COMPLACENT CONTENTMENT IS NOT ENOUGH

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

COMPLACENT CONTENTMENT IS NOT ENOUGH

By Lucinda M. Vardey

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Isaiah 66:18-21; Psalm 117(116):1-2; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13: 22-30

Sunday 24th August 2025

The readings for this Sunday clearly portray the message that we, ourselves, do not only go in search of God because God has already found us and seeks to restore us once more as a sign of his glory to those who do not know him.  In this last chapter of Isaiah, Israel has returned from exile and settled down in Jerusalem. It has outgrown the frantic worry about mere survival under threat of extinction, and can afford to look outwards. Similarly, a sign of a child’s maturity is when they grow less self-preoccupied and can begin to be aware of the needs of others.

It is also helpful to be reminded by Isaiah that God knows our works and our thoughts. With this insight, we may be glad about our works being known. A friend once told me how she learned the powerful effect of what ran through her mind. Sitting at the back of a bus, she had great concern about the sloppy demeanour of a woman seated nearer the front; how messy her clothes were and how irregular the colouring of her hair.  As she thought this, the woman turned around and looked straight at her.

In the same way, Israel now sees that the vocation of the Chosen People is not to be turned in on itself, but to bring the Lord’s salvation to others. It is the immediate preparation for the spread of the Gospel. As Christians, we believe that all nations will somehow be saved by Christ. Our responsorial Psalm picks this up as a mandate, “go into all the world and proclaim the good news.”

     If God’s steadfast love is great towards us, we must prepare ourselves to live the demands of such a gift. We are indeed to be tested.  In Letter to the Hebrews, we learn that God disciplines his children just as a loving parent would. Painful at the time, these disciplines are necessary to yield “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” And Jesus adds to the responsibility to strive through the narrow gate in order to be recognised as worthy among the nations in the kingdom of God. 

     Saint Teresa of Avila understood that spiritual travails are intrinsic to the soul’s perfecting. She wrote in a prayer, “It seems, Lord, You try with rigour the person who loves You so that in extreme trial he might understand the greatest extreme of Your love… for I already have experience of the gain that comes from the way You rescue the one who trusts in You alone.”

     Trusting God while under duress or in facing the uncomfortable demands of change is the way we can express our faith and love for God.  Julian of Norwich wrote that “Faith is nothing other than a proper understanding of our being, with true belief and certain trust, that we are in God.” 

     The work of understanding our being, as God created us, is a lifelong task. Yet, as Saint Teresa noted, “The matter of self-knowledge must never be neglected.  No soul…is such a giant that it does not often need to become a child at the breast again. For there is no state of prayer, however sublime, in which it is not necessary often to go back to the beginning.”  This going back to the beginning will invariably lead to discovering our true place with God as well as the place in which God has put us.