"SHINE LIKE THE SUN"
Fire is a powerful force. It destroys and creates
simultaneously, refining what's good and eliminating what is unnecessary...
Jesus words are filled with a picture of judgement but behind his words there
is victory!
In today's first reading from the Book of Exodus, we hear something
which the Catechism considers pivotal. "God hears Moses' prayer of
intercession and agrees to walk in the midst of an unfaithful people."
Does God's name express God's patience? "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful
and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing
his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and
sin. These qualities of our heavenly Father, elaborations of the divine name,
are reprised in today's Responsorial Psalm.
In the Gospel of Matthew is
Jesus' final word in a parable about seed sown, weeds that grow alongside the
seeds, and a great harvest yet to come. Fire is a powerful force. It destroys
and creates simultaneously, refining what's good and eliminating what is
unnecessary. God's love has the power to do that in our lives with the
mesmerizing effect. But how do you know that fire is burning? God makes smoke which
signals that is where He is working in our lives. In our modern day the fiery
furnace blazes with the same heat that Daniel's three friends endured. And the
light from the righteous who shine like the sun reflects Daniels vision of a
day when God's purpose for the world will overcome evil, sin and even death
itself. In the life of the age to come, sin and death will be burned away.
Jesus words are filled with a picture of judgement but behind his words there
is victory! God's presence is in our midst. Where there's smoke, there's
fire----the fire of God's love.
"Shine Like The Sun!"