A
Sunday school teacher was quizzing her students after teaching them about God's
omnipotence. At the end of her lesson she asked: "Is there anything God can't do?"
There
was silence. Finally, one boy held up his hand. The teacher asked: "Well, what is it that God can't do?"
The boy replied: "He can't please
everybody." [Sermons.com, Gary W.
Houston, “What God Can't Do” Cowherding Christians, CSS Publishing Company]
God
offers us total love and that will please everybody, BUT we must choose to
accept God’s love. Today’s Gospel urges us
to acknowledge Christ without fear. Jeremiah
follows the Lord despite this enemies plotting against him. St. Paul reminds us that death came through Adam
yet Grace through Jesus Christ. And Jesus
instructs His Apostles [& us] not to fear, in His Divine Providence He is
watching over us.
Bette
Midler’s hit song “From a distance” [1990] is a powerful & beautiful
song. Some of the lyrics are: “From a distance
the world looks blue & green … the ocean meets the stream… the eagle takes
to flight… there is harmony. And it echoes through the land, It's the voice
of hope, the voice of peace… the voice of every [one]. God is watching us, God
is watching us, God is watching us From a distance.”
Although
it’s a beautiful song, it gets one thing wrong, very wrong God is not watching
us from a distance, God is with us in our waking and sleeping. Our God walks
with us, talks with us in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist He will enter
into us, into our very being.
The
Biblical meaning of “the Fear of God” points
us to a deep sense of God’s otherness, it leads us to wonder and awe. It leads
us to abide in God who loves us & believes we are worth far more than many
sparrows. It leads us to Joyful Hope for the Coming of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah experienced
persecution, mockery and intense pressure yet he believed the Lord was with
him.
Do you believe the Lord is with you?
In the
darkness of our times, most of the attacks on our faith are subtle, in whispers
to distract our minds and hearts from focusing our lives on God. Jesus teaches
the Twelve and us to “Fear no one” and courageously proclaim the Good News with our
lives.
Pope
Leo XIV urges us in “Magnifica Humanitas” [“Magnificent Humanity”] “… to look at the ways we communicate the Gospel to a
world deeply in need of it. At its heart, that communication is the sharing of
Jesus Christ, the Word.” [“Priests: Please don’t
let A.I. write your homilies for you,” America Magazine, Louis Cameli,
06/10/2026]
The famous
Jesuit poet and writer, Daniel Berrigan said, “If
you want follow Jesus, you’d better look good on wood.” We will have
many splinters and crosses to deal with BUT True Hope, real Hope can only be
found in Jesus Christ, the hope that the world offers is fleeting. Our world, our nation desperately need Hope
today, we need Hope.
In the
December of 1941 after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Franklin Roosevelt
told the nation, “There is nothing to fear, but
fear itself.” We have been Baptized in Faith and in the Hope of our
Savior Jesus Christ. We are in Ordinary
Time in the Church liturgical calendar, St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “Saints are people who do ordinary things extraordinarily
well.”
We do a lot of ordinary things to do in our lives, so start now and
offer them up to our heavenly Father. Take some time [today] and think
about how you will offer up your Ordinary actions and thoughts to God.
May God
Be Praised.
