Thursday - Pentecost 4
Readings
Ecclesiastes 11:1-8
Galatians 5:16-24
Matthew 16:13-20
Meditation
Today is my oldest child’s fifth birthday. Love and joy are easily felt. Peace and patience are are sorely tested. In looking at St. Paul’s lists of vices and virtues, the works of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit, the time nature of the words is striking. The vices give instantaneous feedback. The pleasures of fornication are in the moment. The angry word feels good when expressed. The night drinking and carousing is living for the moment. The virtues are habits or character traits developed or revealed over time. A toddler must be God’s way of developing patience. Faithfulness can only be displayed long term, but can be lost in a moment, same with self-control. Peace can be felt in a moment, but when momentary, we know its insecurity. In a time of war, peace is an attitude toward existence and not a state of being - i.e.are we at peace with the way we deal with our neighbor. God is busy through His Spirit recreating for eternity. The momentary pleasures of vice have no place in that eternity.
May the Spirit, birthday by birthday, recreate us more and more in conformity with the virtues that last for eternity.
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