Weekend Reflections for 8/19/16

"'I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory (Isaiah 66). 'And people will come from east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in heaven the kingdom of God' (Luke 13:30)." 

Non-Jews (Gentiles) were not worthy of the slightest share in salvation or of God's favor in the opinion of many or most in Jesus's culture. 'Not Jewish? Too bad for you." Recall horrified reactions to the centurion's act of faith, the Good Samaritan, the woman of Syro-Phonecia to whom Jesus initially responds with a rejection because she is not numbered among God's people - 'we won't give the children's food to a pagan dog'. But Jesus relies on the tradition of Isaiah to proclaim that reservations made for the Kingdom of God may not be valid, that God's will summons all by the free gift of faith. A New Covenant was being established so that God's promises to Israel would include even non-Jews, that is, most of us.

After the end of World War I, a great flu epidemic tore through the starved people of Eastern Europe. Millions died, fields went unattended, orphans were abandoned to their fates, people were crushed by hopelessness. The Friends (commonly called Quakers) sent refugee workers through Europe and one group went to relieve the people of a small town in Poland. One of the Quaker women fell sick and died there. She was refused burial in consecrated ground because she was not a Christian and her body was laid to rest outside of the boundary wall, in unholy ground. In the dark of night, the people of the town came, pulled down the boundary wall, rebuilding it so that it embraced the grave of the Quaker woman."

-Francis X. Ryan, SJ

PLEASE PRAY FOR THOSE ON RETREAT THIS WEEK AS WELL AS OUR DECEASED RETREATANTS.

PLEASE PRAY FOR PEACE IN OUR COMMUNITY 

UPCOMING RETREATS WITH SPACE:

Women:11/14

Men: 9/8, 9/15, 9/19, 9/22, 9/26

First Responders Retreat: 11/1