SOCL, 6C
- Admin
- Feb 15
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 15
Sunday February 16, 2025
(Septuagesima)
See
Jesus's Beatitudes shatter our metrics of success like a hammer striking glass. Where we chase comfort, Jesus exalts deprivation. Where we cultivate influence, He blesses the excluded. Where we pursue satisfaction, He pronounces blessing on the hungry. These are not gentle suggestions but explosive inversions of everything our society holds dear.
The poor, the hungry, the grieving – these are not conditions to escape but portals through which divine grace floods in. Our desperate attempts to avoid suffering and secure comfort become the very barriers that block our path to true blessing. Each "woe" Jesus pronounces falls like a thunderclap on our carefully constructed fortresses of self-sufficiency.
Modern life tempts us to curate our image, satisfy every appetite, and accumulate endless security. Yet Jesus' words strip away these illusions, revealing that our emptiness, not our fullness, creates space for God's kingdom to take root. The path to blessing runs straight through the valley of vulnerability.
Listen
Reflect
(Luke 6:17, 20-26)
-Stand with Jesus on that level ground, surrounded by the desperate and broken crowd. How have you been running from your own poverty – spiritual, emotional, or material? What would it mean to embrace it as a gateway to God's kingdom?
-Picture the hungry multitude hanging on Jesus's words. Consider the empty spaces in your own life that you rush to fill with food, entertainment, or activity. Can you let that hunger become holy ground?
-Enter into the scene of disciples being denounced and excluded. Where in your life have you compromised your values to maintain others' approval? What truth is Christ calling you to speak, regardless of the cost?
-Witness the false prophets receiving universal praise. Examine your own desire for validation and acceptance. How might your pursuit of others' approval be blocking your receptivity to God's voice?
Pray
Lord, you turn our world upside down to set it right, break open our hearts where they have grown hard with comfort. Transform our poverty into possibility, our hunger into holy longing, our tears into testament. Make us brave enough to be blessed in the way of Your Son, finding treasure in empty hands and fullness in sacred sacrifice. Amen.
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