How Will You Infect The World Today?

As these strange days continue, my prayer has become, “please don’t let me miss a thing.” I know God is extremely present and extra tender right now and we believers have the tremendous gift of being light, carrying the flame of love, and reaching out in the midst of distancing. We are being called to be creative and intentional and bold. We need miracles and lots of them (a pandemic of miracles in fact) and so our faith must increase and our connection to the Body of Christ must also increase. The Holy Spirit cannot be contained, quarantined, isolated, or hidden, and we have a unique opportunity to release the Spirit that dwells within us NOW. Perhaps we have been sheltering the Holy Spirit in place and now that we are sheltered in place it’s time to release the Holy Spirit into the world. How? Ask God and in a still small voice, He will tell you. The best gift of this current situation is time itself to pay attention to the voice of God. 

Jesus’s words from today’s gospel came to me, “’I am the Son of God’. If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” The Father is recognizable in our works and there are plenty of good news stories out there right now of the Spirit moving people to do those works. Look for those stories and when you find one, share it with as many people as you can. These stories and the sharing of our faith will be the anchor of hope that pulls us through this. Testimony is one of the most powerful ways to increase people’s faith and that is what we need. So share what God is doing in your life or in other’s lives. It will be the kind of infectiousness that we need to counter the hopelessness that keeps creeping in day by day. 

Jesus has claimed his oneness with the Father in several gospels as of late, and it is this very claim that has challenged those that still can’t see. However, for those of us that do have the eyes of our hearts open, it is a message of great hope to know that we too are one with our Father. This resemblance might make others uncomfortable, or jealous, or question our realness, but all we need to do is let the one we resemble step in front and shield us from those flying stones of not knowing. When we sit in the presence of the Father, we begin to reflect Him, and in the absence of human contact, we are being called to a deeper and more creative way to make Him known. How will you infect the world today? It is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 JER 20:10-13

I hear the whisperings of many:
“Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!”
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
“Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him.”
But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
In their failure they will be put to utter shame,
to lasting, unforgettable confusion.
O LORD of hosts, you who test the just,
who probe mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause.
Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
For he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!

Responsorial Psalm 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7

R.    (see 7)  In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
I love you, O LORD, my strength,
O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.
R.    In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
My God, my rock of refuge,
my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!
Praised be the LORD, I exclaim,
and I am safe from my enemies.
R.    In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
The breakers of death surged round about me,
the destroying floods overwhelmed me;
The cords of the nether world enmeshed me,
the snares of death overtook me.
R.    In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
In my distress I called upon the LORD
and cried out to my God;
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
R.    In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.

Verse Before The Gospel JN 6:63C, 68C

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life;
you have the words of everlasting life.

Gospel JN 10:31-42

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him,
“We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them,
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.

He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
“John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true.”
And many there began to believe in him.