Weekend Reflections for 1/6/16

"Big Changes"

A Muslim senior physician at St. Louis University Hospital has for years organized the young Muslim doctors to provide service for a clinic serving the poor of the city. When asked by a reporter why he did this, he responded that God's children had a right to healthcare. Following up the reporter asked who were God's children, the physician threw open his arms as if to embrace the waiting room and answered, 'Everyone.'

A current saying is 'Change isn't difficult; resisting change is.' Epiphany marks the epicenter of massive change in the understanding of who gets included. The pagan astronomers from the East follow an alluring star which which promises the remaking of the world as God intended it to be. They weren't included in the promises made to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. They may not have even started their wanderings as believers in the one God. But they were chosen, they were summoned, they came to revelation of God among us. And the Light began to make the path clear. All are summoned by the star and bidden to come by the angels, even those we might suppose would be excluded."

            - Francis X. Ryan, SJ