“Priorities Cost and Bless”
There are seasons to everything in life. The season of Autumn teaches us about the priority of “Letting Go and Getting Back.” Our lives are shaped by our priorities, by who and what we love and what we do or resist doing, to keep our values alive! Our priorities tell us who we really are. Still, for many of us, having and living out of our priorities, is no easy task! We can so easily lose sight of who and what really matters.
The readings for the thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time remind us clearly, that what we do or don’t do to others will certainly come back to us, affecting the overall quality of our lives now and in the future. Jesus emphatically taught the love of God and neighbor, not just with words, but by his lived example. His way of loving, always a “Yes” to his Father, exemplified a “letting go and a getting back.” We call it the Paschal Mystery.
Skeptics may reason, “But Jesus was God”, suggesting he had an advantage at living out his priorities. What can God expect from us ‘ordinary folks’? Going outside, I stepped into Autumn and saw a small part of creation working at its best. I wondered, what keeps nature so single-minded and focused on its priorities? I rested near a clump of trees. Each year at this time, ‘ordinary trees’ know how to “Let go”. Their leaves are set free from the branches, they carpet the earth with rich hues of yellow, orange, reds, purples and amber. Come Springtime, green foliage bursts out on branches in buds, shoots, and new leaves.
The trees’ priority is fullness of life! What makes it happen is its letting go of what has run its course, to be open to what’s to come! Each branch creates a space to receive nascent life waiting to emerge in the next season. Trees trust in the Creator, their Source of Life. They “let go generously and, I like to think, receive back” gratefully! When our loving reflects that kind of ‘letting go’, we can be confident that we will ‘get back’ what we have given, in abundance.
For those of us hesitating to live out of our priorities, the “letting go” of trees may serve as good example. By being true to their priorities, the trees connect us to this truth: that
fullness of life always requires many ongoing ways of “letting go”. And what we “get back” is a newness in life, much more than we could ask or imagine. Priorities do matter for all of God’s creation. They call us to “let go”, so that we may live our best selves fully!
Sister Mary Louise Swift, CSFN
