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Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
1 Ephesians 4:7-16
Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4ab, 4cd-5
Luke 13:1-9
S
UMMARY
St. Paul explains that God˅s gifts to us as members of the Body of
Christ are for building it up in love. The Psalmist sings of the gift of
rejoicing as we go to the house of the Lord to give thanks to his
name. In Luke is seen other gifts: a human heart open to repentance
and a sacred heart that wants to work with us to live more fully our
gifts.
R
EFLECTION
Over the years, I have drawn consolation from St. Paul˅s teaching that
gifts are from God for building up the Body of Christ. How wondrous
that God has equipped us ˈholy onesˉ for the work of our ministries.
By ˈholyˉ I do not mean ˈsanctimoniousˉ or ˈsinless.ˉ Rather, I
mean what the Lord requiresˉ of us: ˈOnly to do right and to love
goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.ˉ (Micah 6:8.) That is
difficult. So, I rejoice when I go to the house of the Lord, for there,
though sinner I am, repent I do, not so much in fear of punishment,
but in sorrow for what I have done and what I have failed to do. These
sins occur when I do not walk humbly with God but march arrogantly
to my own drum beat. There is also joy in the house of the Lord in
celebrating the Body of Christ, even the fruitless fig trees in each of
us. Each fruitless tree is a gift yet unfulfilled. So, let us thank God for
his gardener Jesus Christ, who is granted another year to work at cul-
tivating our ground and fertilizing our being, so that the pre-figs in
our spiritual genes will yet bloom as fruit for the Body of Christ.