9 May 2018
“Glory” is one of those words we use all the time. And Jesus gives us a clue as to what it
means. He says, “the Spirit of truth
[the Holy Spirit]…will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and
declare it to you.” To “glorify” God is
essentially to pass onto others what he has given us.
Jesus talks about the flowers of the field and how they give
more glory to God than Solomon in all his splendor. And that’s because they simply take the
nature that God has given them, and they let it shine. The psalm today says that “heaven and earth
are full of your glory.” Everything from
the stars and the sun, to the angels and humanity, to the little bugs that
crawl around in the dirt gives glory to God.
It all passes on, it all makes known, the creativity in the mind of God. It all reveals something of God. And so, it all glorifies God.
The thing about glorifying God, though, is that it doesn’t
matter if anyone notices. The flowers of
the field glorify God, even if nobody takes the time to notice. When Saint Paul was out and about telling
people about God and sharing what God had done for him, he was glorifying
God. Whether or not anybody got on board
with him was beside the point. He wasn’t
looking for numbers; he was just out sharing God with others.
And that’s an important lesson for us. We glorify God by sharing his gifts to us
with others: our talents, our strengths, our aptitudes, our experiences. Some do it in really big, public ways; others
do it quietly as they just go through daily life. But our goal in glorifying God isn’t
necessarily to increase Mass attendance.
Our goal is to simply glorify God, to share him with others, and to then
let the chips fall where they may.
Whether or not anybody stops to notice God’s glory is beside
the point. Our duty, our pleasure is to
simply glorify God, in all the little (or big) ways we share him, as his sons
and daughters.
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