22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

22 ^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
 
I would make a terrible Pharisee. I couldn’t be keeping all those laws all the time. Do my head in. There were over 600 of them. I suspect people couldn’t come or go without breaking some law or other. It would drive me crazy. I am more of your middle road kind of person. I think there should be a “reasonableness” about life. I am not one for the extremes. I am happy staying in the middle. The Pharisees seem to pick on everyone. They were always hounding Jesus and His Apostles. Nothing was ever good enough. You are always unclean, unwashed, and not purified enough. I want to walk away. I don’t keep a spotless house. I don’t wash my dishes all the time. I do lots of things when I feel like it. I do lots of things tomorrow. Nobody died, so why get so het up about it. That’s all I’m saying. In the first reading Moses gives the people a pep talk before they cross the river to get to their Promised Land. It is the kind of talk parents give to their children before they leave home to go into the big wide world. Remember everything we taught you. Make us proud. Let others say about you, “this great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.” Every parent wants to hear strangers say about their children, “Your children are a credit to you. You must be very proud.” Unfortunately, Moses words were not long in being forgotten. Isn’t that the way of our children? We teach them everything to equip them for life. Then they go away and forget everything they have been taught and make an absolute fool of themselves. Truly, once a parent, you are a parent for life. You have to keep an eye on your children. You have to constantly remind them of what they have been taught. Whether they choose to listen or not, that is up to them. Paul has something to add to this. He says, “Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.” We prepare our children for life every way that we can think of. Then they must go forth and get on with it. We hope they have learned some of life’s lessons from us. More than likely they will get into all kinds of mess and decide to learn about life the hard way. Once they have figured it out they will probably write a book about it and become a best seller. Hate them already. I might write my own book, “Confessions of a frustrated Shepherd.”
With love, Fr. Pat