Reaching out in trust

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Welcome to the Saturday Examen.

This week’s readings have circled repeatedly around the themes of seeing rightly and reaching out in trust. On Monday, a man with a withered hand was asked to stretch it out before he knew whether healing would come. On Tuesday, Joseph said yes to something he did not understand, trusting a word given to him in sleep. Where this week have you been asked to act in trust before being certain of the outcome?

Wednesday’s beatitudes turned the world’s values upside down, blessing the poor and warning the comfortable, and gave us the example of Peter Claver, who chose to live among the despised rather than the secure. Thursday pressed the point further still, asking us to love enemies and to be merciful simply because God is merciful, not because it is deserved or safe. How have you found yourself resisting, or being drawn towards, that kind of costly generosity this week?

Friday reminded us how easily we mistake our own blindness for clear sight, quick to notice the speck in another’s eye while missing the log in our own. Have you noticed any of your own blind spots this week, perhaps in how you have judged someone, or in an assumption made too quickly?

Underneath all these readings lies a single invitation: to trust God enough to stretch out your hand, to love without calculating the cost, and to look honestly at yourself before looking too hard at others. As you look back over this week, where have you felt most free, and where have you felt most withered or closed? Take time now to bring both to God, asking for whatever grace you most need as this week draws to a close.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

World without end

Amen