Sunday, October 20, 2013

Persistence Transformed

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore (Psalm 121:8) This is part of the Scripture for the psalm today in the Roman Catholic Lectionary. The description of the battle between the Amorites and the Israelites in the text from Exodus highlights the prayer of Moses with arms raised which brought fortune to the Israelites in battle. The keeping of our coming and going by the Lord is not the conquering of our free will by an eternal control freak. It is the faith and trust through which will live the journey of life expecting God to be Present to us. This expectation is developed through our study, perhaps in the ancient monastic tradition of Lectio Divina, which Father Robin Gibbons reminds us brings Scripture and prayer together. The Sacred Scriptures bring all of the benefits cited in the Letter to Timothy to us as we journey with Jesus. The Gospel from Luke presents one of the “speed bumps” which Father Larry Gillick SJ notes are opportunities to slow down and become aware of the Presence of God in our encounters with the people who may be offering us a different vision of the path on which we are called to live today. Father Larry notes how easily we seek presents from God and how often we may be missing the Presence which is in our situation now. We thank God that he “keeps our going out and our coming in”. We need to rejoice and be thankful when our path requires more patience and persistence. In prayer, our attitude to changes to changes in circumstance, can transform our impatience for Divine intervention to faith and trust that God is leading us in Life.

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