Tuesday of the
Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Jeremiah 30:1-2.12-15.18-22; Matthew 14:22-36)
When Jimmy Johnson became the Dallas Cowboys’ head coach,
he stepped into the big shoes of Tom Landry.
North Texans were not expecting a championship right away, but they were
sickened by Johnson’s first season record of one win and fifteen losses. It was a year of rebuilding. Three years later Johnson’s Cowboys won the
Super Bowl. The first reading today
tells the story of a similar turnaround.
Jeremiah has a hard message for Judah. He tells the people that they will be
ruined. He discourages them from attempting
any remedy for their desperate situation. But Jeremiah does not leave the people without
hope. He predicts that after their
humiliation, God will rebuild Jerusalem.
He sees the people one day laughing again there. He makes the soul-soothing announcement that
they will accept the Lord as their God and He will treat them as beloved
children.
Most of us can say that God has been as good to us as He
was with Judah. We are blessed because
of God’s grace. Without that help we can
see ourselves as having unfulfilled lives.
All of us have our stories to tell.
When we do so, let us not forget God’s central place in it.
