness and mercy, maybe even going beyond prayer with God and telling others….
As I reflected on this question, I thought about what it takes to get us out of normal dialogue with God whether in our formal prayers or in times of exasperation or fear when we simply call out to God for help.
It’s then that I remembered the Air India plane crash that tragically killed 241 souls but somehow one man not only survived but walked out of the plane. That man and everyone involved used the same word to describe his beating the odds: miraculous.
Quite often we need both the small and big turnarounds in life to help us praise God. Saint Paul does this in today’s reading that credits the grace of God at work in the lives of the churches in Macedonia.
Even Paul, of great faith and many experiences, notes his surprise at how the people responded to severe affliction and profound poverty with a wealth of generosity in service to Paul and the others evangelizing and serving the needs of the people.
Yesterday, Saint Paul’s letter encouraged us to remember how God has been at work in our lives and to not receive the grace of God in vain.
Today’s Gospel once again gives us two great challenges. The first is to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Jesus points out that God looks after the needs of both the good and the bad.
Jesus then points out how we need to rise about the status quo of the secular and professional world to care for those who do not profess a faith in God and or have lost their moral compasses.
To be a follower of Jesus is to embrace the call to strive to be perfect in how we live in imitation of our Heavenly Father.
Part of that growth in virtue and holiness has to do with remembering how God has created us and given us life this day, how he helps us through our challenging moments, and offers us hope when things seem awfully bleak.
My brothers and sisters, we all have things that can cause us to give praise and witness to God’s compassion and aid to us, times when He has fed us or freed us from some burden, times when He has helped us to see more clearly what direction we need to go…in relationships or in our journey of faith, and in so many other ways.
We all have our ways of praising God whether at Mass or in our prayers, in private, but today’s readings can spur us on to share with our families and friends, our praise for God, the God who has brought us through many times and to this day and if we let Him will lead us to heaven.
Let us all be able in our own ways and words to be able to say without hesitation: “Praise the Lord, my soul!