Daily Retreat 07/07/08

2008 Jul 7 Mon: Ordinary Weekday Hos 2: 16. 17c-18. 21-22/ Ps 144(145): 2-3. 4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ Mt 9: 18-26 From today's readings:  "I will espouse you to Me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD....  The Lord is gracious and merciful....  Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you." Getting God's Attention Especially in our busy world, it's an essential courtesy to others to be considerate of their own engagements and responsibilities before trying to get their attention and help for our own issues.  No doubt, each one of us can call to mind disruptions in our life when we busy in the middle of addressing one task, and someone approached us for help with some other routine issue that really had no urgency to warrant an interruption.  I recall, for instance, a few weeks ago, I was perched on a 12 foot ladder, installing a new light for the choir loft in my parish church.  A man wandered in, whom I had never met before.  He had a question about a Latin translation, and had heard that I knew some Latin, and so, with apparent disregard for the fact that I literally had my hands full at the moment, he asked if I could look over a particular text that he had.  Although in general I'm happy to help in such cases, I had to explain to the man what should have been obvious:  that I was occupied at the moment and so unable to help until sometime later.  My deferral was expressed  in a polite tone, but I can't say I successfully concealed every  trace of exasperation as well! From similar personal experiences, all of us realize how rude it is (except, of course, in cases of emergency) to expect someone busy with something else to drop what he's doing in order to attend to us.  However, some people actually shy away from "bothering" God because they consider Him too busy with other people and bigger issues.  While it is indeed an essential courtesy to take into account the preoccupations of other people before approaching them for help, for God, the rules are different: He wants us to involve Him in the small and big things of our lives, and so we needn't ever worry that our prayers might be interrupting His work elsewhere.  In the Gospel, the woman with the hemorrhage saw Jesus on His way to help someone else.  But it was faith, not selfishness, that impelled her to grab His cloak and His attention.  And praising her faith, Jesus cured her, and then went on, without any hint of annoyance, to complete His original errand of mercy....