Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

What are your plans for the weekend? Are you the kind of person that makes plans ahead of time? Maybe you have plans on Friday night with some friends after school, and then on Saturday you’re going to the mall, and on Sunday you’re getting brunch with the family after Mass… Or maybe you’re the kind of person that doesn’t make plans, but your friends text you throughout the weekend and you make plans as you go. Or maybe, you had a packed weekend last weekend, and this weekend you’re just hanging in and relaxing, binging a show, or taking a nap on the couch with your dog.

What are your plans for the next year? Maybe you’re a freshman starting at a new high school, you’re planning on making some new friendships, you hope to join the school play and run track and field… Or maybe this is your senior year and you’re planning on being captain of the soccer team, applying to schools, deciding a major, and picking a path for after graduation.

What are your plans for the next five years? The next ten years? Twenty? …

The truth is our plans don’t actually matter that much. It’s good to set goals for yourself, but our plans can change in a moment. A sore throat during audition week and you don’t get the part you wanted, a broken bone and you’re no longer captain of the team, the death of a family member and you’re no longer moving across the country for school. Whatever our plans are, or our vision is, we need to have flexibility. Because God has plans for us too. Maybe your broken arm that kept you from soccer got you involved in physical therapy, and you realized a new passion that you want to study. Maybe your friend you met auditioning for the school play your freshman year invited you to join their youth ministry and you bought into your faith for the first time.

The plans God has for us are far better than any plans we have for ourselves.

In the first reading this Sunday in the book of Wisdom we read:

Who can know God’s counsel,

or who can conceive what the LORD intends?

For the deliberations of mortals are timid,

and unsure are our plans.

For the corruptible body burdens the soul

and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.

And scarce do we guess the things on earth,

and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty;

but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?

Translated you might understand it better as “who can understand what God’s plans are? We are human, and our plans are fleeting…” consider someone who changes their major five times in college, “our body is burdensome to us sometimes, and we have so many earthly things that we are concerned with …” consider the time and effort it takes to stay healthy, the attention that we give to things like money or acceptance by our peers, “there are so many things on earth that are confusing to us, how would we even begin to understand things of heaven?” Think about all the things that we are still learning about our earth after having been here for thousands and thousands of years, the recent advancements of science and technology, how would we be able to learn about heaven when we haven’t even learned all there is to know about earth?

So, where does that leave us? Make plans. Have goals. Reach for things in life. But don’t cling to them. Don’t put your identity in them. Know that God has better plans for us. Practice detachment from your plans. And pray that the plans you make would be aligned with the plans that God has for you.