Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s first reading continues the story of the exodus, under the leadership of Moses. Having received the Ten Commandments, Moses is instructed to build a “Dwelling” for the commandments, which he had placed in an ark. But of course, we notice that it is not merely stone tablets in this Dwelling; rather, the LORD actually dwells in the ark. The LORD accompanies the Israelites on their journey, and the people know that God is with them as they travel.
Imagine what this must have been like for the Israelites, who had been so oppressed in Egypt. In their service to Pharaoh, they had even forgotten about God and come to worship Egyptian gods. In the Exodus, their God frees them and then continues to accompany them. Imagine them looking at that cloud, with the glory of the LORD filling the Dwelling place. Imagine these people KNOWING that God is truly with them, dwelling among them. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God!” (Ps. 84:3).
Now imagine that we too have God dwelling with us. Actually, you don’t have to imagine this because it is actually true. That tabernacle, with the Eucharist reserved in it, is really God with us. It is the real presence in our midst. But unlike the Israelites that merely saw God traveling with them, we actually receive God into our bodies; in the Eucharist God dwells among us as a people and in us as individuals.
This God of the Eucharist – this real presence – is the flesh and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in today’s gospel passage, we hear this Jesus describing to us the Kingdom of Heaven. This reading form the Gospel of Matthew comes from a chapter filled with parables describing the Kingdom of Heaven. No one image can contain the truth of God’s Kingdom, and today we hear of the “wide net.” The Kingdom of God, like the Eucharist, is for all of us, but we have to be willing and able to be a part of this Kingdom and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. God certainly wants us all for his Kingdom – hence the wide net – but that doesn’t mean God simply “keeps” everyone.
Respecting our free choice, God wants us to want to be wanted. In other words, God wants us to be receptive to being “caught” in the love of God. He dwells among us, and gives us his very self in order to strengthen us on this journey of life, to inspire us as He did the Israelites on their journey. We must strive, therefore, to love the Eucharist and to receive it worthily by struggling for holiness in the daily matters of life and turning to the sacrament of confession for constant purification. God wants to catch us. God wants to dwell among us and in us. Will we let Him? Will we provide in our hearts a suitable dwelling place?
- Maria Morrow