Reflections on Sunday’s Mass: August 22, 2010

This weekend is the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today’s Scriptures remind us that God gathers a multitude of all nations and tongues at the welcome table. We are challenged by the urgency of the call, and the narrow door, to the feast – following Jesus’ way of love and service. God invites all – but each is free to respond. Will we follow in the way of Christ, and take up the mission of love and justice?

This weekend’s readings:

• Isaiah 66:18–21. The “third Isaiah” saw the Exile as a way to proclaim God’s glory in foreign lands and to draw all the nations to God.
• Hebrews 12:5–7, 11–13. How do Christians understand their suffering? This letter suggests that it is divine discipline, like a loving parent would give to a child.
• Luke 13:22–30. Jesus seems to have shared “Third Isaiah’s” view that salvation is wider than Israel. The way we come to fullness of life is to live and act like Jesus, “becoming least,” a servant of love, peace and justice to all.