The Memorial of Saint Lawrence of Brindisi
Shepherd your people with your staff, The flock of your heritage, Who dwell by themselves in a forest. Let them feed in the middle of fertile pasture land, In Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. "As in the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things."
Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, And passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn't retain his anger forever, Because he delights in loving kindness. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob, And mercy to Abraham, As you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
You have forgiven the iniquity of your people. You have covered all their sin. Selah. You have taken away all your wrath. You have turned from the fierceness of your anger. Turn us, God of our salvation, And cause your indignation toward us to cease.
Will you be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger to all generations? Won't you revive us again, That your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your loving kindness, Lord. Grant us your salvation. I will hear what God, the Lord, will speak, For he will speak peace to his people, his saints; But let them not turn again to folly.
While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, seeking to speak to him. One said to him, "Behold, your mother and your brothers stand outside, seeking to speak to you."
But he answered him who spoke to him, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" He stretched out his hand toward his disciples, and said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."
Saint Lawrence of Brindisi was a sixteenth-century Capuchin friar, theologian, and preacher so gifted in languages that he could address nearly any crowd in their own tongue — a man who understood that the Word of God must reach people where they actually are.
And that's precisely what these readings are doing today.
Micah gives us this aching, gorgeous plea: *Shepherd your people.* Not manage them. Not correct them from a distance. Shepherd them — with a staff, through forests, into fertile ground. The image is intimate and physical. God is not a distant administrator of justice but someone who walks with the flock, who knows the terrain. And then Micah pivots into something almost breathtaking: *Who is a God like you?* A God who hurls our sins into the depths of the sea. Not files them away. Not holds them in reserve. Throws them in. Gone.
Notice how the Psalm carries that same longing — *revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you.* There's an honesty in that petition. It admits we grow tired, we drift, we need to be brought back. That's not failure; that's the human condition.
Then comes the Gospel, and it can feel jarring at first. Jesus seems to push his family away. But consider what he's actually doing — he's throwing the doors open. He's expanding the definition of family to include everyone who orients their life toward the Father's will. The family of God is not exclusive; it's radically, almost shockingly, inclusive.
What emerges across all three readings is a single movement: God reaching toward us, not away. Forgiving, shepherding, welcoming.
The question for today is how we receive that.
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*Where in your life are you still carrying something God has already thrown into the sea? What might it look like, practically, to do the will of the Father in the very next hour? And who belongs to your family of faith that you haven't yet recognized as such?*