Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A. Readings:
1) 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a
Psalm 89:2-3, 16-19
2) Romans 6:3-4, 8-11
Gospel: Matthew 10:37-42
One winter morning I awoke to the sound of wind rattling loose windows and making a sorrowful sound that can only be experienced on the windswept Colorado prairie. I was an only and often lonely child in a world of adults, watching the light, sifting snow accumulate in the interior corners of my windowsill. As this particular day progressed, I realized that the storm I was observing was unlike any I had witnessed in my young life.
My mother and grandfather carried in load after load of snow-covered firewood, coal and canned goods from the cellar. “God only knows when I’ll be able to get out to the barn to feed again,” said my grandfather, closing the kitchen door behind him. I remember scraping frost from the windowpane and trying to catch a glimpse of him fighting his way through swirling snow on his way to the barn and henhouse. After what seemed hours to me, he burst through the kitchen door, cursing all snowstorms present and past while at the same time thanking God for being able to find the house in the blizzard that now raged against every living thing in its path.
After supper that evening we sat close to the gigantic brown heating stove. My mother had just begun the next chapter of the book she was reading to us when above the shrieking storm we heard a muffled knocking. I watched my mother and grandfather exchange perplexed looks. My mother resumed her reading. Then the knocking started again, this time at our front door.
I peered around his long legs as my grandfather opened the door. “In the name of God,” he shouted over the wind, “come in here and get warm!” Outside our front door in the sea of snow huddled a clump of people that turned out to be two snowbound couples and their exhausted, hungry children and young baby. I could not believe my good fortune. Children my own age had arrived and a baby besides. I would have playmates for more than a week until the thaw began. Life was good indeed.
Years later I understood that my grandfather really was welcoming our guests in the name of God. He and my mother would have extended the same life-saving hospitality to people in need on a warm spring day as they had during the winter of the deadly blizzard.
— Beverly Corzine
QUESTIONS:
Have you remembered to welcome others as one would welcome Christ?
How has the hospitality of others been a sign of Christ’s love to you?
