Scripture:
Acts 4:8-12
1 John 3:1-2
John 10:11-18
Reflection:
The Word
Please, contemplate, carefully, the first line of St. John’s letter today: "See what love the Father has given us." When I am asked questions like," How do I know that I am following Jesus?," or, "How do you love God?" I respond by saying: "Do you take time each day to me mindful of the ways that "things somehow go through." All the worries, the tensions, the setbacks, the chaos; somehow "things go through." Somehow decisions get made. Somehow, even, the failures and flaws (like the beautifully hewned stone that "the builders" rejected, fit into the plan of God.
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, does not run away from the challenges that threaten the quality of peoples’ lives. Rather He lays down His life for the sheep. Is not "being evangelized" primarily this realization that deliberately, and providentially we are channels of the same grace that "gets us through"? We are instruments of God to help others "get through". I have always appreciated Pope Paul VI explanation of salvation: "the gift offered to all of creation through the deliberate, suffering love of the Son of God which frees us from whatever oppresses us and delivers us from sin and the Power of Evil."
Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P. is president of Holy Family Cristo Rey High School, Birmingham, Alabama.