Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time (November 23, 2017): Thankfulness makes for peace

How can we feel thankful when so much is wrong, so much is difficult, so much is not the way we’d like it to be? In today’s Gospel passage, we see Jesus crying. We know this same sorrow. We have felt the pain of crying for others, grieving over the harm that they are doing to themselves by remaining in sin or addictions or bad decisions, mourning also because of the harm that they are doing to us and to others.

When we have felt this way, we have felt his pain, Christ’s own pain.

As he came within sight of Jerusalem while making his way down the Mount of Olives, Jesus stopped to look across the narrow valley and gaze into the soul of the city. He longed to give his peace to all those who lived there. Don’t you sometimes feel the same way toward people you know?

United to Jesus, we can say: “If you only knew what makes for peace, but you have completely lost it from view!” We see how darkness surrounds them and how sin is infiltrating their walls. We’re aware that if they had heeded our warnings or followed our advice, they would not be doing so poorly.

Crying because you care about someone who’s rejecting the saving power of God is a great blessing to Jesus who cries with you.

But, what about the ways we reject God help? How can we feel thankful when it’s us who have lost peace? Jesus has cried for you, too. Do you have any turmoil or stress within you? Jesus yearns to give you his peace.

Whatever is disturbing us, if we expect it be resolved the way we want it fixed and as fast as we demand it, we shall meet with disappointment and failure and hopelessness. We cannot see the good that God is doing while we’re focused on our miseries and our own so-called solutions.

Stuck in our limited perspectives, we fail to recognize the time of Christ’s visitation. Thus we reject what he offers us and we fail to notice that he is right here in front of us offering us a greater good than what we think we need. We fail to recognize how he’s trying to bless our lives. Stuck in our frustrations, we reject what he offers, and thus we blunder deeper into the disasters that we’re desperately trying to avoid.

The way out of this mess is to remember that we don’t know everything and we really don’t understand what’s best for us. We cannot see how God, in his great love for us, is already turning our problems into blessings — and this blindness is okay!

The way out of the mess is to thank God for whatever he is doing, trusting that of course his plans are good and that his timing is perfect. Thankfulness is what makes for peace.

For more about this watch this video: prayer-works-power-thanksgiving-2/

My Lord: Open my senses, my heart and my mind, to be able to answer Your everyday calling. Amen.