Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s readings present several invitations to keep our focus on God’s gifts to us and “the hope that belongs to God’s call” (Alleluia verse).
In the first reading, Peter reminds us that while we live in times that seem like the world may be dissolving, we wait for the new heavens and new earth where “righteousness dwells”. The Hebrew and Greek words for righteousness carry the sense of “justice, generosity and honesty” all rolled into one. These virtues are to be our focus. As a Marianist, I hear the caution of Peter to not “fall from your own stability” with special meaning. We take a vow of Stability—to hold true to our alliance with Mary, the mother of Jesus—who, in the face of the cross, stood (recall the “Stabat Mater”— standing mother). She stood witness to faith in her son and in the God who is “our refuge in every age” (today’s Responsorial Psalm). And Jesus gives us a striking example of staying focused on justice and generosity and honesty when people approach him to trip him up with a question. He simply tells them to—yes, the world makes its demands, but we belong to God. May we hold on to our stability, grow in that grace of knowing to whom we belong, and rejoice in the hope that brings.
—Sr. Laura Leming, FMI (Marianist Sister)