HML – 2016 Nov. 24 _ Thursday, USA
Thanksgiving
• Eclesiástico (Sirácide)
50:22-24 • Salmo 113 • 1 Corintios 1:3-9 • Lucas 17:11-19
•
[__01__] Mutual
friends. Don’t we have mutual friends?
Meeting
someone, bumping into someone whom we know – or think that we know – we might
ask, have we met before? Do we know someone in common?
Do
you and I have a mutual friend?
[__02__] Such a mutual friendship – or the
connections we make through friends – can help us to make alliances, can even
help us to get ahead in financial ways, in monetary ways.
Mutual
firriendship is also about survival.
Many
of us are familiar with the traditions of the first Thanksgiving in what we now
know as New England and the United States.
Mutual
friendship helped these new European settlers to plant, to harvest, to eat, to
live, to survive.
The
alliance of the visitor and the indigenous enabled survival.
[__03__] Our Thanksgiving feast begins -- and continues
– in friendship. It is a time to
welcome, to reunite, for young people to return home from college.
One my of own favorite activities as a
younger person was NOT ONLY to spend time with my own family at Thanksgiving
but to go to my friend´s house in the neighborhood, to check out his relatives,
his scene. What are they having for dessert?
Thanksgiving begins in friendship and
begins with a free choice.
[__04__] Don´t we have a mutual friend?
This
is also a Biblical message, a Gospel message of the good news of Jesus Christ.
The
message is that God has visited his people, that he has called them.
Moses,
for example , is called by God personally. He is, shall we say not only chosen but also
¨elected¨ for his role.
[__05__] Pope Benedict XVI observes in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love),
that ¨ God chooses Israel out of
all the nations of the world. However,
God chooses Israel not simply to exalt one country over all the others, but he
does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. ¨
(Deus Caritas Est, n. 9)
In
other words, God makes friends with Israel and through Israel makes mutual
friends with other nations.
In
a similar way, Jesus Christ, born in
Bethlehem, preaching in Galilee forms a group of disciples through whom more
followers are gathered. Mutual friendships are made.
God
chooses you, chooses me to be in friendship with Him and to be in friendship
with others.
We
are told this in the commandment to love God and love our neighbor.
We
are mutual friends – we are his bridge to bring healing and to bring the Gospel
to others.
Thus,
through you and through me, the Holy Spirit will reach out to ..
·
A neighbor on Valley Way or Eagle Rock
Avenue or in Whole Foods or Shop Rite
·
A classmate at Redwood, Edison, West Orange
High School.
·
A parishioner here…or a parishioner at St.
Joe´s or the Lake or St. John´s in Orange or someplace else .
·
A person without the practice of the faith
in our own family or at our own table, today.
[__06__] This is
the message of the Gospel today.
What are the final words of Jesus to
the 1 Samaritan leper who has returned ?
He says, ¨Rise and go
your way, your faith has made you well.¨ (Luke
17:19)
[__07__] In
other words, Jesus tells this Samaritan man, a person recently cured and healed
of leprosy, to go his own way, to go back to his neighbors, to his classmates,
to his parishioners, to speak to people with faith and without the practice of
the faith.
Jesus wants the Samaritan to tell them
that God will help them, guide them.
But, first Jesus would suggest that
this man make some friends, be a friend. Encourage others to see that we are
all mutual friends in and through Christ.
[__08__] Benedict XVI encourages us to consider that
this is possible when we draw closer to God in our own friendship and prayer.
When I love my neighbor, it does not
necessarily mean that I know everything about him or her, it does not mean that
I like everything about him or her.
However, if I can see the person from
the perspective of Jesus who died for my neighbor, then I can see that we are,
shall we say, mutual friends.
Jesus, any friend of yours is a friend
of mine. His friend is my friend.
Mutual friends. (Deus Caritas Est, n. 18)
[__09__] Yes,
your parents, my parents were correct. We cannot choose our family, but we can
choose our friends.
We can choose our friendships and
alliances.
Wee can also choose our friendships –
and choose to build up or tear down friendships – within our own family.
However, our first and most important
friendship is with our Savior and Lord who loves us, seeks us out, calls us
when we are lost.
He died for us and rose from the dead
for us.
He is our model for making friends and
for keeping them, reminding us that …
Yes, we can choose friends, and we do
so because he has first chosen us. We can love God and love our neighbor
because he first loved us, and invites us to consider in the person with whom
we struggle to know, struggle to forgive, that we might ask, ¨don´t I know from
somewhere?¨ … ¨do we have a mutual
friend?¨
[__10__] [__fin__]
No comments:
Post a Comment