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REFLECTING ON GOD'S WORD
A while ago the Lysol® brand of cleaning products was promoting a new toilet brush, one that has the liquid cleanser and disinfectant stored inside the handle. Television became its midwife, promoting it as the new generation of toilet bowl cleaners. The ad concluded with a series of housewife testimonials, the final one of which attested, "It has changed my life!" It was but another appeal to our hidden longing that our lives be made new. Or consider the abundance of television makeover programs, even a surgical makeover the "extreme" makeover. Each of us in some way longs to be made new, sometimes vicariously and sometimes personally.
One of the paradoxes of life is that the more we seek ourselves, the more we lose our-selves; and the more we are willing to lose ourselves, the more we find ourselves. It is, of course, only another way of speaking about love. It seems to be a simple rule of thumb.If your life is in chaos or disarray, if you find yourself unsettled and discombobulated,then forget about your own life and begin to focus on the lives of others. It is how love works, if indeed love does any work at all. It is love that makes us new. It is the ultimate makeover, simply because God is love.
Weapons and war will never create peace; only compassion will, and justice, and heart felt care for all of humanity. Punishment and the inhumane conditions of prison life Will never remake the soul of one who is incarcerated, only hope for a future and a nurturing of the human spirit will. More liturgical regulations and prescriptions will never bring deepening faith life to our eucharistic assemblies; only love for one another will, and the healing we so desperately need.
- - Rev. Joseph J. Juknialio
