Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
January 14, 2023
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011423.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading describes the penetrating, all-seeing, all-discerning Word of God.
Reading this, some of us may find it startling to think how well God knows us! The truth is God knows us fully, much better than we know ourselves. And God loves us fully, again even better than we love ourselves.
The word of God is living and effective,
Hebrews 4:12-14
sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit,
joints and marrow,
and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.
God already knows and understands the secrets we are slow to share, the hurts we have buried, the angers we try to shackle. God knows the fears we will not face, the regrets we cannot abandon, the sadness we cannot forget, the hopes we hesitate to speak.
God knows and loves it all.
Being present to the Word of God can help us learn to love and accept ourselves as God does.
This Word can come to us in reading and listening. It can come in images, nature and silence. God’s Word is not bound by print or sound. It speaks to us in every circumstance of our lives.
Today, we pray to have a deep love of God’s Word given to us in Scripture, spiritual reading, music, poetry, the beauty of Creation, and the wonder of life. The Holy Word sees and loves us completely. In that complete Love, may we come to know ourselves and to be fully ourselves in God’s Presence.
Poetry: The Word of God – George MacDonald
In this rather cryptic poem, I believe MacDonald’s point is this: where the Word of God has not inspired the heart, there is no real life and vigor – either in action (bud) or written word(letter).
Where the bud has never blown
Who for scent is debtor?
Where the spirit rests unknown
Fatal is the letter.
In thee, Jesus, Godhead-stored,
All things we inherit,
For thou art the very Word
And the very Spirit!
Music: Two Elegiac Melodies ~ Edvard Grieg
Lavish Mercy 