Daily Archives: February 26, 2011

Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Times – Cycle A

26 February 2011

Reflecting on Matthew 6: 24-34

You know, tomorrow really does have a way of taking care of itself.  Weeping endures for the night, but in the morning comes a certain, unnameable peace.  Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday, and it’s just almost never as bad as we pictured.

They neither toil nor spin

But that doesn’t stop us from worrying the problem to death.  If we keep circling in on it, touching its tender corners, re-thinking our conversations, rewinding our what-ifs, maybe we’ll find a crack large enough for us to slip our hand through and re-shift the orbit of the earth and get us back to yesterday, before we found the lump, before we bought the expensive house with the balloon payments, before we hit the gas instead of the brakes, before we canceled the insurance policy.

Whew.  Just writing down a few things to worry about makes me start worrying all over again.  But then I hear those comforting words of today’s Responsorial Psalm (62):  Only in God be at rest my soul. God is my stronghold, my safety.  I shall not be disturbed at all.

But wait.  Not so fast.  Can God be trusted?  God’s grace has been sufficient and even abundant in the past, but is that enough to take to the Bank of Tomorrow?  Maybe it’s like using a muscle.  The more we trust today, the stronger and more enduring is our ability to trust tomorrow.

So get out there and consider those lilies.  Or, better yet, winter wheat.  Or the silent snow.  Or your own buttoned-up heart.  There is a wisdom out there, whispering in the February chill.  Trust in me, oh my people.

In what ways does your faith build on past experience?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).