This week's readings bring three words to mind: community, comfort, and certainty. For me, they intertwine throughout the readings to strengthen my faith. In all three readings, I get a strong sense of community, both in the need for such joining together as well as the benefits to be derived from such a belonging. Belonging is a fundamental need for each of us ! Identity crisis and peer pressure and following the crowd are all familiar concepts... usually applied to someone else. St. Paul's instruction about the Body of Christ mentions the primacy of God's intentionality, a thought that sometimes whizzes by me in this reading. Within community, I can acknowledge differences in gifts and functions, but often I miss the "why". I also often miss the connection between "weaker" and "more necessary" God's intentionally in making things so sheds a different light on my aceptance of myself and others in didfferent roles. I find this both comforting and energizing as I journey with my community of faith, in faith.

It is the theme of certainty in these readings, however, that seems so relevant to today's world to me. Whether we are talking about the law in the first reading, the appointment to offices in the second, or the fulfilment of God's promise in the gospel, there is a thread of certainty that appears. There is certainly a proper place to argue about laws and the hierarchy and such arguing is necessary and helpful in weeding out what is NOT intended by God and strengthening what is. The current controversies in America about the fictional book about a code or the movie about the Passion are, in fact, healthy if one can focus on the one point that really matters: what within these presentations confirms and what is against true (meaning necessary in the sense of fundamental) belief ? (Note, I did NOT say current practices becasue many denominations have different practices!). For me, such an examination only strenthens God's truth. For me, God's truth is NOT in the details. Details so often can be translated differently, viewed differently, and cause dissension. We are, after all, human. Certainty comes in the fulfillment of God's promise: Jesus. What we know about Him will continue to be revealed until the totality of Who He is comes to light in Eternity. Faith in the certainty that He is, to me, is what is of importance here and in the hereafter. It is that certainty in which I find comfort and conformity. Only God really knows all the details!

(Comments to Lanie at lanieleblanc@onebox.com.)