Monday, 23 March 2009
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"Hi Guys, Remember Me?"
Monday of the Fourth Week of LentReading 1 Is 65:17-21
Thus says the LORD: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people. No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there, or the sound of crying; No longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime; He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed. They shall live in the houses they build, and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.
Gospel Jn 4:43-54
At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe." The royal official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies." Jesus said to him, "You may go; your son will live." The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, "The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon." The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live," and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.
Something 2 Think About
"The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind... a prophet has no honor in his native place"
Today's reading and Gospel reminds us that in our walk with Christ we leave behind our old bad habits and that when we return to those who knew us before we were renewed in Christ we may either be accepted or rejected. Family & friends will always see us for who we were rather than who we are now. If we were into drunk wild parties before and are now trying to follow Christ example by avoiding those occasions of sin we will face some sort of criticism by our peers. I've come to a point in my spiritual life that I could care less about what people would say because I'm here to do the Father's will and not my own. God's judgement could be far more graver than any criticism from family members or friends. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Many friends of the past have come and gone but Jesus remains. Family gatherings are becoming less and less of a massive family reunion, and slowly the celebrations are centered on each individual household; and yet Jesus remains.
This unity with Christ was not to be only experienced with the individual alone but to spread from one person to another. I remember seeing this commercial which one good deed witnessed from a stranger was passed on to another and another. It those thirty seconds, three or five people passed on the message of kindness through their unselfish actions and the thing is that those who showed kindness didn't even realize the effect that simple action had to those around them. It's like what Jesus was trying to explain in today's Gospel. We need no huge sign or miracle to believe in His presence. All we have to do is look around us and know that what God created was good. From random acts of kindness from a stranger to the beautiful sun rise, we see, or eventually will see, that God is present today as He was present before. We just have been blinded by society to not see. By seeing the simpleness of Christ around our everyday life we see God.
And in seeing God, we come to tie in what we see around us to what we hear and read in Scripture and to what we practice in our Traditions as Catholics. We have to see beyond what we see, and hear beyond what we hear. The word of God is so simple that we make it so difficult to follow.
Recommended Reading
The Royal Official’s Request for a Miracle - Father Steven Reilly, LC
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