13th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Fr. Leo
Living in the Holy Spirit will periodically take us out of our comfort zone. These threshold moments though difficult, give birth to real faith. If we are willing to follow God’s will, then we must be ready to live without certainty. Faith in God calls us to find our certainty in God, which may mean not knowing what tomorrow will bring.
God’s invitation to live only in him is the topic of our first reading from First Kings and today’s gospel taken from Luke. Elisha is called to become a prophet. Elijah calls him but he want’s to say good-by to his parents. But the demand of God expressed through Elijah does not make that possible. Instead he must begin in that moment with sacrificing oxen to feed the people there. Symbolic of his own self-sacrifice as prophet which will feed the souls of the faithful.
The second demand to leave all to live as God desires comes through Jesus who calls people to follow him, to be his disciples. Some want to do as Elisha did, but Jesus teaches that true followers may have no place to lay their heads. The only security being with the Lord and trusting in his loving care. This is a challenge for all of us and the reason we pray and spend time alone with God in contemplation.
Our second reading from Galatians reminds us that giving up what we think is a source of comfort to embrace God’s love will be a challenge. We are torn between taking control and listening only to our own inner voice even when it is not the healthy voice to follow.
It is easier, so we think to keep moving, turn the music up and do what makes us feel good. Happiness is more than that. Happiness only comes when we become vulnerable enough to trust others and engage in a give and take with them. Not in individualism, but in an interdependent community will life reveal its joys.
Faithfulness brings us to a deeper peace than following our own designs. In time we appreciate God’s wisdom and are a little more open to the next invitation to give up more of ourselves so that we can say with St, Paul, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” May the Holy Spirit guide us that we may know the desires God has placed in us. Our deepest and best desires. The desire to do what love requires.