The roadway to understanding where God calls us comes to us through the quiet of reflective prayer, through a genuine effort to build a personal spirituality. Already Catholic newspapers are reporting the "results" of the recently concluded Bishops Synod on the Bible. In Pope Benedict's homily at the conclusion of the Synodal liturgy, we are reminded that our reading and praying with verses of scripture is not successful if our lives are not impacted.
Specifically the Holy Father, supporting the Bishops' recommendations preached that a significant result of our reading and praying, using verses of scripture, is our way to understanding not only God's will for us, not only ourselves but is a way for us to come to a genuine love and understanding of others. The Pontiff and the Bishops call us to realize that using the Bible for our prayer will help us in understanding others ... not just Catholic "others."
Scripture study and prayer are avenues to our love all human beings ... from non-Catholic Christians to Orthodox Christians, to the Jewish community, to Muslims and Buddhists. If we reflect on the Word of God we encounter in the Bible -- on Jesus himself as well as the word of God written in the Bible, we open our hearts and minds to a willing openness to others. It is a call to a genuine unity, a kind described in today's first reading (Philippians 2:1-4)
"... complete my joy by being of the same mind with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.... Humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also everyone for those of others."
Aren't most people tired of wars, the conflicts that have ravaged many places and end many lives in the last ten years? It is not surprising, then, that there is growing among many the desire to see diplomacy become more the fare of our daily efforts to achieve a new way of living among all peoples?
Praying and studying the words in the Bible will bring us to realize a genuine Christ-like outreach or service as the peace that is just outside our doors!
