Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
September 19, 2022
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091922.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings encourage us to live lives of Charity and Light.
Today’s first reading opens two weeks of inspiration from the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Scriptures. These books include Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and parts of Psalms.
Wisdom literature differs from other books in the Old Testament in that the authors were sages rather than prophets or priests. Priests and prophets typically dealt with religious and moral concerns whereas sages generally focused on the practical aspects of how to live and the intellectual challenges that arise when contemplating the human experience.
from: compellingtruth.org
Our passage from Proverbs offers a good dose of that sage advice with these basics of mutual charity:
- Refuse no one the good on which they have a claim
- Plot no evil against your neighbor,
- Quarrel not with someone without cause,
- Envy not lawless persons
- Choose not their ways …
If we all followed that list, the world would be in pretty good shape. And, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says that once we get that shaped-up, we can take it up a notch — into the Light:
No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, you place it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
Matthew’s version adds this line:
Let your light shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify God in heaven.
So how do I let Charity kindle God’s Light in me? The list from Proverbs can get me started, but what might my own “Charity Challenges” look like?
Poetry: Charity — The Greatest of All Three – Robert Morris
The soul serene, impenetrably just,
Is first in CHARITY; we love to muse
On such a model; knit in strictest bonds
Of amity with spirits like disposed;
Aiming at truth for her own sake, this one
Passes beyond the golden line of Faith,
Passes beyond the precious line of Hope,
And sets foot unmoved on CHARITY .
“A soul so softly radiant and so white,
The track it leaves seems less of fire than light.”
Music: Lampstand – Ben Bigelow
(Spoiler alert: Those who are still able may want to dance by the end of this video!🤩 I just did a very good finger-snapping routine)
Lavish Mercy 
Indeed, a finger snapper! Thank, Sister Renee. ❤️😎
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