The Fifth Sunday of the Year
Over the last few weeks I have been reading a book called the Shack. I won’t spoil it for you but it is a book about a Man called Mack and his search for God. In the deepest darkest moment of his life in what the Author describes as the great sadness he meets God. I can’t tell you what happens because I have not read the whole book yet. Often and this is a criticism of the Church as well we put God in boxes. It is safer that way. We keep God at a distance and yet is not God bigger than this. Often what happens is that we do not let God in and so he cannot work through us.
We are asked today to be salt for the earth and a light in the darkness that so often elopes round people. And so we must ourselves learn to love God and also learn his ways. We can do this by a number of ways.
First by prayer: listening to his voice calling us into life. Secondly by receiving the sacraments especially the Blessed Sacrament at Mass and going to Confession but also and this is something that we might lack is keeping ourselves informed and study of sacred scripture. By doing this we can then be lights in the darkness and know why we are doing it.
There are so many people, sadly, whose catholic education stops at the sacramental preparation they had or by proxy through their children. And so we live in ignorant bliss so maybe our job is also to keep ourselves informed about what is going on in the world and the Church. Reading or listening to the News helps us to see where the needs of the world are and where our prayer can be directed. But also we have a good lot of Catholic newspapers on sale here in the Church. It is our job to keep ourselves informed and so I urge you to give a catholic paper a try and learn about what is happening in the Catholic world at large.
So to be salt and Light for the world we need to be people who are well informed and also people of prayer. Use what is around you and learn about the faith and the ways of God so that we won’t be like Mack in the book and place God in a box and put limitations on our own understanding of God. In the ordination rite the Bishops says to the newly ordained “ let the Good work that Lord has started bring it to fulfilment” We can only do that by Prayer, the sacraments and study of the faith and keeping ourselves informed.
I have left a useful link for you and also a picture of the book which I referred to during the Homily
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