Our Sunday Reflections

CLICK HERE for the Audio recording of the Readings of
February 9th, 2020.  Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time.  

CLICK HERE for the Readings of February 9th, 2020.  Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Sunday, February 9th, 2020.  Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

 

“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? "

Matthew 5:13

More than ‘one on one’.

In the early 1990’s, Rwanda (a country south of Uganda) experienced a terrible Genocide.  One ethnic group and its sympathizers wanted to exterminate another.  In just 100 days, over 800,000 people were slaughtered. Rwanda and Uganda (the country of my birth) are sister countries.  Both countries share family and blood ties in addition to cultural bonds, so this tragedy was felt close and personally by many people.
The story gets even more complicated (and the reason why I bring it up…) because Rwanda is a deeply majority Catholic nation. If you went to any church today, the masses are packed.  The people are very religious.  How then could such a horrible thing take place?  It is said that during the Genocide, bishops and priests who belonged to one group, personally engineered the killing of their own parishioners in Churches!  So, of what use was it to go to the church?  Did faith and the Gospel message ever sink deep? Or was this all a lie or mere formalism? 

The challenge of this week’s Sunday reading is: my relationship with God, my faith, my worship must root itself in the way I live my life.  Faith must be impactful on my life, but most especially it must move me beyond a one on one relationship with God to bring God’s abiding presence to my neighbor.  Genuine faith moves you beyond you, to act and serve our neighbor. 
Isaiah confronts his own people who are ‘into’ fasting.  Fasting is in vogue as ‘the best way’ to pray, so many resort to it.  Yet Isaiah states to them that their fasting is useless and just a mere lie if it does not bring them to repent and do something about their poor neighbor.  “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn” (Isaiah 58:7).  Their prayer must make them see the oppressed, the naked, those who are facing injustice and they must act to undo this situation. Only then will light rise for them.  It is about more than a one on one relationship with God.

Jesus reminds his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot”. (Matthew 5:13)  

The disciples (us) must ‘season’ the world; the light of the Gospel that they have received must move them into the world to act and serve others.  It is by good works that the Gospel will be best lived and preached.
Does the ‘Word of God’ I listen to; my faith, move me?  Does it move me beyond just improving my relationship with God? (Just fulfilling my duty to come to Sunday Mass or just giving as am required?  Is my faith rooted enough that because of this I respond in action and word to the unfair world I live in?  I act with compassion, rather than oppression. Do I change my lifestyle when I see those without anything? 

The most genuine prayer is measured by how much it moves you out of yourself- to act, to serve, to intervene, to un-do, to refuse, to change, to sacrifice, to have an unshakable concern for others especially those who suffer. Our faith must be impactful on society and world we live in. 
When we do this, the readings promise, at the most unexpected times we will see light too-God’s abiding presence.


A Blessed week in the Lord,
Fr. Anthony



View the below video for another Sunday Reflection on the readings.