<\/p>\n
I have not been with you for the last three weeks.\u00a0 Rather, my wife and I have been away on vacation.\u00a0 We visited our son in Seattle and took an Alaskan Cruise.\u00a0 When I read this morning\u2019s first reading, I couldn\u2019t help but recall both of these experiences from our trip,\u00a0 because the works of God had been so manifest in both of them.<\/p>\n
You see, my oldest son was told long ago that he couldn\u2019t have children.\u00a0\u00a0 But when my son and his wife picked us up at the airport, it was clear that his wife was carrying a child.\u00a0 It was their joyous surprise for Jane and I, and the answer to many, many prayers.\u00a0 For what seemed so impossible was all of a sudden a reality. And this, truly, was something of the heart- a deep longing for fulfilment had been realized.\u00a0 It was truly an answer to a prayer, and a manifestation of the wonderful works of God. What a joyous dinner we all had that night celebrating.<\/p>\n
And then there were the multiple works of God that manifest themselves on that cruise. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire cruise. And in fact, it was in the 70\u2019s, clear and cloudless, with bright sunshine at all three Alaskan ports we visited. The scenery was just magnificent, we were even blessed with an unfettered view of a Bald Eagle in the wild.\u00a0 Words cannot express the beauty of the world we visited in those 7 days. Yes indeed, as Sirach says, \u201cAs the rising sun is clear to all, so the glory of the Lord fills all his works.\u201d<\/p>\n
My wife and I returned to reality earlier this week. And that\u2019s when the words of the Gospel Reading struck me. Clearly, I had been blessed with vision of the wonderful works of God while I was on vacation- both works of the heart, and the physical beauty in the world around us. Like the beggar whose eyes were opened by the Lord, the cruise and my son\u2019s announcement opened our eyes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But when we are living our day to day lives, we can easily be blind, blind to the goodness that God works in our daily lives, and blind to the beauty of the world around us.<\/p>\n
Indeed, each of us is blessed by talents, gifts, relationships, and environments which carry the same goodness and glory of the creator with them\u00a0 that these gifts God gave us on our vacation do. We have only to open our eyes, and see them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the 8th Week of Ordinary Time Sirach 42: 15-25; Mark 10: 46-52 Deacon Larry Brockman I have not been with you for the last three weeks.\u00a0 Rather, my wife and I have been away on vacation.\u00a0 We visited our son in Seattle and took an Alaskan Cruise.\u00a0 When I read this morning\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[345],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}