Following the cloud and the flame: following the mystery of God and his divine light.

The cloud represented God's constant presence with His people.

A tangible manifestation of His covenant with them. 

 

St. Ignatius of Loyola, priest

If our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, we are guilty of heresy!

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Exodus 40:16-21,34-389

Moses did this;

He did exactly as the Lord had commanded him. The Holy Tent was set up on the first day of the first month in the second year.

Moses set up the Holy Tent. He fixed the bases for it, put up its frames, put its crossbars in position, set up its posts.

He spread the tent over the Holy Tent and on top of this the covering for the tent, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

He took the Covenant and placed it inside the Ark. He set the poles to the Ark in place and put the mercy seat on it.

He brought the Ark into the Holy Tent and put the screening veil in place; thus he screened the Ark of the Lord, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

 

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting and the Glory of the Lord filled the Holy Tent.

Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because of the cloud that rested on it and because of the Glory of the Lord that filled the Holy Tent.

At every stage of their journey, whenever the cloud rose from the Holy Tent the people of Israel would continue their march.

If the cloud did not rise, they waited and would not move their camp until it did. For the cloud rested on the Holy Tent by day,

and a fire shone within the cloud by night for all the house of Israel to see. And so it was for every stage of their journey.

 

Ps 84:3, 4, 5-6a & 8a, 11 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God!

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊     

Matthew 13:47-53

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a big fishing net, let down into the sea, in which every kind of fish has been caught.

When the net is full, it is dragged ashore. Then they sit down and gather the good fish into buckets, but throw the bad away.

That is how it will be at the end of time; the angels will go out to separate the wicked from the just,

and to throw the wicked into the blazing furnace, where they will weep and gnash their teeth."

 

Jesus asked, "Have you understood all these things?""Yes," they answered. So he said to them, "

Therefore, every teacher of the law, who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven,

is like a householder, who can produce from his store things both new and old."

When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"God's ways are greater than our imagining."

The stages of the long journey of the people of Israel to the Promised Land were made in response to the Lord's commands.

They waited on the Lord, and at his prompting, they would set off once again, following the Lord's signs of cloud and flame.

Following the cloud and the flame: following the mystery of God and his divine light.

This is what Saint Ignatius of Loyola taught people to do through his method of prayerful discernment.

 

The symbols of cloud and flame tell us that God's ways are greater than our imagining

and yet we are given the light of insight to understand what he wills for us and for all of humanity through God's revelation.

God sets his Law in our hearts and enshrines it in the Ten Commandments. Just as Moses placed the ark of the Covenant

with the tablets of the Commandments at the heart of the Tent of Meeting,

so God's commandments become the core of our discernment of what God wants us to do; the solid point from which we begin.

Our activity needs to be accompanied by daily prayer so that our compass for life reads a true course.