Prayer and Reflection for
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, September 6, 2026.
Prayer
God of all people,
the message of Jesus can bring us together,
the weak with the strong, the sick with the healthy.
Help all of us to accept one another,
to learn to live with each other
and to welcome each other.
May we learn from Jesus
how to bring all people together,
and to care for them
because they are our brothers and sisters.
Reflection
Charles Swindell remembers how
one day when he was extra busy,
he was irritated by many interruptions from his family.
Then one of his young daughters said
she wanted to tell him something important
that had happened that day at her school.
She began by saying:
“Daddy I want to tell you something,
and I’ll tell you really fast.”
Charles realised she had picked up on his irritations,
so he said to her:
“You can tell me. You don’t have to say it really fast.
You can tell me slowly.”
He says he will never forget her reply. She said:
“Then please listen slowly.”
Not only is listening to the message of Jesus
as in today’s gospel, Matthew 18: 15-20,
an important thing for us to do,
we know also how important it is to listen to people,
but we can get it wrong.
And because listening slowly and carefully to people
is not always easy to do,
we have to keep working at it.
But there is another aspect of listening
that can change how we see life,
how we view the world, how we pray to God.
I found it best expressed by someone who was both blind and deaf.
Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968 at the age of 87.
When she was about a year and a half,
she had an illness that left her deaf and blind.
She couldn’t hear anyone’s voice to copy,
so she couldn’t learn to speak.
She was eventually taught to do so
by a teacher called Annie Sullivan.
Helen Keller graduated from college with honours,
and later visited many countries,
speaking about winning through,
despite difficulties and physical handicaps.
Among the things she said that are important to listen to is this:
Most of us take life for granted.
Only the deaf appreciate hearing;
only the blind appreciate being able to see.
It is the same old story
of not being grateful for what we have,
until we lose it,
of not being conscious of health,
until we are ill.
Use your eyes
as if tomorrow you would be blind.
Hear the music of voices, the song of the birds,
as if tomorrow you would be deaf.
Touch each object
as if tomorrow your sense of touch would fail.
Smell the perfume of flowers,
and taste your food,
as if tomorrow
you would never be able to smell or taste again.
Make every sense,
glory in the pleasure and beauty which the world reveals.
Then you will really see and hear,
and a new world of beauty will open up before you.
Rivendell's Food For Thought 