Being God's people - a sense of 'given'!

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

October 14, 2023: Joel 4: 12-21; Luke 11: 27-28

Joel speaks of that day of calamity that was bound to come, but adds a note of promise to God's people. The rest of the discussion is the whole dispute of the biblical history: who are these God's people? Some claim that status for themselves on the basis of their historical, geographical, ethnic and social background.

Jesus makes it clear in the Gospel today- all these details may matter but what matters most is the way you live your life on day to day basis. Life is a given and it comes with a multitude of givens that come along with it. If God has willed me to be born at this juncture - that  is, here and now... that has within it a task and a call that comes along. 

The 'givenness' of the identity as people of God, is certainly a privilege but not just that! It has to be understood without fail in terms of a task, a call ... because that is what God wants from me and in accomplishing it or committing myself to it, I become God's own! That sense of 'given' - as a privilege given and a task given - makes me conscious and faithful to the identity given me! 

To live our lives with a sense of given, that's what will make us God's people.