Daily Reflection | Gospel Reading | RVA

Gospel: Luke 5:27-32 -
After this, Jesus went out, and noticing a tax collector named Levi, sitting in the tax-office, he said to him, “Follow me!” So Levi, leaving everything, got up and followed Jesus.

Levi gave a great feast for Jesus, and many tax collectors came to his house, and took their places at the table with the other people. Then the Pharisees and their followers complained to Jesus’ disciples, “How is it, that you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” But Jesus spoke up, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I have not come to call the just, but sinners, to a change of heart.”

Reflection:
“Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do.”
The Pharisees divided every- thing into categories of clean and unclean, pure and impure, and, when it came to people, the righteous and sinners. For some- one to consort with sinners— including tax collectors who served the Roman occupation— would be to risk becoming one of the unclean. Naturally these Pharisees were scandalized to see Jesus—a supposed holy man—visiting tax collectors like Levi in their homes and sharing the table with public sinners. This was only one of the ways that Jesus caused scandal. His willingness to love and enter into relationship with people of ill repute defied a whole religious culture. He was turning the tables on an entire system that ranked people on the basis of their relative closeness or distance from God.
Of course, in calling Levi and similar types to follow him, Jesus was not endorsing their condition or their occupations. But perhaps he found a warmer reception with those in need of healing than among the righteous people, impervious as they were to the call to conversion. It is harder to call the righteous to a change of heart. In that sense, it is sinners, seeking forgiveness, who are closer to the Kingdom of God.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 9:14-15 -
Then the disciples of John came to him with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not your disciples?”
Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then, they  will fast.

Reflection:
“How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”
There are religious people who make a great public display of their faith, while at the same time quarreling with family members, bickering with their neighbors, or cheating at business. As  Isaiah prophesies, there is no value in fasting or putting on sackcloth and ashes if all this covers a selfish heart. What is the fast that pleases God? It is “breaking the fetters of  injustice, and unfastening the thongs of the yoke, setting the oppressed free…”A true fast is“sharing your food with the hungry,” bringing the homeless into your house.
Such scriptural references were surely in Jesus’ mind when people asked him why his disciples were not fasting. Jesus and his entourage were a traveling celebration. Where he appeared the  sick were healed, sinners were forgiven, and the poor heard the good news. Was this not the fast that was pleasing to God? While Jesus was with them it was not time for the disciples to  mourn. That time would come. But in the meantime, he was in no hurry to hasten the day.Such scriptural references were surely in Jesus’ mind when people asked him why his disciples were not  fasting. Jesus and his entourage were a traveling celebration. Where he appeared the sick were healed, sinners were forgiven, and the poor heard the good news. Was this not the fast that  was pleasing to God? While Jesus was with them it was not time for the disciples to mourn. That time would come. But in the meantime, he was in no hurry to hasten the day.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Luke 9: 22-25 -
And he added, “The Son of Man must suffer many things. He will be rejected by the elders and chief priests and teachers of the law, and be put to death. Then after three days he will be  raised to life.”
Jesus also said to all the people, “If you wish to be a follower of mine, deny yourself and take up your cross each day, and follow me! For if you choose to save your life, you will lose  it; but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. What does it profit you to gain the whole world, if you destroy or damage yourself?

Reflection:
“Deny yourself and take up your cross each day, and follow me!”
Saints like Perpetua and Felicity faced death in the arena for declaring their faith in Christ. Martyrdom—bearing witness at the cost of one’s life—was the origin of the cult of saints.   In laying down their lives for the sake of Christ, the martyrs showed their powerful faith in the resurrection. Their blood, as Tertullian said, “was the seed of the church.”
As the era of persecution re- ceded it became clear that there were other ways of demonstrating heroic faith—through lives of service, prayer, and selfless devotion. Nevertheless, the era  of martyrdom has never passed. Among recently beatified saints is Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, who was shot by a death squad while saying Mass in 1980. Although his killers  called themselves Christians, they were motivated by hatred for the gospel as expressed through his devotion to justice and the cause of the poor. Pope Francis has recently extended the  categories of holiness to recognize all those who sacrifice their lives for others. As Jesus said, “No greater love has a man than that he lay down his life for his friends.”

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6,16-18 -
Be careful not to make a show of your good deeds before people. If you do so, you do not gain anything from your Father in heaven. When you give something to the poor, do not have it  trumpeted before you, as do those who want to be noticed in the synagogues and in the streets, in order to be praised by people. I assure you, they have their reward.

If you give something to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift remains really secret. Your Father, who sees what is kept secret, will  reward you.  When you pray, do not be like those who want to be noticed. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues or on street corners, in order to be seen by everyone. I assure you, they have  their reward. When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is with you in secret; and your Father who sees what is kept secret will reward you.  When you fast, do not put on a miserable face, as do the hypocrites. They put on a gloomy face, so that people can see they are fasting. I tell you this: they have been paid in full  already. When you fast, wash your face and make yourself look cheerful, because you are not fasting for appearances or for people, but for your Father, who sees beyond appearances. And your  Father, who sees what is kept secret, will reward you.

Reflection:
“And your Father, who sees what is kept secret, will reward you.”
The ego is sly; it finds its way into everything, even under the disguise of humility, self-sacrifice, or religious devotion. There is a form of humility that calls attention to itself:
“See how humble I am!” There are outward displays of piety that are meant to be seen and noticed. All of these are a form of commerce, a type of transaction with an eye on the reward. The  philosopher Simone Weil referred to such transactions as the law of “gravity.” Grace, on the other hand, defies gravity. It contradicts the law that says that every good deed must be  matched by some reward.
True humility escapes detection. True religious devotion is directed only to God. True charity is a matter of giving without expectation of return—whether that takes the form of public  esteem or the obsequious gratitude of those on the receiving end.
To give without compensation; to pray without expectation of results; to act without the desire to be noticed—all these are forms of detachment. It requires that we focus on the good of the  deed itself, the correctness of our attitude, the purity of our intention. To live in this state of consciousness is its own reward.To give without compensation; to pray without expectation  of results; to act without the desire to be noticed—all these are forms of detachment. It requires that we focus on the good of the deed itself, the correctness of our attitude, the purity  of our intention. To live in this state of consciousness is its own reward.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019