June 28, 2020 - 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

(2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a; Rom 6:3-4, 8-11; Mt 10:37-42)

In today's first reading a woman of Shunem shows some kindness to the prophet Elisha by inviting him to dinner and by providing him a place to stay overnight. It was not a grand gesture – just a small thing. But because of her small kindness, God blessed her in her advanced age with a son. Even small things have great meaning to God. Not all of us are called to worldwide renown as spectacular saints. It's a mistake to judge our value in the kingdom of God based on renown in this world. As Mother Teresa said, “Do small things with great love.” That is what the woman of Shunem did. In today's Gospel Jesus tells us we must take up our cross to follow him. If we search primarily for a life of ease and comfort, we will lose our life – our real life in the Spirit. If God grants us ease or comfort, that is a blessing from God, and we can be thankful for it. Sometimes our cross is not so hard to bear and sometimes it is harder. But ease and comfort cannot be the primary goals of our life. When it comes to accepting the Lord, half-hearted or partial acceptance is not sufficient. Jesus says we are to love him more than father or mother or daughter or son. This sounds like a very hard saying, until we realize that God loves those people in our lives infinitely more than we do. By trusting on God's love above all, we are actually loving our family more than we could have loved them on our own.

• The unnamed “woman of Shunem” was a woman of influence – probably richer than her neighbors. It seems like she has all the advantages, until we hear that she is getting on in years, but has not had a son. When you learned that she would likely never have a son, did that change your perception of her? Are there other people you know of today that seem to have it all, but are also hurting in some way?
• In the second reading, St. Paul tells us that to share in the life of Christ, we must be baptized into his death. Words for “death” and “dead” appear nine times in this one reading. What does this emphasis on death mean to you, especially in light of the last line where Paul says we must be “dead to sin”?
• In the Gospel, Jesus says “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.” What do you think he meant by “a prophet's reward?”