The Son - the Shelter and the Stronghold

WORD 2day: Saturday, 27th week in Ordinary Time

October 9, 2021: Joel 4: 12-21; Lk 11:27-28

Do an exercise, why don't you? Start reading the passage prescribed for the liturgy today: start reading Joel and you will come across in your mind so many questions. The day of the Lord - is it going to be pleasant or is it going to be terrifying? Is the Lord vindictive or is the Lord truly merciful? Is this good news or a fearsome prophecy? As we read those long verses, made longer because of our ruminations, and reach the Gospel, before we realise that we have begun to read it, the passage ends! Such a short Gospel for such a long reflection before: but that is exactly the message of this whole exercise, the central theme of the liturgy today!

One may ask a thousand questions, or raise a hundred doubts...one truth never changes: Jesus is the Answer! The Son, is the stronghold, the shelter for the children of God. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, for the Son has made us all children of God, provided we stick to him. Let us hold on to Christ, in our words, in our actions, in our relationships and in the way we look at the entire world and its daily events. When we have the mind of Christ and look at everything in that perspective, we are sheltered and we have a stronghold, nothing can assail us.

At times our weaknesses and our human tendencies can take the better of us, but all that we need to do is, accept in all humility our failures, get ourselves together back again and reunite ourselves to Christ, clinging on to the Lord, the Son, the Shelter and the Stronghold!