Reflections from the Heart – June 13, 2021

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” If we stop to honestly ponder the immensity of God’s beauty and the gracious gift of creation and to do so with a sincere intention, a silent heart and a willing spirit we would come to know the great love God has for us, his beloved children, his special creation. Ultimately, in our mediation of God’s graciousness, we will come to experience his divine kingdom in our hearts, in the beauty that surrounds us and in our daily lives. It is a great kingdom of love, a kingdom of great joy, a kingdom of everlasting peace, a kingdom of radiant glory.  It is the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is to be entered into with deep respect and a great reverence for what is holy, what is heavenly and what is divine. We need to encounter God’s Kingdom in great want, in loving silence, in awe and wonder and with a complete and total surrender free of anxiety, free of distractions, free of noise. We must enter God’s Kingdom with a holy desire of encountering God’s awesomeness so that God’s Kingdom may fully enter into us so that we may more fully enter God’s Kingdom. We are encouraged to pray as Jesus taught us and want to pray as the Saints have shown us. We should carve out time every day to pray and be with God. To pray and contemplate the vastness and greatness of his creation with its universes and galaxies, with its awesome skies and stars that are so beyond our reach, so beyond our grasp. We must long for prayer, desire it, long for it in order to penetrate the awesomeness of God’s works.  His works in the heavens and those on the earth.  The endless mountain ranges, the unfathomable depths of the oceans and seas, the host of angelic and celestial beings and the whole of creation that is so beyond our comprehension, so beyond our understanding that our minds cannot fully understand it but we can experience it and appreciate it in prayer and with great joy. In prayer, we can enter into the great and awesome mysteries of God. We can enter into his sacred presence. We can enter into the heart of our Creator. We can enter the great Kingdom of God.