(attachment for printing in pdf format)
Five Important Spiritual Thoughts from the Liturgy of the Word
…and follow up for the Secular Franciscan
September 8 – September 14
1 — “And they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” (Mt 1:23)**
Extended meditation:
Limiting
myself to just the 2000’s, the song that stands out the most for me as having
the message of the Resurrection is The Fray’s song “You Found Me.” It is an incredible song for popular
music. It states outright that God is in
charge of life, but often we do not feel that way. In the end, however, God will help us in the
situations in which we find ourselves.
They sing, “I found God on the corner of First and Amistad, all
alone, smoking his last cigarette. I
said, ‘Where you been?’ He said, ‘Ask anything.'” And so the person in the song asks,
“Where were you when everything was falling apart? All my days were spent by the telephone. It never rang, and all I needed was a
call.” But he sings, “Lost and
insecure, you found me, you found me lyin’ on the floor, surrounded. Why’d you have to wait? Where were you? Just a little late, you found me.” God will find us no matter what the
circumstances.Isaac Slade, a member of
the group The Fray, says this about the song. “‘You Found Me’ is a tough song
for me. It’s about the disappointment,
the heart ache, the let-down that comes with life. Sometimes you’re let down, sometimes you’re
the one who lets someone else down. It
gets hard to know who you can trust, who you can count on. This song came out of a tough time, and I’m
still right in the thick of it. There’s
some difficult circumstances my family and friends have been going through over
the past year or so and can be overwhelming.
It wears on me. It demands so
much of my faith to keep believing, keep hoping in the unseen. Sometimes the tunnel has a light at the end,
but usually they just look black as night.
This song is about that feeling, and the hope that I still have, buried
deep in my chest.” For him, the
song is a statement of faith in God, even though things are not going the way
he wishes.To me, that is the fundamental
meaning of Emmanuel. We realize that we
need someone to help us in our way of life, and then we discover such a
person. We know that we need God, but
often it seems that God is not part of what we are all about. The Christian and therefore the Franciscan
believes that Jesus Christ who is the Son of God actually came to our earth,
and showed us the way out of the misery that we can get ourselves into, giving
us the opportunity of having eternal life.
As The Fray sings, God found us, and the Christian believes that God with
us, that is, Jesus, led us to life, both here and hereafter.
2 – “No,
I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I
myself should be disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:27)…The Franciscan preaches without saying
words. Is my “preaching” what it should
be?
3 – “Remove the wooden
beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly.” (Lk 6:41)**…Am I seeing clearly?
4 — “I tell you, not
even in Israel have I found such faith.”
(Lk 7:9)**The faith of the centurion should make me
stronger in my faith in Jesus.
5 – “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)**
Does my belief in Jesus “show” itself to others?** one of the most important passages of the Gospels
