Reflection for the 27th Sunday – October 2024

In his book The Bridge on the River Drina Ivo Andric recounts an Islamic fable. According to that fable when God created the world, the earth was as smooth and even as a finely engraved plate. The devil was jealous of the beautiful earth that God created for humanity, so while the earth was still damp and soft, he scratched the face of God’s earth with his claws as deeply as he could. The devil’s scars created deep rivers and ravines that divided one place from another, keeping people apart, preventing them from traveling on the earth that God had given them as a garden for their food and support.

God was very sad when he saw what the evil one had done. God decided to send angels into the world to try and make things work as God had hoped. The angels saw how people could not pass those deep gorges and ravines to finish the work they had to do. They could only look on in vain at one another and shout at one another from one side of a chasm to the other. So the angels spread their wings across the ravines and the people were able to cross.

God’s people learned from the angels how to build bridges across the ravines created by the evil one, and to this day, the greatest blessing is to build a bridge and the greatest sin is to interfere with it.

In today’s Gospel we are reminded that like the angels in this old Islamic tale, we are called to be bridge-builders: to scale the great chasms of mistrust and envy with trust, respect and good will; to heal wounds that divide spouses, families and communities with understanding, generosity and forgiveness; to soften the “hardness” of one another’s hearts with compassion, mercy and solace.  In all things, may we seek to bring together what God has made one, to heal broken hearts and struggling spirits that God created to be whole.