Dear Friends,
Many of us are satisfied with the familiar and the comfortable and are reluctant to push ourselves further. If this is so, we can say of ourselves that we have a limited horizon.
Everyone has a horizon – the limit of our thinking, experience, interest or outlook.
When Robert Louis Stevenson was coughing out his life, suffering with a lung disease, his wife Fanny walked into the bedroom. Looking at her wasting husband, she challenged him:
“I suppose you are going to tell me it’s a glorious day.”
“Yes,” the author replied, looking at the sunlight streaming through the window.
"I refuse to let a row of medicine bottles be my horizon."
A row of something or other may be our own personal horizon, but God calls us to push out that horizon so that we can see life through a wide-angled lens and a telescope, not just with a microscope or the unaided eye.
Today’s readings tell us to have enough faith to expand our personal horizons.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author reminds us that
faith is the confident assurance about what we hope for
and conviction about things we do not see.
In this year of being pilgrims of hope, we are called to push beyond the limits of expectations about our lives, our culture, our political atmosphere.
Abraham certainly did. His age alone would have been enough for him to believe that life had passed him by.
But he got the word, and he went, not knowing where he was going. His destination was over the horizon.
That was the case of the people caught in slavery in Egypt. The reading from Wisdom in today’s liturgy offers a retrospective glance at the Exodus. The people were told beforehand that they would be saved. This was to give them the courage to cross their horizon. They went, we recall, but they grumbled, lost faith, turned against their leadership, only to regret their lack of faith and go on.
And then there is Jesus. What began with Abraham reached its high point in Jesus.
Jesus’ stories about what happens beyond the horizon.
Today’s parable of the master who came home late happily to find his servants up and waiting for him is also a story of what happens beyond the horizon of the immediate. They never would have anticipated that he would kick off his sandals, put on an apron and serve them a meal.
Jesus seems to be saying that over the horizon of waiting there is a new relationship with the master. Not promotion. Not praise. The master serves the servants. Neither the servants nor we see or expect this from the vantage point of a long night of waiting.
So much of life is beyond what we can see. Moreover, what is beyond our horizon is the unexpected friendship with God.
Even though our paths through these summer days are unique, shall we meet together on the coming horizon?
~ Sister Joan Sobala
