Sitting with the Sacred

This week’s readings:

1. Wisdom 6:12–16 
2. Psalm 63:2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
3. 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
4. Matthew 24:42a, 44

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings say to me that God’s wisdom, born of God’s unconditional, self-emptying love transcends gender, time, and even death. It’s alive, a guiding light and a relationship sought and found through alertness, preparation, perseverance and patience. It can’t be faked or borrowed and returned. It has to be kept and nurtured. The path to it cannot be rushed, and the process of encountering and journeying with it comes with a cost that’s worth paying to make it my own. Knowing and not knowing it affect my mind, body, and soul. Being open to it, living with it, and following words leads would make me the undistorted version of myself, while closing my mind, body, and soul to it would leave me lonely and unrecognizable to anyone acquainted with the best version of me.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Paula Rush explores what the symbolism of this week’s readings has to say. I found her perspective on the parable in the Gospel reading particularly refreshing and inspiring. I would say her reflection ends with a twist. Go to this page out to find out what her hope-filled perspective on the foolish virgin is.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Until the evening two days ago, I was traveling, and I got sick at both the beginning and the end of my trip. Then I came to my desk to work on this post yesterday. I didn’t feel like moving a muscle, and congestion meant talking to my dictation software wasn’t as comfortable as usual, not to mention that the software probably wouldn’t have understood me as well as it usually does. I set my timer, and when it went off, only the headings and the locations of the Scripture passages had been added to this post. I decided to spend the rest of the day catching up on shows I missed while I was gone and playing games on my phone. And when I got up this morning, I still felt like I had nothing to offer.

Then I let Hallow app guide me through an imaginative prayer session and a St. Jude novena centering around the feeding of the 5,000, a.k.a. the multiplication of loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; and John 6:1-15). When the apostles thought there was no way they had enough food to feed the crowd who had been listening to Jesus was so long, that’s when I realized I could relate, in a way.

As I write, I’m wrestling with doubts that anything I put in this post will feed you intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally. If something I’ve included here does resonate with you, I’d be interested to know what, if you’d like to share a comment.

But also as I write this after sitting with the readings, I’m reminded that it isn’t I who do the feeding. It’s God. I have only to desire God’s wisdom and to take one step at a time to prepare for and to receive its movement.

Come to me, Oil for my lamp, Wisdom of God. Give me the wisdom to recognize You so You can recognize in me the person I am in You. Amen.