Matthew 6: 24-34
Jesus said to his disciples:
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Trusting God to Provide
A mother of several children once told me that today’s Gospel ran against the way she was educating her children—to be able to provide for themselves. On the other hand, my mother, a devout Catholic widow working hard to provide for us, taught us to always trust in God to provide for us in all circumstances. This lesson helped me later as the young pastor of a very poor parish with a nine-grade elementary school. It was often hard to trust God to provide for us, but we managed to do so, and, mysteriously, we had just enough money to pay salaries and bills each month.
I read today’s Gospel in tandem with the story of Jesus about the judgment of the nations (Mt 25:31-46), also in Matthew’s Gospel. This story tells us that we are meant to be the instruments God uses to provide for the needy, suffering, and struggling who may well be trusting God to provide.
Among the needy, suffering, and struggling are those we remember today, the 25th World Refugee Day. Those forcibly displaced from their homes number some 117.3 million in the world today. The current U.S. government has capped the total annual refugee admissions at a historic low of 17,500 people, most reserved for white Afrikaners from South Africa. On May 28, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference called for an expansion of refugee admissions, in favor of especially those persecuted for their faith.
—Fr. Bob Hagan, SJ, is a member of a community of senior Jesuits at Saint Ignatius Hall in Black Jack, Missouri. He does limited spiritual direction, mostly online; gives sacramental care to the lay Catholics at the adjacent retirement community; writes occasional reflections for Jesuit Prayer; posts various daily items and a longer weekly reflection on the Sunday Mass readings on his Facebook site at Bob Hagan SJ; and drives fellow Jesuits who no longer drive wherever they want to go.
Prayer
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
—Saint Teresa of Avila