Weekly Readings Reflections: 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

It's natural for your children to want to help. One way that they can help, particularly if you are under the family car, trying to fix a broken starter, is to hand you tools. You and your child get to do something together, they learn some vocabulary when your wrench slips, and they learn some confidence around mechanical things.
In the book of Judges, God had Gideon "attack" the Mideanites with nothing more than torches, clay jars, and trumpets. God asked Gideon to have a hand in that victory, to help God perform a miracle. Of course, Gideon question God's judgement, but he obeyed anyway.
Think of a time when you were moved to say or do something and it really touched someone.
Where do you think God was in that encounter?
Why do you think that God chose you to to be involved in that?
What do you think that you contributed to God's action?

I grew up in San Pedro, home to communities from Italy, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Norway and other European nationalities. In Holy Trinity parish, there was an undercurrent of competition between these various communities when it came to adorning the inside of the church, or contributing to the parish carnival. To look around that church is to see a lot of history, a lot of generosity.
How connected do you feel to the history of your church?
Do you think that those past generations have anything to tell us today about our faith?
How would you find out?

I think that Mary was the world's first Jesuit. Ignatius of Loyola recommends that we go back to previous prayer experiences and relive them in our hears, either alone or with a spiritual director, to get the most benefit from those. I suspect that was what Mary was doing when we read that she "pondered" various events in her life.
Does claiming Mary as a Jesuit exclude her from perhaps being a Franciscan, or a Carmelite?
These many spiritualities that we have in the Catholic Church are diverse. Is that good or bad?
With that much diversity, what do we really mean by "unity" within the Church?

Change of Scenery

Jesus' travels took us through my home town once.

I dreaded setting foot there, not knowing what sort of welcome I would receive.

I had left so abruptly when the Master called me.

Partly because I felt that a clean get away was going to be less painful

Than a prolonged good bye, with lots of explanations.

This village was good to me in so many ways.

Here it was that I first learned to fish, to clean the nets, to tend the boats.

Here it was that I learned how important a supportive family is,

And what a blessing it is to be there to pass our sacred traditions on

And watch the next generation grow into thousands of years of history.

I wondered where I would have been today if I had stayed.

Probably married to Miriam, with a passel of children rampaging through the house.

I heard after I left that she was inconsolable at my parting.

Funny, I never thought of her that way.

And I'd still be attending the same synagogue each Shabbat.

For now, these followers of His are my family.

There's no telling what will happen in my future.

Making plans is hard when you follow Jesus.

And I feel more alive in my faith, more attuned to God than ever before.

Maybe I'm closer to my roots than I ever knew.

Everything looks different now, I see old friends, familiar places

From a different perspective. They are precious to me, familiar and comfortable.

But I realize now that their purpose was to bring me to God,

Make me ready for that sudden, unexpected call.

Following Jesus has led me home, just in ways that I hadn't realized,

Ways that I didn't think possible.

Shalom!

Weekly Readings Reflections