Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
One of my favorites, today’s Responsorial Psalm, “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face” is a prayer that has resonated with me for years. But today as I reflect on the readings, I find myself challenged with the question, Do I really long to see God’s face? My first reply is “yes, I do!” But with deeper reflection I find myself wondering how often I (or we) have seen God’s face and not even realized it? Or worse yet, seen God’s face and turned away?
Today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (4:1-6) reminds us that as Christians we believe in “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” I think that bears repeating and emphasizing! One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. And one more time: Father of ALL, who is over ALL and through ALL and in ALL (!)
One God who is in ALL – even the most despised, the most grotesque, the most despicable, the most irritating, the least influential, the least popular, the least likely to succeed or have something of interest to offer us. God is in THEM, just as God is in US. Is this the face of God we long, with the psalmist, to see?
Today’s passage from Ephesians begins with “urging” those early Christians to “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.” Amazingly, the Living Word still speaks to us today. We, too, are urged to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received as followers of Christ, “with all humility, gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love….”
With God, our Parent, being in ALL, there can no longer be “Us and Them” - but ALL children of One God, One Body and One Spirit. Let us pray for the grace this week to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received. For then, perhaps, we will truly be able to pray with the psalmist to see God’s face…and not turn away.
~Eileen Miller