Word to the Wise
Thursday, October 31, 2013 - Thursday in the 30th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 8:31b-39 and Luke 13:31-35]For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
St. Paul summons up his most dramatic voice to proclaim the ultimate power of God's love. He mentions almost any kind of other power that might be considered great and dismisses them in the face of the victory that Christ has won.
I think it could be a useful exercise to consider what each of us might regard as a "power" that can stand between us and God's love. Would it be political? Moral? Spiritual? Material? St. Paul's confidence in the ultimate outcome doesn't mean that we have no battles to fight! In fact, it is God's love that we must proclaim and maintain against all these other "powers" that threaten to "separate" us from God. We may even, as Pope Francis has said, find some of these "powers" in ways that we have behaved as a church! If we can keep St. Paul's words in our minds and hearts, we will be safe in God's love. AMEN