Most little children have complete faith and trust in their parents. They turn to them for their every need believing they can do anything, from soothing a pain to mending a toy. They live life with joy and abandon, just knowing that their parents are powerful and loving.
Looking back over our lives we can all remember difficult times when life was almost unbearable. Yet, years later it is hard to recall in detail how trying things were. If the results made it all worthwhile, then our memory draws a veil over the unpleasantness, the effort and the struggle. When times are easier, we forget what strength and determination we needed during those difficult days. Doing the will of God, according to the write of the first reading, requires endurance.
We have our own soul to save, but in getting to Heaven we have others who help us and we too, please God, will help others to get there. In this way the Church is essentially a community and we have obligations to each other as the first reading explains.
Jesus sacrificed Himself to death on the Cross to achieve the forgiveness of sin. He shed His Blood for everyone. But people must be ready to ask and to receive that forgiveness.
Offerings made by priests of the Old Testament law had no power to take away sins. This was because God is the one offended by sin, and only the God made Man, Jesus Christ, can bring about its forgiveness. He did it once and for all by His sacrifice on Calvary.
We are called in every Mass to express our love for God through gift giving. We do not offer God flowers, however beautiful, nor gold however precious. We do not offer God merely bread and wine, but bread and wine which is transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus, the most beautiful and precious gift possible.
Jesus came as man because He wanted to offer the perfect sacrifice of Himself to take away our sins. His gift of Himself to His Father was so precious because it conveyed all the love He had.
God is not limited by time. He has no past and no future. All is present for God. We cannot travel back in time, but God can make past events present to us today.
In the Mass God uses His almighty power to transcend time. He makes the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary present before us so that we may share in it. Jesus died only once and the Mass in no sense makes Jesus die again; rather this once-and-for-all sacrifice which He offered on the Cross is made present for us on the altar.
How did Zebedee, the father of James and John, feel when Jesus invited his sons to leave their livelihood and follow Him. Was he disappointed? Had he built up his business for his sons, hoping that one day when he retired they would be ready to take it over? Did he think that his sons were making a big mistake and throwing their lives away?
David's prayer in the first readings is one of gratitude. He had just received, through the prophet Nathan, a solemn promise from God that He would build a dynasty. This meant that David's line would not die out, and that one of his descendants would be the royal Messiah Whom we know to be Jesus Christ.
David was eager to build God a dwelling because he lived in a fine palace while the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God's presence among His people, was in a tent. But God spoke to David through the prophet Nathan telling him that it was his son, Solomon, who would build Him a temple. David's task was to unite his people.
