Distraction, Discernment and Direction

In a world of plenty, poverty still abounds as great numbers lie in need of basic needs in life. The “signs of the times” still point to the need to respond with generous hearts to the cries and longings of our less fortunate brothers and sisters, near and far. The Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ also denotes the ‘kingly’ task of service, in addition to the prophetic and priestly roles pledged at the moment of baptism. Jesus personified his loving care for all those suffering and in need of healing and shows us the right direction to take in our encounters with those in the margins.

Jesus kept moving to draw all people into the Kingdom of the Father by proclaiming the Good News in word and deed. “Let us move on to the neighboring villages so that I may proclaim the good news there also. This is what I have come to do” (Mk 1:38). “Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel” (EG #20). Attachment to material riches can only distract the human heart from the pre-eminent value of the spiritual realm putting God as the Source of all being and doing.

This is also a call for hose in leadership to take time to visit and listen to the people around, especially in the peripheries, and thus discern the appropriate direction to take towards communal improvement. What a wonderful sight, pleasing to the Lord will be the united efforts—local and global—to reach out to our needy brothers and sisters towards fraternal coexistence in the one family of God. This too remains the call to each and every one to help recreate the world envisioned by God our Creator for a fully alive humanity. May the Spirit lead the way to a new world, a new humanity and a new heart (cf. Jer 31:33-34) in joyful collaboration with the divine Giver of gifts.