Sunday November 12, 2023

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“God’s ways are awesomely much, much better than anything we can imagine!”

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Good News Reflection for:

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Saint Josaphat, bishop and martyr
November 12, 2023

Today’s Prayer:

To follow Your ways, Lord, means giving up everything for You. It means leaving behind what dies in this life. It means walking towards the eternal abundance You provided on the cross for me. Give me the strength I need to say “yes”, even though it is sometimes difficult. Amen.

Subscribe to Today’s Saint Quote & Prayer:
gnm.org/SaintQuotes/

Today’s Readings:

Wisdom 6:12-16
Ps 63:2-8
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111223.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2020-11-08

Trusting an illogical God

This Sunday’s Gospel reading shows us what it means to be truly foolish. We believe in Christ — good! We pray — good! We put time into our faith growth and we value opportunities for more faith formation — very wise! And we say that we trust God — wonderful!

But what happens when God doesn’t answer our prayers fast enough? What if we need Christ’s loving embrace or his protection from evil and yet we’re suffering with no end in sight? Where is Jesus then?

Usually, God’s timing is not ours. We think we have the right idea about how soon God should intervene when we ask for his help. Right now is a good time for it, right? Of course! But perhaps not from God’s perspective. (Why do we want to leave God in charge anyway, if he doesn’t see things our way, huh?)

When we despair over unanswered prayer, the reality behind it is that we’re emotionally unprepared for any timing that’s different from what we think it should be. The foolish bridesmaids thought the groom would arrive before their lamps burned out. They thought they understood the situation. Do we?

Furthermore, if God’s plans are illogical — if they don’t make sense to us — we distrust them. And then we get ourselves into the mess of trying to handle things apart from God.

We cannot trust our logic. We cannot trust our perception or our understanding of the situations we’re in. The sooner we decide to enjoy the absurdity of being a Christian, the sooner we will find out that God’s ways are awesomely much, much better than anything we can imagine!

Questions for Personal Reflection:
What have you resisted doing because it doesn’t make sense? What can you do, where can you turn, to whom can you go for help in discerning whether or not it’s God’s plan for you?

Questions for Community Faith Sharing:
How do you know when an illogical plan is really what God wants you to do? What’s happened in your life that has taught you to trust the Holy Spirit’s surprises? Share a lesson you learned when you weren’t ready for God’s plan because you didn’t believe it.

For more on the topic of this subject, see our WordByte “Everything is pregnant with God’s Activity” @ wordbytes.org/food-for-faith/pregnant-with-activity/

© 2023 by Terry A. Modica

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