Celebration of God's Loving Care

 Reflection on Today's Readings, Friday, 26th Week in Ordinary Time Year II, and the Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels, October 2, 2020

Texts: Job 38:1.12-21; Ps.139:1-3.7-10.13-14; Luke 10:13-16

Today we celebrate and honour our guardian angels. We celebrate in our guardian angels God's loving care for us; he loves us and cares about us that he gives us the heavenly spirits to guard us on earth. In the memorial's office of the reading, St. Bernard says, "'He has given his angels charge of you, to guard you in all your ways.' Let the Lord be thanked for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to the sons of men. Let the nations praise him and say that the Lord has done great things for them. Lord, what is man that you make so much of him, that you are solicitous for him, you care for him." Today's Readings also remind us of God's love and care for us.

 A renown philosopher, Aristotle, says, 'philosophy begins in wonder'. Wonder stimulates thinking. As we wonder, we think and look for the reason behind the wonder. Today's first reading shows that God is the reason behind every wonder. God design his creation in such a way that it raises our minds to him; creation often reminds us of God's existence. Our nature, the world and the happenings around us are meant to create the awareness of God. Hence, it is said, "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 'Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know it's place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?" God asked Job so many other questions to awaken him to the wonders around him (Job) which speaks of his (God's) presence. At trying moment when we are growing weary and start to doubt the presence of God, let us look around to see his wonders: the succession of night and day, how we come into being, the world, the events around us, and so many other things. Our existence itself is a proof of God's existence, we could have not been a product of chance or a quirk of fate. If we are not a product of a quirk of   fate, then there is a being behind our existence and that being is God.

Jesus Christ, in today's gospel reading, rebuke the peoples of Bethsaida and Capernaum for their blunt refusal to see the presence of God in the wonders he worked among them. He says, "Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes."

God has hemmed us in and we have no means of escape  any longer: by our own nature, the world and the happenings around us he manifests his presence, and finally he has come down to us to win us over by his mighty works. Dear friends, we have no excuse any longer, let us submit ourselves to him, for his existence is evident to us.

Lord our God, we thank you for the gift of guardian angels to us, may we always live to deserve their services. Amen.

Rev. Fr. Andrew Olowomuke