Ephesians 4:1-6 / Luke 12:54-59
Paul talks about unity: Preserve your unity in the Spirit.
James McGinnis, a St. Louis resident, tells how two children were playing on the walk-in front of his house. One was three years old; the other was five. One was on a tricycle; the other was blocking the tricycle’s movement. Both were screaming at the top of their lungs. McGinnis walked out and asked them if they were having fun. They both said that they were not. Then he asked them what they might do to have fun.
“We could take turns riding the tricycle for about ten
minutes each,” the one said. When McGinnis offered to time their rides, they
both smiled and got all excited. The younger one even offered to let his older
brother ride first.
****
How do we try to preserve family unity or friendships when
something threatens them? “It takes two sides to make a lasting peace, but it
takes only one to take the first step.” Edward M. Kennedy
***
Born of pagan parents, near Gaza in Palestine, Hilarion schooled at Alexandria, Egypt, before converting to Christianity. At 15, having heard about St Anthony the Great, “Father of Anchorites”, he spent two months in the desert under his personal guidance imbibing his life of penance and contemplation. On his return to Palestine, noting that both his parents had died, he divided his fortune among the poor before retiring to the desert of Majuma near Gaza, where, living in abject poverty, he devoted himself to the austere life of an anchorite. For his upkeep, he wove baskets and grew his own vegetables. He permitted himself just one frugal meal a day, after sunset, consisting of a small piece of bread and some herbs or vegetables.
Hilarion performed supernatural cures and exorcized the possessed, even as his guidance came to be in such demand that, with curious pilgrims arriving by the droves, he found it difficult to make time for personal prayer. Nevertheless, many heathens were converted to the Faith and his group of disciples growing considerably.
At 69, Hilarion first returned to Egypt and revisited the places associated with St Anthony who had died five years earlier. He managed to escape the Julian persecution by retiring to the Libyan desert. The danger having passed, he crossed over to Sicily where he lived as a hermit until he was discovered by one of his former disciples. He died in a lonely cave in Cyprus, aged 80.
****
There is a song with the
opening lines that goes like this: "I believe for every drop of rain
that falls, a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a
candle glows."
In a way, that is a good reminder for an awareness of the things we see around
us. We may have seen flowers and lighted candles, sunrise and sunset, and we
just pass them by without thinking or reflecting. We may have also seen many
other things and passed them by without reflecting and wondering. We have seen
wars, violence, oppression, injustice, poverty, death and we just pass them
by. We are numbed by it and have become numbed to it. Or we have seen a
smile, a helping hand, care and compassion and understanding, and we have also
become indifferent to it.
Jesus is reminding us to look, to observe and to reflect on the signs in our
lives and then to act on it. May this prayer of St. Francis help us in our
reflection:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
****
Let us Pray: Lord our God, when today’s world hungers for justice, truth and spiritual values, perhaps disguised and distorted in a form hard to recognize, open our eyes and give us your Spirit of wisdom and discernment. May we thus learn to understand this world, to feel at home in it, and to discover the stepping-stones that could lead us all to you through Jesus Christ our Lord.
