My homily for Vespers this Friday:
God will give you glory, if you lend him your ears!
That is the message I think we can take from tonight’s reading. (Heb. 5, 8-10)
God gives glory to those who listen and obey.
Such a compact reading. A reading filled with meaning. Something we can take with us for the rest of the week and use for our meditation.
So, I would ask you, “Do you cling to glory? Or do you listen to the poor?”
Divine Son though he was, Jesus stripped himself of all glory, of every semblance of his divinity when he became one with us in our humanity. And his Father restored that glory when he listened and obeyed.
And Jesus most clearly obeyed his Father when he could no longer sense his Father’s presence. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? It is finished.”
Yes, it was on Calvary that Jesus’ obedience was perfected, not on Tabor, not in the river Jordan. And it was in his Resurrection that his glory was restored by the Father.
Jesus Christ is the source of our eternal salvation! If we are to be saved, then he is to be our model and guide.
“If you wish to be perfected,” Jesus said to the rich young man, “go, sell what you have, give to the poor, come follow me and you will have glory in heaven.”
God will GIVE us the glory, if we but lend him our ears!
The glory that is to be ours is given, not taken; received, not coveted.
So, I ask you again, “Are you more enamored in this world by the glory, the power, the prestige, signs and wonders, visions?” — for if you are, you will be governed by them.
Or, are you more attentive to the cries of the poor? To the hundreds of unborn children today whose cries were terminated? To the muffled cry of the abused woman who this very night weeps in her bed because she knows it is only a matter of time before she receives another beating? To the silence of the man returning from war, who has done so much, and seen even more that he can no longer cry but is silent?
For you see, I believe God never forgets those to whom we listen.
Those to whom we listen eventually define us and determine our character.
And the poor are Jesus.
And to Jesus we must listen!
O yes! God will give us glory…. glory so great we can only begin to immagine it….if we only lend him our ears……….and obey!
