Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 25, 2025 - Wednesday in the 12th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 15:1-12, 17-18 and Matt 7:15-20]"Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so..shall your descendants be." Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness. [Genesis]
Big numbers have a way of overwhelming the mind! God's little suggestion to Abram to count the stars has the words, "if you can." Abram (soon to be called Abraham) simply decided to take God's word for it that he (Abram) would be the father of descendants beyond counting. St. Paul would eventually point to this example of faith as justifying a person in the sight of God, rather than "works of the law." [Romans 4:16-25] Common parlance uses the words: "To hope against hope!"
When confronting realities that seem overwhelming, human beings can easily "shut down and hunker down." What can one do? But the very fact that we CAN hope should alert us to add our little bit of effort. The singer, Perry Como, popularized a song with the words, "If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be!" Our faith tells us that God is bigger than the number of challenges we humans can create for one another. We have to keep lighting that one little candle, encourage others to do the same, and trust that God knows how many stars there are. We don't need to count them. AMEN
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