Nov 12: Every Moment is the Saving Moment

Cornelis van Haarlem: The Deluge

Memorial of St. Josaphat, bishop and martyr
Gospel: Lk 17:26-37

"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them (NRSV, Lk 17: 26-27)."

O Lord, our God, we are surrounded on all sides by events that threaten. No moment is secure. Nature menaces us with storm and flood, or again with drought and famine. We are terrorized by many of our fellow humans, some of whom are even ready to sacrifice their own lives to bring about our undoing. Still, we are often our own worst enemies ignoring the plight of our sisters and brothers and too frequently adding to it. But, in the midst of it all, Lord, you are always there with your life and power that transform every instant into the saving moment in which we can accept your divine life and grow in it more fully. There is no time or place in all of history that is deprived of your gracious presence.

True, there are moments when you seem to be absent from our lives but it is always our sinfulness or misunderstanding that blinds us to your presence. We are the ones who turn away from you, not you from us.

What separates us who are human from the rest of creation is that in every moment you are ever present to us offering us your grace if only we would accept it. It is indeed this grace that is offered which constitutes us as human beings even when we refuse it and turn away from you.

O God most loving, you are present to us in many ways that make visible and tangible your offering of self, but even the absence of these tangible signs cannot deprive us of your gracious presence for you are with us in all times and all places.

Help us, Lord, our God, to say “yes” to your presence that we may turn threat into hope and death into life, your own divine life. Help us, in saying “yes” to you, that we also share this saving grace with all of our sisters and brothers.

Alleluia! Amen