The first reading from the prophet Joel today, continues to sound pretty dark and depressing. God sounds somber, powerful and just. When He calls for the people, He doesn’t sound too happy about them. “Son and moon are darkened, and the stars withhold their brightness. The Lord roars from Zion, and from Jerusalem raises his voice; The heavens and the earth quake.” All the noise God is making in this scripture reading today, seems to be to get the people’s attention, “Then shall you know that I, the Lord, am your God.”
Before we go any further into the old testament reading today, it might be a good idea to look at what Jesus is telling a woman in today’s gospel too: “While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.’ He replied, ‘Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”
Both of the readings today call attention to the fact that it is God the Father, that we should worship and offer our prayers and praise to. There was a terrible price to pay for those who did not acknowledge or worship God, in the first reading for mass today. Then, in today’s gospel Christ makes a point to deflect the attention away from his mother to the rightful place to give honor, and that is to his Father. This can get a little out of hand sometimes with all of us who love Mary too. The Blessed Virgin Mary deserves a place of honor in our church because she is the mother of Jesus, but the rosaries we pray and adoration we give her should never take more of a precedence in our lives than our prayers to God the Father. It is easy to become distracted by our love for Mary, but Mary always deflects the attention away from herself to her son Jesus. And in turn, Jesus always directs our attention to God.
There really isn’t a lot more to be learned from today’s scriptures. They are simply calling to our attention, that we need to keep our priorities straight. It is so easy to get distracted and lose our focus on what is important in life. God should always first in our lives. We can’t see Him, or touch Him, or speak to Him face to face, but that does not mean God isn’t real. He is as real as you and I and He seems to be a little flustered with people that do not remember to acknowledge Him as their God. This theme repeats itself over and over again in the bible, because it is hard for mankind to acknowledge that God is real, even though we can’t see Him.
The greatest commandment that Jesus Christ gave us was that, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ‘ This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Nothing else is right in our lives until we get our priorities straight and put God first. We get the two great commandments reversed pretty often in our lives and show more love to other people than we do God. No one likes to be ignored, but most especially God. It wouldn’t hurt for us to show Him a little more love and attention than we usually do, by spending a little more time with Him in prayer. Have you given God the time, love and attention you should lately? Whatever else we do today, it isn’t as important as Him. Talking to God in our prayers isn’t just another thing on our to do list. He’s patiently waiting like a good Father does, to hear from us.
Daily Mass Readings:
Jl 4: 12-21/ Ps 97: 1-2, 5-6, 11-12; Lk 11: 27-18
