Father Vince asked about what happens when the bread wrapper or cereal box is left open. The answer was the cereal or bread goes stale. It looses its freshness and becomes to hard or soft and is not pleasant to our liking. If proper care is not taken these things can go stale. Relationships can also go stale as well if we don’t give them due attention or don’t nurture them. A relationship can go down hill when we don’t regularly communicate or do so in negative ways such as always complaining, criticizing, or being discouraging. This can hurt relationships with spouse, children, family, friends, and most importantly God. When we are being negative or complaining we are thinking of ourselves and not about others. Father Vince recommended humility as being the way to preserve a relationship from going stale.
The Pharisee in today’s readings was not being humble. He was only praying about himself and how good he was in being in right relationship with God. His prayers turned negative about others who he thought of as sinners. If he was humble he would have realized he was a sinner as well and needed God to help him. The tax collector was a model of humility praying, “God have mercy on me, for I am a sinner”. This was some good advice to keep in mind in our prayers to God to help preserve our relationship and keep it fresh. We need God and His mercy as we all have our faults, especially myself. It’s also some good advice to keep our relationships fresh with those close to ourselves. We all have things that that our loved ones may challenge us with. We could complain about it and strain the relationship, but in most cases it may be better to accept it in humility and preserve the relationship.
Have a blessed week and may God bless you!
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