Daily Reflection _ saturday of 28th week OT


PUTTING ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, whom the Church honored this month, wrote these words of reflection that are fitting for today's Scripture readings:
"Acknowledge that without Me you can do nothing, but I will never let you lack help as long as you keep your weakness and nothingness buried in My strength.
"Let Me do everything in its own time, for at present I will have you to be the sport of My love, which will treat you according to its good pleasure.
"Be ever ready and disposed to receive Me, because henceforth I will make My abode in you."
When we think of our human condition we should be aware of our weaknesses. In one sense, we can say that life is a mountain to climb in order to get to our eternal home. We do not have the power to make the journey on our own, but there is Someone Who does, and that Someone is our heavenly Father.
How great is God's loving power? St. Paul says that the power which God uses within us is like the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Death is a reality more universal and more overwhelming than the pull of gravity forcing a car to slow down as it ascends a mountain. Nothing can resist death's pull into the dark unknown - not money, nor prestige, nor influence. Medical science can prolong life but it cannot prevent death. Death recognizes no distinction among people. It overcomes the rich and the poor, the elderly and the young, male and female.
Although death is inevitable, it is difficult for us to accept our own mortality. We know in a theoretical way that one day we will die, but we can often feel as though it will not happen to us. At sometime, though, we must accept this reality as part of our earthly lives. Our faith in God's loving power to raise us from the dead should fill us with great hope!
Today's first reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. It contains a prayer that we may know the great hope to which God our Father has called us to and the wealth of His glorious heritage. This hope depends on our trust in the immeasurable scope of God's love and power, which are like the strength He showed in raising His Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead. Our great hope is in the fullness of the Lord, Who fills all things in every way.
In the Responsorial Psalm we pray, "You have given Your Son rule over the works of Your Hands" (Ps 8:7). God has put all things under Jesus' feet, and we have come to know our smallness and our greatness, our dignity and our nothingness. And knowing both, we accept in simplicity the crown of the Ruler of Creation, the One outside us and the One inside us. Amen.