As you prepare for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 31 & August 1, 2010)... Read Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17. Read the text aloud several times, giving meaning to each word. Notice how you speak it--to which words do you give the emphasis? Whisper it and see what syllables are stressed. Now chant this text on a single tone in natural speech rhythm--but not too fast--paying close attention to the emphases you just discovered! Psalm 90, from which this week's responsorial psalm is taken, contrasts the stability and steadfastness of God with the uncertainty and transcience of human life. The verses used in the lectionary express Israel's prayer that God teach them true assessment of their life and work. As the first reading, Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23, indicates, they already realize hard work and physical possessions give no sure value. What is worth possessing is the kind and gracious care of God. In the gospel readng, Luke 12:13-21, Jesus affirms this stance when he challanges hearers to turn from evaluating their worth based on physical possessions to evaluating it based on being "rich in what matters to God." It is significant that the psalm refrain is taken, not from Psalm 90, but from Psalm 95, a psalm that refers to the infidelity of Israel's ancestors during their desert exodus from salvery to the Promised Land. No matter how much God gave them (water, manna), they constantly whined that they did not have enough. The lectionary's choice of this refrain, Psalm 95:8, is acknowledgment that reckoning our days and assessing our worth in God's terms is always a challenge. May this be the work God prospers in us. Prayer: Loving God, you offer us abundant life in you. Teach us to treausre you and your will above all earthly possessions so that we may come to share in your eternal life. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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