JOY AND RESPONSIBILITY
If I was to sum up the message in our readings today it is that we are not forgotten, nor must we forget. Through the Letter to the Hebrews, which we hear from in our second reading today, we are reminded that “God deals patiently with the ignorant and the erring.” That even when we wander off, when we turn away, God brings us back. From the ends of the earth, God gathers us together – even those we thought we lost or those we ourselves turned away and outcast – “the blind, the lame”, and the like – God brings us “as an immense throng”.
And though we have every reason to wallow in our sorrow for our own abandonment of God, and God’s people, God console and guides and even calls us as representatives.
Even those of us once blind are called to have courage and follow the voice of God who not only heals our pain, but helps us find our place in the community.
Indeed God has done great things for us. How can we be filled with anything, but joy?