Daily Reflection | Gospel Reading | RVA

Gospel: Mark 9:14-29* -
Jesus asked, “What are you arguing about with them?“ A man answered him from the crowd, “Master, I brought my son to you for he has a dumb spirit. Whenever the spirit seizes him, it throws him down and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth and becomes stiff all over. I asked your disciples to drive the spirit out, but they could not."

Jesus replied, “You faithless people. How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me." And they brought the boy to him.
As soon as the spirit saw Jesus, it shook and convulsed the boy who fell on the ground and began rolling about, foaming at the mouth. Then Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?" He replied, “From childhood. And it has often thrown him into the fire and into the water to destroy him. If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.“ Jesus said to him, “Why do you say: ‘If you can?’ All things are possible for one who believes.“ Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe, but help the little faith I have."Jesus saw that the crowd was increasing rapidly, so he ordered the evil spirit, “Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you: Leave the boy and never enter him again.“ The evil spirit shook and convulsed the boy and with a terrible shriek came out. The boy lay like a corpse and people said, “He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him and the boy stood up. (…)

Reflection:
“All things are possible for one who believes.”
“I do believe, but help the little faith I have.” This line, from the father of a suffering child, is among the most honest and heartfelt prayers recorded in the Gospels. Faith and doubt, conviction and uncertainty are not entirely opposed; often they live side by side in the same heart. Pope Francis has acknowledged this: “In this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he has met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties.”
Where there is no faith, nothing is possible; the door remains shut and sealed from the inside. But even a little faith, though it struggles with doubt, opens all kinds of possibilities. So we pray: “I do believe, but help the little faith I have.”

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Luke 6:27-38 -
But I say to you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you badly. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek; from the one who takes your coat, do not keep back your shirt. Give to the one who asks, and if anyone has taken something from you, do not demand it back.

Do to others as you would have others do to you. If you love only those who love you, what kind of grace is yours? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do favors to those who are good to you, what kind of grace is yours? Even sinners do the same. If you lend only when you expect to receive, what kind of grace is yours? For sinners also lend to sinners, expecting to receive something in return.
But love your enemies and do good to them, and lend when there is nothing to expect in return. Then will your reward be great, and you will be sons and daughters of the Most High. For he is kind toward the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.But love your enemies and do good to them, and lend when there is nothing to expect in return. Then will your reward be great, and you will be sons and daughters of the Most High. For he is kind toward the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Don’t be a judge of others and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you, and you will receive in your sack good measure, pressed down, full and running over. For the measure you give will be the measure you receive back.”

Lectio Divina
READ: David won a victory over his enemy, not through revenge but through mercy. St. Paul shows how Jesus, the new man, shows the way to a new humanity. Jesus shows the way to this new huma­nity in a system of ethics that replaces judgment with love.
REFLECT: It is easy to love people who are love-able. But how are we to love people who are disagreeable or even “unlovable”? How are we to love our enemies? The love that Jesus describes is not a feeling, nor is it based on the merits of the one we love. Love is active; it is a matter of the will; it is choice to return good for evil, mercy for those who treat us badly. Not because they “deserve it,” but because we aspire to be true sons and daughters of the God whose very nature is Love, whose very name is Mercy.
PRAY: Lord, where there is no love, let me put love, that I may find love.
ACT: In the week to come, see what it is like to practice forgiveness, to pray for one who treats you badly, to return goodness for injury. Pray that such opportunities may come.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Mark 9:2-13 
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain. There, his appearance was changed before their eyes. Even his clothes shone, becoming as white as no bleach of this world could make them. Elijah and Moses appeared to them; the two were talking with Jesus.

Then Peter spoke and said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to say: they were overcome with awe. But a cloud formed, covering them in a shadow, and from the cloud came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved: listen to him!” And suddenly, as they looked around, they no longer saw anyone except Jesus with them.
As they came down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this to themselves, although they discussed with one another what ‘to rise from the dead’ could mean.
Finally they asked him, “Why, then, do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus answered them, “Of course Elijah will come first, so that everything may be as it should be. But why do the Scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be despised? I tell you that Elijah has already come; and they have treated him as they pleased, as the Scriptures say of him.”

Reflection:
“There, his appearance was changed before their eyes.”
Here is one of the few times when the disciples were not forced to contend with riddles and parables but were afforded a glimpse of the thing itself—whatever that is: Christ in his future glory? Some kind of insight into the deeper heart of reality? In the typical life such epiphanies are rare. Most of us are no more equipped to face the naked truth than we are to stare at the sun. Nevertheless, we recall certain moments in our lives when everything appeared completely clear and vivid. The veil of everydayness was pulled aside and we sensed that we were standing on holy ground. What do we do with such experiences?
The Trappist monk Thomas Merton had such an experience one day at a busy intersection in the city, when he was overwhelmed by the realization “that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs.” He said, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Such moments come in the lives of many disciples: a voice speaks to us from the midst of an encounter or an ethical challenge and says: “This is my Beloved Son; listen to him.” Woe to those who let such moments pass them by.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-19
After that, Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They said, “For some of them, you are John the Baptist; for others Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “It is well for you, Simon Barjona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

And now I say to you: You are Peter; and on this Rock I will build my Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it.I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven.”

Reflection:
“On this Rock I will build my Church.”
Without knowing Aramaic, it is hard for us to know whether Jesus was typically given to puns and wordplay. Here is one example. The name Peter (a Greek rendering of the Aramaic Cephas), which means rock, is the new name that Jesus gave to his disciple Simon. This sets the basis for a memorable pun, when Jesus proclaims that “on this Rock” he will build his church.
As later events in the Gospel make abundantly clear (particularly Peter’s later betrayal of the Lord), this is a rather shaky rock on which to build anything. (Hadn’t Peter himself tried to warn the Lord at the beginning: “Leave my Lord, for I am a sinful man”?) If the church is built on a rock, it is not the personal steadiness of Peter or any one man, but on the confession of faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” That confession and the implications that follow are the true foundation of the church. The powers of death neither the death of Jesus, nor the death of Peter ­­will not overcome that rock.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019