A Little Bit
When I started writing this WFW entry, I was at a beautiful hotel lobby in the Midwest. It was a wonderful and rare trip for me as we entered the final months of sabbatical.
Welcome to Word for the Week, the series in which I:
share my experience of hearing God’s Word in Mass last weekend,
explore what I believe the Lord is calling me to do about that Word, and
ask how this Word might impact your life, as well.
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Hope you're having a wonderful Easter Season! We're looking back to Easter morning for this Word for the Week.
On Easter Sunday, David and I brought our three daughters to a morning Mass at our parish. (Our son, Jamal, attended his first Easter Vigil the night before.) We even arrived early enough to find a place to sit! The reading that stood out to me taught me a lot the ensuing week.
From the second reading, 1 Corinthians 5:6, "...a little yeast leavens all the dough."
I didn't understand what the yeast refered to, at first. I thought it sounded positive, akin to lyrics I penned, "A little bit goes a long way, a little joy can change somebody's day." Not to mention, leavened bread sounds great, yum!
That week, I was inspired to research the passage. I found several commentaries that indicated in this case leaven is a negative thing. Apparently, the Apostle Paul was extolling unleavened bread in his letter to the Corinthians!
In the analogy, leaven leads away from the goal—pulls us away from what God is calling us to be.
Unwittingly, I became very attentive to small actions the week following Easter Sunday, or the octave of Easter. Seemingly small reactions seemed to call for serious attention. I was able to identify when I was acting out of traumatic memories from the past, versus responding genuinely to the present moment.
One huge part of my current recovery journey (healing from disordered eating) is learning to trust others. That requires trust even in the small things. Which means distrust in the small things is displaced and needs to go.
The goal is to eliminate the "yeast" altogether.
This message feels negative to me, initially. It's about subtraction. But as I go back to the reading, I'm filled with great trust that the Lord also wants to supply something much better.
To quote Bishop Barron, "The first (Baptismal) promise is negative in form, which is only natural, for to set one's face is necessarily to set one's back." - wordonfire.org
I love those words. To set one's face is to set one's back.
It reminds me of the widow who gave the last of her food to the prophet Elijah, even in the midst of a famine. She emptied her jar. She turned her back on her own plan. And then her jar became filled, as she turned her face to God's plan.
Let’s pray?
Lord, sometimes giving up our own plans or even our own habits feels scary and unfamiliar. Please give us strength to let go of the unhelpful yeast, even in the small ways, so we can become what you're calling us to be.
Help us turn our back to whatever keeps us from you, and let the light of your face shine upon us.
Amen.
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