Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering. He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin. Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them 'brothers.'

God sent us His Beloved Son so we might become brothers and sisters in Christ. God did not have to lower Himself and become flesh and blood. He did not need to be born of the Virgin Mary. He could have come to earth in any form and yet he choose to come as one of us. He choose to lower himself for a little while and become a helpless baby born of a young mother. He choose to grow up under obedience to his earthly parents. He remained hidden for thirty years of his life. As one of us, he must have suffered in a thousand little ways before He took up the mantle of Messiah. Bumps and bruises, lost loved ones, and other unrecorded troubles. And after he began proclaiming the Good News, he suffered even more... disappointments, rejections, mockery, and persecution. All culminating in his Passion and Death so he might rise again and bring with him the promise of the Resurrection. We would do well to remember this as we go through our lives. When we feel that God has abandoned us, we should look to the cross and remember Jesus bore great burdens for us and will never ask of us to carry more than we can bear.

Do we act like brothers and sisters in Christ? Have we mediated on what it means that God sent His Beloved Son into the world to live and die as one of us? How can we live more faithfully as the adopted children of God?

O Lord, we are not ashamed to call you our brother and our Savior.

Amen.