
Sometimes I just need to let go of the ordinary and let the possible extraordinary wash over me bringing joy or hope. This morning, for example, on my way to the USCCB website (U.S. Bishops) where I find the daily Scripture readings, but before I successfully found today’s gospel, I was treated to a four-year-old girl not only identifying photos of an ear, a heart and a pair of lungs but also correctly explaining their function to Ellen DeGeneres. Then there was a man holding his 4-week old baby, giving instructions that the season of crying was over and now the baby ought to do nothing more than smile. Miraculously, the baby did just that! “Enough of this!” I said to myself. “Let’s get serious!” At that moment Rilke’s Book of Hours caught my eye and I opened to a previously marked page that said the following:
You too will find your strength. We who must live in this time cannot imagine how strong you will become—how strange, how surprising, yet familiar as yesterday. We will sense you like a fragrance from a nearby garden and watch you move through our days like a shaft of sunlight in a sickroom…(p. 183)
So with all of that experience gathered I was not surprised to find the passage from Matthew’s gospel for today that said: At that time Jesus exclaimed, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones…” (MT 11: 25-26)
And thus, a shaft of light bringing gratitude to my 72 year-old self will allow a relief of total responsibility for the salvation of the world today, remembering that God is in charge and sees each generation through the challenges that arise and will undoubtedly be conquered!