A Gospel reading according to Matthew: Jesus said to his disciples:
"No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.
If God so clothes the grass of the field,
which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,
will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?'
or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?'
All these things the pagans seek.
Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
Reflection Learn the way the wild flowers grow. Wild flowers are very interesting. They cast their seeds where the wind blows. We call them wild because they were not intentionally planted nor cared for. They grow on the side of the road, in abandoned fields, between rock formations, near the sea, high up in the mountains, even on battlefields where the dead laid during the carnage of World War I on the Western Front.
They grow in unfortunate situations and locations, sometimes in the ugliest of places - like the Western Front - but because of this, they have become the symbol for peace, hope and life. The red poppies being the first plants to rise from the battlefields of WWI are now synonymous with the Armistice of November 11 1918 and the symbol of ultimate sacrifice for love of country.
Wild flowers go where the wind carry them and become the image of hope in the most hopeless of places. Perhaps Jesus is asking the same of us - to learn the way the wild flowers grow is to allow the Holy Spirit to carry us into the heart of a wounded and broken world, into the ugliness of the depths of man and be the sign of hope, and life. We have to trust that God will transform it, He only asks that we remain where He has sent us and let Him work in us to transform it.
