Abandonment To Hope

November 1: Feast of All Saints

Revelation 7:2-4,9-14; Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; 1John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

Saturday of Week 30 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Philippians 1:18-26; Psalm 42:2, 3, 5; Luke 14:1, 7-11

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship?

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five )

Abandonment To Hope

“We shall see him as he is” (1John 3:2).

Stewardship looks to the “end time.” It is a mystical experience of “hoping against hope” in the establishment of God’s Kingdom against impossible odds, with few visible results. It is motivated by desire (love) for what faith promises—“Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?” (Psalm 42)—and sustained by hope, not in our efforts, but in the victory won by Jesus: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb” (Revelation 7:10). We glory, not in success, but in the recognized weakness that helps us surrender to God. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

When things are most discouraging, we can “Rejoice and be glad,” for we know our “reward will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12). What we shall be in heaven “has not yet been revealed.” But we know that “we shall be like God, for we shall see him as he is” (1John 3:2). That is what we—and all “saints”—live for.

Perfect stewardship is total abandonment to the work and will of God. For the “saints,” life is simply “being Christ”—letting him act with us, in us and through us in everything we do—and “death is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

  

PRAY: “Thy Kingdom come!”

PRACTICE: Respice finem: Look to the end.