Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s first reading we have the beautiful image of a potter sitting and molding clay into a beautiful vessel. Many events in our life shape us. These events shape how we look at our neighbor, how we pray to our God , and how we look to the future. The image of the potter offers us a chance to meditate today on how these events in our lives are not random or chance, but are instances of the Lord’s provident work in our lives. Through the way the Lord works in our lives, He shapes and forms us.
Think of Mother Teresa, soon to be canonized as the great saint of mercy. She was weak and could only do little things. Yet, she was attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and saw her encounters with the poor of Calcutta as encounters arranged by the Lord. She put herself into the hands of the Lord and He shaped her into an instrument of His peace. Her poverty fed thousands, because it was filled with the Presence of God. Let us allow the Lord to form us. Let us look for the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the events of today and seek to cooperate with God’s Providence at work in our lives.