Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
THE BURNING BUSH:
I AM HERE FOR YOU
God reveals himself as “the one who is there for you,” for his people. God created people free. When people rob themselves or others from their freedom, God’s love is wounded. For God is totally committed to people, to their struggles and sufferings, to their precious freedom. When his people is not free, God is not free. He committed himself so much to our freedom that he sent Jesus among us to free us from sin through his death on the cross.
Those open-hearted will understand Jesus and respond to him.
Reading 1: Ex 3:1-6, 9-12
3 1-2 Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.
3 Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”
4 God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”
5 God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”
6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.
9-10 “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 “I’ll be with you,” God said. “And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain.”
Gospel: Mt 11:25-27
25-26 Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”
27 Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.
Prayer
Fire that burns without being consumed,
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
you are our God, the God of people.
Make us fully conscious
that you have committed yourself to us
irrevocably and without regret.
Continue with us your adventure of love,
keep liberating us today
from the evil in us and in the world,
and lead us to your land of lasting freedom
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.