04/10/2023

Today's readings are about cooperating with the will of God. 

We are all called to live a life that is a fitting recognition of the Love that the Lord lavishes on all his creation. "He saw that it was good".

We are all to respond to God's creation of each one of us "body and soul" with joyful thanks even on a dismal, British downcast autumnal day.

The main characters in the Old Testament were called to be seen to act for God in his Providence. But there were millions of unnamed who were known to God just as much as were Noah, Abraham and  Nehemiah of today's first reading.

I feel sorry for St Francis as his vocation was soon hijacked by the Institution which constructed a Basilica over the poverty of his abandoned chapel. He did nothing for fame but tried to live his life not as an anonymous Christian which meant accepting visible poverty as the indispensable companion for love of Christ.

Jesus told the man that he and his disciples met on the road that to follow him meant to have and expect nothing along the way. Our social obligations have to take second place. The way has to be as straight as a well-plowed furrow.

Dear Lord, help me to shake off my attachments to the world as does a dog shake off the rain from its fur. St Francis teaches us to love all Nature. Animal life is your creation as are the mountains and the ocean. It was in a desert that you faced the devil as a mortal man and refused to release yourself from what was to come. May Mary's prayers together with those of St. Francis and all the saints aid us in human time to continue forward in your Love with the hope that we will not deprive ourselves of your Mercy and will be able to accept the punishment of Purgatory for the sins for which we cannot atone in this life.