\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0“The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence.”\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we just heard.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, indeed, you, the elect, those who have a grasp of the Kingdom of God, those who are committed to Jesus Christ, suffer violence in this world, just as Jesus could see the forces of evil marshalling against His disciples and Himself.\u00c2\u00a0 They were poised to do violence, and they did.\u00c2\u00a0 It will always be so in this world, because the Kingdom of God is not of this world.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so, expect it, expect the suffering that comes with the challenge of living in this world even as you are attached to the Kingdom.\u00c2\u00a0 The suffering is all around us in the form of sickness and infirmity; problems in relationships, job losses and economic difficulties and yes, even random acts of violence done to us.\u00c2\u00a0 None of us are exempt from the realities of suffering in this world. not even those who have all the money in the world.\u00c2\u00a0 The local news testifies to that.\u00c2\u00a0 We are like the people Isaiah speaks of in the first reading, “maggot Israel”- what a metaphor!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sometimes we feel like it too, for as Isaiah says: “The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain”.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, we must never forget that the Lord is always there for us, and like anybody that is on a long journey, the goal is to get through all of the inconveniences, and yes, even sometimes pain, to get to the other side safely.\u00c2\u00a0 If we believe and trust in the Lord, then it will happen for us, and even as dramatically as Isaiah predicts this morning, because trusting in the Lord, all of us can experience the desert being changed into a marshland. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Thursday of the 2nd Week in Advent Is 41: 13-20; Mt 11: 11-15 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00c2\u00a0“The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence.”\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we just heard.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, indeed, you, the elect, those who have a grasp of the Kingdom of God, those who are committed to Jesus Christ, suffer violence in this world, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93"}],"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=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}