I enjoyed the dialogue that Abraham and God had in Genesis, where God spells out some common rules, assuring Abraham that God would never abandon him. God even tells Abraham that his wife would conceive in old age! Abraham laughed. We were not told how God reacted, but Abraham certainly thought God had a sense of humor...
Abraham was willing to invite God into his life and his heart. We should be reassured when God tells Abraham He will never abandon him. As Christians, as Catholics, we have that promise, and we need to ask God to be with us; we need to let him in.
I will be going to an outdoor wedding in a couple of weeks and there is every reason to believe that the setting will be beautiful. The experience, however, will be different for me.
Jesus was present at weddings, and He enjoyed himself, but no formal invitation was extended to this wedding since the sacrament was not requested. It was not meant in ill-will; it's just that inviting Jesus to a wedding, and interacting with Him, is not as common as it once was.
The leper in the gospel today reached out to Jesus and asked, "Lord, if you wish you can make me clean?"
A request was made, and Jesus responded. Not all of us will receive a miracle but all of us will receive a response.
We humans struggle with a host of challenges, some of which are so overwhelming that they can lead us to the brink of despair. Abraham reached out to God. The leper reached out to Jesus. Who do we reach out to?
There is someone we can go to and ask Him for help. He will stand by us if asked. He can make us whole, or for the leper, clean.
Remember that painting of Christ standing at a door, the door is broken down and overrun with weeds? There is a door handle is on the inside, yet no handle on the outside.
In Revelations 3:20 we read: "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and him with me."
This can only happen if the person on the other side opens the door and lets Jesus in. Jesus will also go to weddings if he gets an invitation.
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