Reflection for 14 Sunday of Ordinary Time, week beginning 4 July 2021.
We have just passed the midpoint of the calendar year, and we are moving towards the 18-month mark of the pandemic.
We are surely minded to be giving fitting thanks to God for His preservation of us in the past half-year, and for the final ten months of last year.
In spiritual terms, it has been a real “desert” experience. Mass has had to be conducted without Mass sheets (missalettes), without hymn-singing, without Offertory processions, and Holy Communion processions etc.
God has permitted this situation for us. Yet He has been just as present as ever, for each and every one of us.
In all the all-too-visible restrictions imposed upon our worship, He has not restricted or reduced His presence for us in any way.
In this “desert” we need to seek out an oasis. This we can discover in contemplation – one or two short spells daily, sitting silently in His presence, allowing the Holy Spirit to silently fill us.
The word “contemplation” incorporates the word “temple”, meaning our inner temple, that place where we truly encounter God, that place where He awaits us as the great inviter. There let us hasten for our spiritual “fuel”.
Good Shepherd Catholic Church 