Pope Francis often reminds all of us who are Catholic to be aware of the ways we sometimes focus too much on our own ways of thinking and acting – instead of on Christ’s mind and actions – displacing the reign of evil with the Reign of God.
In the year King Uzziah died, the people of ancient Israel were in a time of profound transition and unclarity – between something old and something new. It is not surprising that God chose that precise time to speak to Isaiah about a new vision for the future.
All of the readings today are about expressions of God’s overflowing abundance. The challenge for us is that we too often approach life from the perspective of scarcity.
Even within the locked rooms of our hurting or broken hearts Jesus appears, like he did for his first disciples, to remind us that there is a Word of hope to proclaim – especially now.
This is the night we recall with clarity and power the promise given so long ago: Justice for the poor and the powerless; swords beaten into plowshares; love stronger than death.
It is the wisdom of God that a plot to destroy Jesus is the means by which Jesus is able to show all of us – for all time – how to love in the face of hatred, and how God’s power is always greater.
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