Daily Gospel Reflection

How to Crash Your Life

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the gospels, the genius of Catholicism, the genius of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, by taking a few moments to reflect on the gospel of the day. Today's gospel comes from Luke 17:20-25. Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is, or there for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you."' And he said to the disciples, "The days are coming will you desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it." And they will say to you, 'Lo there or low here, do not go. Do not follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation."' What jumps out at you today? Remember each day we're looking for a word or phrase or an idea to anchor our day in the gospels. The people of Jesus' time, they're looking for a sign. They're asking for signs. Asking for wonders, of course, right in their midst is the sign, is the wonder.

And the Pharisees are not able to see that. They're looking through that beyond that past Jesus and saying, "Well, give us a sign. When is the kingdom of God coming?" And Jesus says, "The Kingdom of God is in your midst. Don't be looking off there." And as we've spoken about here before, we can only ever find God in the now. We can't find God in the future. We can't find God in the past. We go into our past. It's helpful to learn things, but if we get lost in our path, we're going to separate ourselves from God by going into the past too much. It's like when you're driving a car, if you're looking in the rear view mirror, it's good to glance there from time to time, get a sense of what's going on. But if you try and drive your car, always looking in the rear view mirror, you will crash. Guaranteed, you will crash. And our lives are like that too. If we're constantly looking back, our lives will crash. And if we're constantly lost in plans or worries about the future, we separate ourselves from God in that way as well. And this is what Jesus is saying to the people today. It's here, it's in your midst. Be aware of what is before you right now, right here, today.

And so as we go into our day, let's think about that. How present are we to what we are actually doing? How present are we to the person who is right in front of us today? Or are we distracted by our phone or our notifications or what we have to do next or what we did last or these sorts of things. Gospel today is a call to be uniquely present to the moment. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.