The gospel for Friday of the 24th week in Ordinary Time is taken from Luke, eighth chapter, first through third verse. Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the 12 and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod, Steward, Chuza and Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources. It’s hard to believe that Jesus life looked to anyone else as if it was just an ordinary human being going about doing ordinary things. But that’s exactly as he was seen by those who didn’t know him, didn’t know his power.

And when I look at the way in which he was cared for doing his ministry, you would think, didn’t he just have some mysterious way of making food and taking care of everything? No. He had some very influential and wealthy women who took care of him. They had been touched by his mercy, by his healing power. And Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna provided out of their own money, a life for him that was very ordinary according to the nature of what was going on at the time. It’s hard for us to believe that we too, who live ordinary lives can be infused with spirit as he was.

But pay close attention. God has blessed everything. He blessed the ordinary, the ordinary things. We do the ordinary prayers and we think they’re maybe not that special, but when they come from our heart, they come from the source of all things, God. And they are powerful and anything but ordinary. Foreign Closing prayer Father, let us never doubt the power of our intention, the power of our influence, through the power that you have shared with us.

Give us a sense of our extraordinary powers. At the same time, keep us living the most ordinary of lives. You are the master of working with human beings and filling them with divinity and protecting them from becoming something other than you intend them to be. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.