|
|
|
|
Word To Life
|
Sunday Scripture Readings: Aug. 5, 2007
By Sharon K. Perkins
Catholic News Service
August 5, Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C Readings:
1) Ecclesiastes 1:2 and 2:21-23
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
2) Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
3) Gospel) Luke 12:13-21
My teenage son and I recently attended a traveling show featuring some of the country's best drum and bugle corps. Since he is a drummer, he was quite inspired by the sights and sounds, so after the performance he and some fellow drummers gathered for the better part of the night to jam and share drumming tips. When my bleary-eyed but invigorated son came home the next morning, he enthusiastically demonstrated a newly acquired method of practicing rudiments ("paradiddles," nine-stroke rolls and flams, to be exact), strokes that are absolutely essential to master but which are incredibly tedious to practice over and over. The drum session spent with friends and the new method removed a lot of the tedium from the repetition and gave him a new perspective on the formerly dreaded practicing.
All of today's readings are about changing one's perspective from the "vanities" of earthly life -- especially greed and its companions impurity and immorality -- to a view that places God's priorities at one's center. Jesus' rather sobering parable echoes Qoheleth's warning against the acquisitive practices of working to excess and amassing wealth for its own sake -- habits that have become almost sacred in contemporary materialistic society. The more one practices these culturally sanctioned habits, the more ingrained they become and the more difficult they are to "put to death" through Christian practices of gratitude, simplicity and generosity.
But St. Paul's letter maintains, equally firmly, that those who are in Christ have in fact died to their former selves and are being renewed in the image of their Creator. The psalmist prays for "wisdom of heart" that teaches the proper perspectives on time, work and prosperity. And through the support of Christian community we can encourage one another to persist in those life-giving and corrective practices that can be challenging, unattractive and tedious, but which also can become the paths to joy and gladness.
QUESTIONS:
What Christian practice have I found to be particularly burdensome lately? How do today's readings and the support of my fellow believers encourage me to find a new perspective?
SCRIPTURE TO BE ILLUSTRATED:
"You have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self" (Col 3: 9-10).
END
Copyright © 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS Word To Life column may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
|
|
|
|
