Many people experience anxiety, sadness, and confusion. Especially many of our youth today. This can be caused by a medical condition or natural chemical imbalance, or listening to the lies of the enemy and being led away from living out the reality that we are created to be loved and to love in the proper order. God loves us, and we are to receive, rest, and abide in his love and share it with others. When we place others or other things before God, or take out God altogether, all other pursuits are going to fall short, and we will be left wanting.
I think we are also forgetting who and whose we are. Our loving God and Father has created us to be in relationship with him. He does not want us to be enslaved by sin and inordinate attachments, nor does he want us to merely survive. As St. Irenaeus wrote, “The joy of God is the human being fully alive.” God wants us to live a life full of meaning, purpose, fulfillment.
The message that Jesus offers us today then is good news: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it” (Luke 8:21).
Jesus came to be one with us in our humanity to remind us of our familial relationship with his Father so that we can become one with him in his divinity. He has come to tell us and show us that we are not alone, that we belong, that have a seat at the table, because we are his brother or sister. That said, each member of the family has a responsibility to do their part. Jesus is asking us here to hear the word of his Father and put it into action. And he is not putting down his mother by saying so. She is the model for us. Mary has heard and put into practice the word of God better than any other!
To hear the word of God, we need to slow down enough to hear. We can do so by attending Mass, spending quiet time reading of the Bible, in his creation, listening for him in our daily activities, and/or interactions with others, because God is speaking to us all the time. The next step after we have heard, is to trust and put into practice what God is sharing with us. That is when miracles happen, and lives are changed.
I invite you to take some time now to enter into the scene and sit with the others around Jesus. Breathe slowly and allow your senses to come alive. What do you see, smell, feel, and when Jesus begins to speak, what word or words does he give you this day to put into practice? Sit with this scene, the teaching he shares with you, and return to it throughout the day, and over the next day or two. Then put what he has shared with you into practice. As you do so, know you belong, you are loved, you are beginning or continuing your journey as Jesus’ brother or sister and each day is a new adventure!
Photo: My nephew Nicholas and me last month back home in Connecticut.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 