Friday, October 23, 2020

 Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

 (Ephesians 4:1-6; Luke 12:54-59)

 In his poem “The White-Tailed Hornet,” Robert Frost observes that humans do well to compare themselves with higher beings.  If they do not, he predicts that they will suffer one catastrophe after another.  Frost’s lines are worth remembering: “As long on earth/ As our comparisons were stoutly upward/ With gods and angels, we were men at least,/ But little lower than the gods and angels./ But once comparisons were yielded downward,/ Once we began to see our images/ Reflected in the mud and even dust./ ‘Twas disillusion upon disillusion.”  The passage from the Letter to the Ephesians today bears a similar wisdom.

 Ephesians urges its readers “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.”  It claims that they have been chosen by God to be members of God’s family.  As God’s children then, they are to live peacefully avoiding quarrels.  More than they, they are to strive to have a like mind and heart based on truth.  It is a tall order, but it can be accomplished with God’s grace which is “over all and through all and in all.”

 Anger is a definite roadblock to peace and unity.  We must garner the courage to lay aside outrage with what others say and do.  In place of getting angry, let us try to put ourselves in the place of those who provoke our anger.  We also should pray for them.  These measures will lessen our animus and increase our understanding.