WORD 2day: Thursday, Fourth week in Ordinary time
David gives instruction to young Solomon as he is about to take over the Kingdom. Jesus gives instruction to his apostles as they are about to set out for a mission! The common element is the instruction and there is a common thread that runs through the two sets of instructions too.
For that matter the whole of the Word of God, and Jesus as the Word of God made flesh, always has this ready message to give us: Seek first the Reign of God, and all other things will be given unto you (Mat 6:33). The apostles, the first christian communities, the early missionaries... every one of them was filled with this same zeal. Health. wealth, pleasure, not even life mattered more than the Reign of God for them!
Solomon would later fall from the glory of his father, precisely because he would lose sight of the Reign that God wanted to establish. When we lose sight of the Reign, even the most beautiful things we do in the name of God, will become things done for our own glory and our own petty kingdoms. The more we grow conscious of our call to live for the Reign, the more our work and our efforts would make sense.
Our call is to renew our commitment towards the Reign - the Reign of justice, love, peace, brotherhood and sisterhood... in short SHALOM, Wholeness, God's presence! Let us make present these in our little way everyday, that would be our part towards the Reign for today!