Daily Reflection | Gospel Reading | RVA

daily gospel gospel reading bible reflection

The WORD

Heb  7,25 -8,6 / Mk 3,7-12

Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people (followed) from Galilee and from Judea. Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, "You are the Son of God." He warned them sternly not to make him known.

IN OTHER WORDS

Having heard about the healing ministry of Jesus, people from many towns came to Him. Some three years later, the same crowd pressed on Jesus not asking for His healing but demanding his death on the cross. Why is it that the crowd who used to follow Him is now asking for His death? When the people trooped to Jesus, it was because they wanted to be healed — of physical illness. They did not seek Him and gather around Him because they longed for spiritual healing. They did not believe nor accept Jesus as the Son of God and Redeemer.

Jesus is the Healer and we should come to Him for our healing. But He is the Healer first and foremost of our soul — and not of our body. Healing the people of their physical illness was only a prelude to His teaching about Him healing humankind of spiritual illnesses.

How about us? Do we come to Jesus only when we are physically sick? Let us remember that a person can be physically healthy but spiritually sick — like when the heart is full of anger, hatred, or envy, lust for power and pleasure, greed for wealth and popularity — and many other evils lurking in our hearts.

A Person who is spiritually sick needs a Redeemer. He needs the healing ministry of Jesus because a person who is spiritually sick is not capable of loving. "Hiram sa Diyos andaking buhay . . . Kung di ako umibig, sino ako?" And as a popular song says it: "Without love, I am nothing, nothing at all." We need Jesus to cure us spiritually and empower us to love for it is only when we love that we can be fully human and fully alive.

  • Fr. Ernie M. Lagura, SVD (USC-Cebu City)

The Word in other words 2017

An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.

 

THE WORD

Heb 7, 1-3.15-17 3,16
Again Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, "Come up here before us." Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.


IN OTHER WORDS
Have you ever had this upsetting feeling that people are watching your every move and waiting to pounce on you when you commit even the slightest mistake? Jesus is presented to be in this sort of position in today's gospel. Even if Jesus had the best intentions of curing the man with a withered hand, people particularly the Pharisees took offence at him because in their eyes, Jesus had violated the Sabbath. However, Jesus stood his ground and did what he thought was truly important: to release this man from his pain and misery on account of his withered hand.
We Christians are subjected to a similar persecution when we make a stand on important issues. If we object to "same-sex marriage," we are vilified and our lives scrutinized.
If we are "pro-life," we get insulting comments. However, this harassment is nothing compared to what our Christian brothers and sisters are experiencing in places where being a Christian in itself is already an offence. In such places, any small expression of Christian faith is already a basis for imprisonment, or even worse, death.
As we celebrate the start of the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we pray not only for the unity of all Christians but also for our brothers and sisters who are risking their lives because of the practice of their faith, whether they are Catholics, Evangelicals, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Orthodox and other Christian denominations We live in a world that should recognize freedom of the practice of the faith wherever we are.

  • Fr. Elmer Ibarra, SVD (Australia)

The Word in other words 2017

An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.

 

THE WORD
Heb 6, 10-20 / Mk 2,23-28
As he was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?" He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?"Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath."


IN OTHER WORDS
Let us put this biblical passage into context.
The same narrative reflected in the Gospel of Matthew has these words: "His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them" (12: 1 , NIV). Quoting the Bible to support their claim, the Pharisees then criticized the disciples for they had violated the Jewish Law of the Sabbath. In response, Jesus also quoted the Scripture: "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?" After citing the Biblical passage, Jesus pointed out that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
"The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath."
First, Jesus said this to put more emphasis on the importance and precedence of life over laws, because laws exist to protect the dignity and sanctity of human life. His disciples were hungry — and to ease that hunger, they must eat something.
Second, Jesus stressed that Sabbath was made for us to rest from unnecessary labor, to pause and rest from a week of hard work and sacrifices for our personal needs. Sabbath is an opportunity for us to commune with God.
May we follow Jesus' example of giving importance to our human dignity by observing the Sabbath Day as an opportunity to rest and give thanks to God for all the blessings we have received the entire week.
Do you honor the Lord in whatever you do? Do you make the Sabbath Day holy?
•    Fr. Bernhard Abrazado, SVD (Calapan, or. Mindoro)

The Word in other words 2017

An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.

 

THE WORD
Hb 5,1-10/Mk 2, 18-22
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him and objected, "Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.

IN OTHER WORDS
Jesus showed the religious world then something totally new and unprecedented: everyone else who had disciples required fasting but Jesus did not require it from his followers. While they were with him, there was constant celebration.
With Jesus, we are with God Himself. With other leaders, their followers are simply with a mortal being. Jesus had a new message to proclaim: the Kingdom of God, likened many times to a wedding feast where everyone is connected to each other by virtue of one's relationship with the bridegroom. Fasting during a wedding would then be out of place. Only when the bridegroom has left will fasting make sense. Jesus here uses the phrase "taken away" to mean his death and separation from his followers. Yet this point didn't really make any sense until it actually happened on that night he was arrested and eventually crucified the next day. It was during these moments of loss and grief, then, when fasting became a natural experience. This now becomes the new way of understanding why we fast on Good Friday when we commemorate the Passion of the Lord.
From this Good Friday episode, one realizes the meaning of fasting. We fast when we have something in us that has been "taken away" — the bridegroom from our midst and our sins that crucified him. We abstain from the pleasures that are due us when we realize his absence in our lives. By fasting we mourn the death of the bridegroom, the death of the Lord. What greater joy can we ever have than being with the Lord and Him being with us again! This joy He so easily gave back to us when He rose again from the dead.
•    Fr. R. Collera, SVD (DWC,

The Word in other words 2017

An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.

 

More Articles ...

  1. January 15, 2017 Sunday
  2. January 14, 2017 Saturday
  3. January 13, 2017 Friday
  4. January 12, 2017 Thursday
  5. January 11, 2017 Wednesday
Page 285 of 412

Daily Reflection

November 2024
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
28 29 30 31 1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 1