Saturday.blog
The Catholic Calendar for Saturday, September 11, 2004
Saturday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
1 Corinthians 10:14-22
Psalm 116:12-13,17-18
Luke 6:43-49
A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:
Are we stronger than Him? (see 1 Cor.10:22)
Paul asks this question and also asks if we're provoking God to jealous anger when he reminds us who we are in Christ's Eucharistic wholeness and what thoughtless diversion causes.
Specifically, Paul reminds us to avoid the idolatry of common participations in the culture of our day that with closer evaluation is indeed oppositional to God. Paul asks us to judge with sensibility what we are doing in relation to the true benchmark, the true Jesus. Are we willing to suffer fasting from the daily fare that is idolatrous to feast on the bread of Truth?
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons, Paul warns, to preserve the holy call to eternal Life within us. We consider the daily fare offered to us as consumers of a culture that promises death and ask what Paul means when he warns us to avoid the food of demons.
Consider the food of demons in our culture as the pornographic script offered in family television humor--or suggestive lyrics in popular songs, the soft pornographic pop-ups on the internet, billboards and advertising that replaces the dignity and divinity God instills in the soul. Games offered to our children that are violent, vulgar and make sport of terror replace the sensible consideration that Truth protects life.
Can we expect that dressing ourselves and our children immodestly will still command protection from the God who asks for pure temples for His presence? Paul asks very good questions for us today. Do we think we're stronger than God and are we provoking God to jealous anger when we ignore the Truth of our union in Him to consume and be consumed by the idolatrous fare that demons serve up in the course of the temporal battle?
- Mary Williams
(wlmsconsul at pdq dot net)
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