Deliverance?

Friday, March 15, 2013

Lenten Weekday

“For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from the hands of his foes”.  Wisdom 2: 18

HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT HOW GOD has our deliverance from the hands of our foes?  We only need to look to the Holy Week celebration that our Catholic Faith provides for us.  From the foe of self-centeredness, we are invited to the selfless love of washing others’ feet at Holy Thursday Mass.  We listen to the Suffering Servant readings on Good Friday from Isaiah 53:7, “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth.”  St. John tells us that there is no greater love than this.  To take in such a foe as hatred and to transform it into goodness is a deliverance from a violent cycle of life.  These readings invite us to face our own struggle as individuals or as groups of people to question the old law of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth.  Jesus totally transformed the subject of foe for us.  This does not mean there are not some real foes.  We need to address an abusive situation.  One of the by-products of a transformed foe in Christ is inner Peace.  

What grace of deliverance can you name?

Sister Barbara Jean Miller, OSF/T

Sisters of St. Francis

Tiffin, Ohio

Wisdom: 2: 1, 12-22; Psalm 34: 17-21, 23; John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30