Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s Gospel, Christ speaks of the Kingdom of God, and how we will not know when it is here. It will not be announced or observed, like a holiday. Rather, it will be found in the ordinary. We will come to know the Kingdom of God in our day to day lives and in living out our daily motions. It is now, has been and ever will be around us, every moment of the day.
In some ways that’s kind of anti-climactic. This is a KINGDOM we are talking about. Shouldn’t there be pomp and circumstance and trumpets blasting to let us know we have entered into the kingdom? But Christ assures us, this is not the way it works. It is already among us. So if the kingdom of God is always among us, the challenge is on us to choose to see it and more so take part in it. But how?
I think the first reading gives us a great reference point on how God works through us to bring about this kingdom. And again we are told, it is not brought about with great pageantry and celebration. Rather God uses the gift of wisdom, sent to us through the Holy Spirit to bring the Kingdom of God to life among us. And wisdom, we are told is many things – intelligent, holy, subtle, unstained, certain, and much more. When we allow the wisdom of God to be at work in our lives we bring about the Kingdom of God.
We hear in that first reading that wisdom is “mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.” The wisdom which the Holy Spirit brings for us can work outside of time and in all moments – for it is mobile beyond all motion. This wisdom has been, will be and is present to us now, as we work to bring the Kingdom here on Earth.
Christ teaches us today that “just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.” Christ’s physical time on this Earth was brief and Earth shattering. He was physically here for a mere 33 years, a time so quick it is like a strike of lightning. But his spirit is everlasting – and can bring for us those lightning flashes – those brief flashes of the depth, breadth and goodness of the Kingdom of God. May we have the wisdom to recognize them.
- Amanda Grimm