The other day I was in Bed Bath and Beyond and there were lots of people shopping.
All of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a scene.
Evidently this lady was looking at something and then she put it down and looked at something else.
When she turned around to pick it up again it was in the hands of another lady and there were no more on the shelf.
A huge discussion with lots of angry words ensued over a plastic cup for a coffee maker.
That’s mine…. no it’s mine I saw it first…. you put it down
The women got so angry
Remember getting gas during the power failure.
I saw a man wait for 45 minutes just like me and inadvertently pull in the wrong lane.
He had his wife’s car and he forgot where her gas tank was.
When he tried to get in the right line so he could fill up people thought he was cutting in line.
What a mess, more angry words.
You know that storm brought out the best and worst in us.
In the CVS I saw a woman go off the deep end when her daughter asked for gum.
I was so embarrassed for the woman who lost it
and it let me tell you she really lost it.
Everyone in the store could hear and everyone in the store was uncomfortable.
Living in the presence of anger and bitterness is never easy.
Sometimes I hear from married couples who are so frustrated.
She drives me crazy he drives me crazy.
I thought he would change.
Ladies take a look love them as they are because what you see is what you get and what you got.
The other day I was exhausted and fed, up worried about a multitude of things, and I allowed those darn seeds of resentment or anger to take root in my heart.
Sometimes we play the one bad conversation over and over in our mind and forget all the good ones…
Dumb Dumb Dumb
You know when you think about it being angry is a choice and being angry is the easy choice.
We can chose to be angry or chose to not be angry.
St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that
God wants and needs more from us.
Show me in the Gospel where it says be bitter.
Show me in the Gospel where it says be resentful
Yet quite frequently we hold on to our resentments for dear life.
We refuse to let go of our hard feeling for fear that someone will get the best of us.
I’ve known families siblings etc. who have been angry at each other for years…
Why?
Never forget…. your family is your family is your family let it go…
To combat our propensity to be angry and bitter
In the second reading St. Paul calls to root our lives in prayer
Pray without ceasing he says.
Sounds good but how do you do it?
I believe that praying without ceasing is more than string of Hail Marys.
Praying without ceasing is simply making ourselves constantly aware of God’s place in our lives day in and day out. 24/7 as the kids say.
When we live in the presence of God our lives becomes a prayer.
Prayer allows us to put things in perspective and sort out what is really important.
Living in the presence of God allows us to see things as God would have us see them and deal with them as God would have us deal with them.
All of us need to weed out anger and bitterness from our lives.
In this angry frightened world of ours;
in this world where the fuse is just very short
and so easy to light,
we need to live peace filled lives.
We need to forgive, live, and love like God would have us forgive live and love.
When we can accomplish this in our lives,
then like John the Baptist we can be a voice in the wilderness calling the world to be peace filled lives.
And only when we live peace filled
joyful lives in the presence of God we will
- bring glad tidings to the poor,
- heal the brokenhearted,
- proclaim liberty to the captives,
- and release to the prisoners,
You get the point….
This is Guadete AKA Joyful Sunday one of the two Sundays in the year when the priest gets to wear a vestment that looks like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
Today the Church reminds us that with God it is so very possible to live happy, peace filled, even joyful lives free from anger or bitterness.
And when we do we like John the Baptist we will Prepare the way of the Lord
No matter what challenges life throws our way.
Amen
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