Daily Scriptures Reflection for 10/26/12

Daily Scriptures Reflection for Friday

Scripture: Lectionary 477. Oct.26. Ephesians 4:1-6. Psalm 24:1-2.3-4. 5-6. Luke 12:54-59:

Our reading from Ephesians leads us into the second main part of the epistle which extends from our passage to Eph. 6:20. We will be reading or listening to three successive exhortations from the Apostle Paul or one of the Pauline writers who knew the traditions and writings of Paul so well. Paul pulls all of us into his prayerful writing at this point; he intercedes and pleads for us through the exhortations that follow.

He prays as we do these days for peace and for unity. In the first part he prayed and presented the ontological or being and existing meaning of peace and unity; now he gives us the more “doing” or moral dimension of unity and peace. Virtues are stressed in his prayer. We are to be humble, meek, patient, and bearing up with one another lovingly.

The unity is so well expressed at the end of our first reading: “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of us all, who is over all, works through all, and is all.”

For the fullness of unity and life (pleroma) Paul gives us a Trinitarian approach which helps us in our prayer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. His use of the word Lord is Jesus as resurrected from the dead and living in and with us in the Church. The Holy Spirit is the binding force for the peace and unity Paul is exhorting us to have. God is seen as the Creator and Fullness of all that is in the created world and universe.

Our inspired writer is described as “qualifying God with the notion of transcendence and omnipresence. He evinces the Trinitarian structure of this thought in the following passages of Ephesians (1:3,14. 2:18,22; 3:4-5).” FR. Lionel Swain.

Jesus speaks of how we as followers should not only read the signs of nature but also with accuracy the “signs of the times.” This thought is developed in Ignatius of Antioch and then as part of the Vatican II message for social justice, care for the poor, reconciliation, peace, and diligent care of all of creation. Amen.