In Us and Through Us
Saturday:
Twelfth Week of the Year: June 25, 2016
Year II:
Lamentations 2: 2-19; Psalm 74:1-21; Matthew
8:5-17
The Responsorial
Psalm asks God with trust to turn and come back to “those places that are
utterly ruined.” We can never be so bad or bad off that God cannot or will not
help us. “Lord, forget not the life of
your poor ones” (Psalm 74).
If we ever think that the Church — or our
society — is in bad shape, Lamentations
2: 2-19 will give us terms to describe it worse than we could ever imagine.
The whole book is a vivid description in graphic images of “how the Lord in his
anger has humiliated daughter Zion!”
The Lord has made her
suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away,
captives before the foe…. He has thrown down from heaven to earth the splendor
of Israel.1
God was not the cause of Israel’s suffering.
God’s People chose to free themselves from his reign and his laws. This
immediately enslaved them to sin, and their sins bore the natural fruit of
conduct contrary to reason, right order and love. The Book of Lamentations
describes that fruit in terrifying physical images which give only a hint of
the more terrifying spiritual devastation that produced them. And at the heart
of this was the failure of those called to minister:
The visions your
prophets had on your behalf were delusive, tinsel things. They never pointed
out your sin to ward off your exile. The visions they proffered you were false,
fallacious, misleading.
Jesus came to bring about the ultimate
restoration. He is the true Light of vision to walk by. He is the Way, the
Truth and the Life — not just human but divine. He is the “Son of God.”2
But Matthew
8: 5-17 shows us that Jesus counts on us to continue his ministry on earth.
It is in us and through us that Jesus continues to be “Emmanuel — God with us.”
In us people will contact Jesus and he will minister to them.
A centurion came to Jesus, begging him to heal
his servant who was “lying at home paralyzed.” When Jesus offered to come, the
centurion recognized him as more than just a human healer sent by God. He said
Jesus did not have to be physically present to heal, that he himself had the
word of command: “For I also am a man… with soldiers under me; and I say to
one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes.” Jesus then
proved him right by healing “long-distance” by a simple word.
Today Jesus sends us as his ministers to all in need, but not long-distance. In us
Jesus is physically present as “Emmanuel,” ministering to the whole world as
“Universal Lord.” By sending us Jesus can be present throughout all space and
time, giving more than physical healing. He heals spiritually, saves, guides,
strengthens and comforts through ministry.
This is his answer to the prayer, “Lord,
forget not the life of your poor ones.” He responds in us.
Initiative:
Give God’s life: Be a “priest in the Priest.” Let Jesus act in you and through you
where you are.
Footnotes:
1 Lamentations 1:5.
2 John 14:6
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