Part of it

Having been reflecting on things that had happened thousands of years before (of which he had only heard stories), he suddenly realized something.

“Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on.”

This insight by a character in a famous epic novel (The Lord of the Rings) should resonate with each one of us, for each one of us participate somehow in long-running sequences of interconnected events: the story of our nation, the story of our ancestors through the ages, and most importantly the story of God’s relationship with mankind since the Beginning.

St. Paul reminds us of this in today’s first reading (Ephesians 2:19-22), albeit with the metaphor of a building rather than a great tale that runs throughout history:

You are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

We are not lost and lonely people trying to scratch out for ourselves a place and a path through the chaos of an unfeeling universe: God is making us part of the greatest narrative of all time and part of the dwelling place for Himself.

By the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, may we do our parts well.