Fourteenth of Year A - The Kingdom of God
July 2008
The Kingdom of Heaven is any person with whom God can abide comfortably.
The Kingdom of Heaven is any group of people with whom God can abide comfortably.
The Kingdom of Heaven abides totally in all persons in Eternal Life.
In this physical world the Kingdom of Heaven abides only in some persons and some groups of persons and then not totally.
Christianity is about becoming a person and a group of people, among whom God can comfortably live to a large extent.
The Kingdom of God is a person or group of persons who live by Kingdom values.
Kingdom values are mutual forgiveness, mutual tolerance, mutual support, compassion, generosity, love - in short selflessness.
The values of this world - the values by which the political world is run and the values by which the commercial or business world is run are most certainly not Kingdom values. Yet from time to time through the conviction and courage of individuals and groups of people we see Kingdom values leaking through like sudden bursts of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day.
So let’s work individually and together so that these bursts of Kingdom sunshine may sometimes illumine our parish of St. Patrick’s.