Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your Spirit. A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke Glory to you, O Lord. When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
Just as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons in accordance with the dictate of the law of the Lord.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord, he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying, now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all the peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel.
The child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about him, and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phaneuel of the tribe of of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage and then as a widow until she was 84.
She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer and coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. The Gospel of the Luke Praise to.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: You, Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: I need to apologize a little bit. I know I've probably annoyed a few of you by talking about the lions so much so I won't do that today. I'm going to talk about the Pistons instead.
But for those of you who are old enough, you remember that that Pistons team from the late 80s and early 90s, the one that won back to back NBA championships, had a particular individual who played for the team who usually didn't come in to the last maybe five minutes of the game, particularly if they were losing.
His name was Vinnie Johnson and he had a nickname. Anybody want to say the nickname the Microwave. The reason why they called him that was because it didn't take him but a few seconds to warm up and he would start dropping three pointers and charging hard to the hole and was a tough player those last minutes of a game and usually brought them up over the top.
Well, the reason why I bring Vinnie Johnson up and particularly his nickname was because I think that's most of our secret nickname for God, the Microwave.
The reason why I say that is because, and I guess you've all, at least one time or another prayed for God to change something going on in your life. Perhaps it was for healing for someone you love or healing for yourself.
Perhaps it was to mend a friendship that was tattered and you were unable to find the way.
Or perhaps even it was, uh, oh, I'm not prepared for this test I'm about to take.
But we've all prayed for things and for things to change, but we also expect the answer right now. And we expect that answer to be exactly what we think is best.
Now the problem with that is that because God is eternal, the answers don't always fall into what our time frame is, particularly those quick answers.
And the second part is equally important.
The answers we get are always, and I would argue without exception, better than what we wanted.
Because God knows and loves us better than we know ourselves.
Now, what does that have to do with the Scriptures?
Well, Simeon and Anna weren't like that.
They were extremely profoundly patient.
And we can see that in spite of not seeing things they were expecting, in spite of not knowing exactly how God was going to change the world in his son Jesus Christ, they kept praying, they kept coming to the temple, they kept trusting.
And what they both found was that the answers that they received, the revelation that was made present for them, was better than they were looking for and was more profoundly rooted in the perfect love of God that God has for all of us.
So next time you pray especially for something to change in your life, don't wait for the quick answer, just wait for the right answer.
