Weekend Reflections for 7/7/17

Wandering Arameans, Aliens, You and I.

At the roots of our faith history is this declaration in the book of Deuteronomy (26:5-7) "You shall declare before the Lord your God, 'my father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien. But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous. When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression'."

Our recent liturgical bible readings from the book of Genesis remind us again about God's special care for people on the move, as we accompany Abraham and Sarah in their faith journeys, and they too welcome three mysterious strangers and show them hospitality (Gen 18:1-8).

Welcoming the alien stranger is a recurrent theme calling us believers to acknowledge that in some ways we too are itinerants on the move, no matter how firmly planted we may feel in our well-appointed family houses or condos.  Abraham and Sarah struggled to trust God on their journey, and they even put up blockages to God's plans for them.

At times we too may lack this basic trust

in our wanderings toward our promised land.

The Spiritual Exercises we offer at White House Jesuit Retreat provide tools for discerning God's many calls to us as we too travel through life's journeys as people on the move, not matter how stable our current domiciles may seem.

May God grant us too the grace of fidelity to all of the Spirit's movements in our own lives and situations,

showing hospitality to the strangers around us and

 sometimes being those wandering Arameans ourselves!

Edward B. "Ted" Arroyo, S.J. 

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: 9/11, 10/2, 10/16

Men: 7/13, 7/27, 8/17, 8/24

Co-Ed Recovery 8/10

Co-Ed: 9/1