Gospel Reflection – Thursday 12th week Ordinary Time Doing the Father’s will

Fr Prodencio Bognay reads from Matthew’s Gospel (7: 21-29) in which Jesus says everyone who listens to his words and acts on them will be like a sensible man who builds his house on good foundations.

Fr Prodencio says, if we think of the Kingdom of Heaven as those heavenly experiences that we can have in this world, we can understand the words of Jesus from our gospel today saying, “It is not those who say to me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my father in heaven.”

It is very much easy to call on the Lord’s name and even put all our trust in him. We can really be convinced that our Lord would take good care of us because of his great love but unless we accompany our full trust with actions expressing our faith, we would never have a glimpse of heavenly experiences.

It is a sad reality, Fr Prodencio says, that faith is sometimes equated to plain trust or even to irrational hopes. Jesus asserts that believing means choosing a particular way of life in order to experience what we are convinced with. It is about choosing to build a house founded on stone in order to be safe from the wrath of storm.

We do believe that we have a heavenly Father who is loving. For us to experience or encounter his love, our way of life has to be in search for such heavenly love.

In closing, Fr Prodencio reminds us, it is not enough that we believe in God and just put it aside while we become busy in our day-to-day living. Jesus says that what is needed is that we make ourselves busy building our way to the heavenly kingdom.