Morning Prayer with the Oblate Family: Sunday July 3rd

With Fr Dominik OMI

Good morning friends, today we join Fr Dominik of Our Lady of the Wayside parish, Dublin.

The Lord sends his disciples out in front of him to announce the nearing Kingdom of God – and still does so to this day. But what is this Kingdom of God? Isn’t the kingdom of God in Heaven?

Let us look at the “Our Father” prayer, in which we implore for the coming of the Kingdom of God when we say: “Thy Kingdom come.” What follows is the easiest explanation of what the Kingdom of God is: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The Kingdom of God will be when His whole creation will live under His reign; when sin, death and illness will be no more and His will is fulfilled. When there will be true peace.

That is why it is very appropriate for the messengers who announce the Kingdom of God, to begin with spreading His peace. The first thing they announce is not ‘convert!‘ or ‘turnaround!‘ as we sometimes see on signs beside the roads, but it is ‘Peace be to this house!’

Interestingly, the Lord says we should not go from house to house! Rather than spreading this message to as many people as possible, the Lord tells us to stay in one place. He wants us to build strong bastions of His Kingdom, for the peace coming from this household will radiate to the rest of society, and to those who have been taught will become teachers themselves.

It also shows that the announcement of the Kingdom of God is not done just by words, but also by deeds, by practice. That is why the Lord heals the sick, that is why he gives his disciples the power to heal: to show them a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

There are also two harsh admonishments in today’s Gospel. The first one refers to the city of Sodom. In the book of Genesis, we read that God sent his messengers to Sodom where they were received in a hostile manner. The sin of Sodom, which is the unwelcoming behavior of God’s messengers, led to the destruction of that city.

Here, Christ shows us once more, that God wants to show mercy and bring peace, but if people again reject God’s peace and be unwelcoming to His messengers, they will choose a fate even worse than that of Sodom.

And finally, Christ admonishes His disciples and reminds them that all the powers they possess: healing the sick, making the demons submit – all of them are not their own! They are rather the gifts from God to prepare His Kingdom, and they are not to be used with pride but with humility in serving God and His people. What they should rejoice in is that they are children of God, members of God’s Kingdom.

THINK today about the question: What shapes you, as the disciple of Christ?

Is it the joy and awareness that God’s Peace, God’s Kingdom dwells in you? Is it the Truth that God’s Love liberates you from the slavery of Sin to the Newness of live as the Child of the Most High?

Or perhaps, rather than that, there is still some remain of an Old Man, who boasts in what is worldly and sees the Church, God’s Message, God’s Kingdom as a comforting, but still just a fairy-tale, without abandoning the old ways of thinking and doing?

Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Will be done!

As it is in Heaven…

So may it be in Your Heart.

Thank you for joining, and have a blessed day!

Praised be Jesus Christ.

And Mary Immaculate.

Tags: morning prayer