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Lenten Weekday
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 & 6
Luke 16:19-31
S
UMMARY
Jesus tells the Pharisees the story of the rich man and poor man (Lazarus).
When the rich man dies he went to the netherworld while when the poor
man dies, he goes to heaven. In his torment, the rich man lifts his eyes
and sees Abraham and Lazarus. The rich man begs Abraham to send Laza-
rus to warn his five brothers of their fate. Abraham replies that the broth-
ers already have Moses and the prophets to listen to.
R
EFLECTION
There is so much to reflect on in the gospel, but the section that immedi-
ately gave me pause was where the rich man is concerned with the afterlife
of his brothers and Abraham tells him the brothers already have the word
of God through Moses and the prophets. But the rich man implores that
the brothers would be more likely to respond to Lazarus coming
from the dead.
I see a similar scenario in the world today, that many people only
respond to what is new, different, tantalizing. That to capture
one’s attention, the message and delivery needs to be sensa-
tional. This is an issue that we on the Evangelization team strug-
gle with. How do we reach the people who are seeking the word
of God? Do we reach them on Facebook, Twitter, UTube, or what-
ever the next social media evolution is? Our ever-changing world
now allows immediate access to information and thousands of
discussion points on the most mundane topics. Where does one
find the word of God in all of that data? How do we get people to
“Come and See” here at Holy Family or the Catholic Faith in gen-
eral? There is no quick and easy solution – it takes persistent
communication through many combinations of delivery methods.