16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Jeremiah 23: 1-6
   
2. Psalms 23: 1-3, 3-4, 5, 6
   
3. Ephesians 2: 13-18
   
4. Mark 6: 30-34
   

• Being a good shepherd
  
• Authentic evangelism takes time, patience, and most of all, love.  When Jesus sent His disciples out on their missionary journey, He told them to partake of the hospitality offered them in each place.  Live among the people that they served.  Get to know them.  Earn their trust.
• Who are individuals that you can think of in your life that need the Good News?
• What specifically do they most need to hear, feel, experience to bring them closer to God?
• Who do you think might be the best one or ones to offer that to them?
• How did you get to know them so well?
• What's next for you in your relationship to that person?
• How is that next step in your relationship a shepherding episode?
  

• Praying into peace
  
• Having a good friend with you makes all of the difference in the world.  At the very least, you know that you can talk to them about the experience later, and get their perspective on it.  Maybe see things differently than you would have otherwise.  Our God is always with us.
• In prayer, do you ever ask God what He thought about anything that you've gone through?
• How do you think that He would respond if you did ask Him?
• If you started such a prayer practice today, do you think that you might get batter at it in time?
• What's stopping you?
• What's the worst that can happen?
  

• Peace to those near and far
  
• "They" are those who are different from us in some important way.  "They" see things differently, act differently, you suspect that some of the problems that they encounter are self-inflicted.  If they would just see things the way that we see them, they would be far better off.
• Who are some people that you have ministered to who were "edgy".  That is, they were not like you, did not have the same values and worldview.  In short, they were a little hard to predict.
• How/what did you offer them in your ministry?
• To what extent do you feel as though you built the Kingdom in that service?
• How might you have done better?
  

• Carrying on
• Jesus took His disciples on retreat, not just because they were physically exhausted (I'm sure that they were!) but also to give them time to reflect on what they had experienced, and get the most out of that mission journey that they could.  In Ignatian circles, such a prayer practice is called repetition: entering God's presence once again in an experience in order to get the most from it, to ponder as Mary did during her life.
• This week, each day, pick an experience that you had of God in your life from the past few days.
• Thank God for His presence in that moment.
• Ask Him to be with you in that moment once again as you bring that experience to mind so that you might draw closer to God.
• Imagine Him by your side in that moment, and bring back the images, sounds, smells, feelings of that experience with Jesus by your side.
• Does it at all feel different, perhaps deeper than it did the first time?
• How do you think you will experience Jesus in the future, knowing that you can, and will, come back to that experience again, later?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
• Where is God calling me to speak and act boldly?
• How can I be a force for peace in the world around me?
  
• Where might God be calling me to leave behind my comfort zone?
  
• How can I be more like Jesus' mother Mary in my prayer life?

Getting Out of the Hurry

This life that we're given is too short to hurry through.

Certainly learning to savor the moments of each day -

To sip at the tea of life rather than gulp it down -

To stop thinking about what's next long enough -

Just long enough to truly experience the eternal now,

That is a rare accomplishment in our world.

Beyond diving deep into the moment in the now -

There is revisiting those moments in prayer.

Asking God to reveal anything in addition

That I might have missed the first time through.

To ponder life and find the hidden gleams of glory -

That escaped attention in the heat of the moment.

 

And once that pondering becomes well worn habit -

Experience grows more measured, deeper, prayerful.

Knowing that I will likely come this way again in prayer -

I am schooled in looking for the hand of God.

In each moment, through each touch -

Both in the moment and in the reflection.

 

Until experience and reflection -

Become two sides of the same coin.

And I truly learn how to pray without ceasing.

 

Shalom!