August Trinity
Matthew
6: 25-34
“Therefore I say to you, do not
trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will
clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more
important than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do
not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned,
add one moment to the span of your life?
And why do you worry about
clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do
not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was
ever arrayed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the
field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much
more for you, o small in faith?
“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What
will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your
heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s
kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to
you as well.
So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow
can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
8th August Trinity
Sept 15, 2019
Matthew 6: 19-34
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| Marc Adamus |
The gospel reading addresses our human tendency to worry, our fear
of insufficiency. Christ encourages us not to diminish the range of our
attention, through concentrating only on food and drink, clothes, and riches.
Rather we are to pay some attention to our own powers of perception. A few
verses before today’s reading, He says, ‘If your eye is wholesome, your whole body
will be filled with light.’ That is, if our way of seeing, our way of picturing
the world is wholesome, then our body and soul will be filled with light,
radiant with love. What does a wholesome way of seeing the world consist of?
It consists of looking at what has already happened through the
lens of gratitude. Gratitude expands and enlightens our inner vision. It widens
the angle of what we see. Gratitude helps us see the small miracles in each
day.
Wholesomeness also consists of imaging the future through the lens
of trust; trust in God’s harmonious ordering of events; trust in the
beneficence of His guidance through the course of the day. Correcting our
vision with the lenses of gratitude and trust lets the light into our bodies
and souls. Filled with an inner light, our
souls can radiate the light of love out into the world.
The poet John O’Donohue says,
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us, a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And the wisdom of the soul become one.*
