Today’s Collect rejoices at ‘how God’s love has been allotted to us’.
Do you ever think why the Lord has allotted you a place in the company of the saints and not your neighbour or your sister or your brother?
The mystery of the choices of God is something to ponder so as to deepen humility. As the entrance antiphon from John 15:16 reminded us: ‘It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.’
Today’s Saint must have pondered ‘the lot of God’s love’. Matthias wasn’t one of the original Twelve but after the betrayal of Our Lord and death of Judas Iscariot, someone was needed to take his place. Two men were selected, and lots were drawn to see which should be made an Apostle and we read in today’s passage from Acts how the lot fell on Matthias.
Being chosen by casting lots seems a random choice at one level but, being a gamble set up by the Holy Spirit after prayer, its consequence came to be seen as expressing God’s will. It was a way of putting the important choice to make up the Twelve into the hands of God.
My presence and yours at Mass this morning traces back both to people we have met who have influenced us towards Christ and, like Saint Matthias, a readiness to put to God’s service the gifts and talents he has given us. It's humbling to consider the seemingly random element of ‘how God’s love has been allotted to us’.
‘It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you to go and bear fruit’. God has chosen us, with our needs and inadequacies as well as with our gifts and strengths to be his servants - and before that to be his.
We work for God, yes, but today’s feast reminds us of the beautiful grace that lies behind that reality. It reminds us as we celebrate Mass, or serve, do the flowers or whatever that the work of the Lord flows from the Lord of the work who is ours for ever.
The Lord make us aware, at the prayer of St Matthias, of his love allotted to us from beyond this world, the One we love before we make the object of our employment.
May your love be upon us, O Lord! It is that love we trust - may you, the Lord of our work, always come before the work we do for you at the altar, in the Sacristy or out there in the world that awaits us after Mass!
No comments:
Post a Comment