Daily Meditation - Monday 14Jan 2008 - THE GREAT GIFT OF FAITH TELLS US WE ARE NEVER ALONE - NEVER!

[BarbaraTherese]

The background information is in the next Post…

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DAILY MASS READINGS

usccb.org/nab/011408.shtml

Meditation
wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp?month=01&day=14&year=2008&x=9&y=1

Have you ever seen someone you love in a state of anguish? You long to comfort them, and you wonder what you can say to lift their spirits. In this case, Elkanah tried to console his childless wife, Hannah, by asking: “Why do you grieve? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). We can’t be sure what effect his words had, but we can only imagine how encouraging they must have been to her. In the midst of her pain, Hannah was not alone: She had someone who would never forsake her, someone who was willing to walk this path with her.

What can this story say to us? Every one of us has been disappointed by something in life. Perhaps we also wanted children, but we don’t have them. Perhaps we never reached the goals we set for ourselves when we were younger. Or perhaps a great tragedy has struck us, like the death of a loved one or the betrayal of a friend. We may not have a spouse like Hannah did to console us; in fact, we may have very few friends in this world. But whatever our situation, we have something of much greater value: the love of Christ.

Jesus sees all of our pain, and like the loving Father that he is, he says to us, “I know you are hurting. I know you feel alone. But I am here in your midst. Let my love fill you and become for you more than whatever you are lamenting right now.” He may indeed give us what we are asking for, as he eventually blessed Hannah with the child she longed for. But more important than any earthly blessing is the knowledge that God loves us unconditionally. There are no strings attached!

Brothers and sisters, we can lift up our heads, no matter what we are suffering. We know that Jesus will never turn us away, no matter what our condition. He holds out his nail-scarred hands, longing to embrace us. Through all our trials, he calls out to us to come to him. What are you facing today? Look into Jesus’ merciful eyes, and ask him to bear this burden with you. He is near to the brokenhearted!

“Jesus, I give you my wounds, my sorrows, and my broken dreams. I count these as nothing compared to your awesome and unchanging love!”

 

[BarbaraTherese]

ocarm.org/lectio/annoA_eng/037eng.htm
Background to the Gospel:

• After John had been arrested, Jesus went to Galilee. There he proclaimed the Gospel of God. John was arrested by King Herod for having denounced the immoral behaviour of the King (Lk 3, 18-20). The imprisonment of John the Baptist did not frighten Jesus!

On the contrary, all the opposite! In that he saw a symbol of the coming of the Kingdom. And today, would it be that we know how to read the facts of politics and of urban violence to announce or proclaim the Good News of God?

• Jesus proclaimed the Good News of God. The Good News is of God not only because it comes from God, but also and, above all, because God is its content. God, himself, is the greatest Good News for human life. He responds to the deepest aspiration of our heart. In Jesus we see what happens when a human person allows God to enter and to reign.

This Good News of the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus has four different aspects:

a) The time is fulfilled, has arrived. For the other Jews the time was not as yet fulfilled, had not arrived. There was still much missing for the coming of the Kingdom.

For the Pharisees, for example, the Kingdom could be attained only when the observance of the Law would be perfect.

Jesus had another way of reading the facts. He says that the time is fulfilled, it has arrived.

b) The Kingdom of God is close at hand!

For the Pharisees the coming of the Kingdom depended on their efforts.

It would have arrived only after they had observed the Law. Jesus says the contrary: “The Kingdom is close at hand”. It is already here! Independently of the efforts made! When Jesus says: “The Kingdom is close at hand”, he does not mean to say that the Kingdom has been reached only at that moment, but rather that it was already there.

What everybody was expecting was already present in their life, and they did not know it, they did not perceive it (cf. Lk 17, 21).

Jesus perceived it! Because he saw and read reality with a different look And it is in this hidden presence of the Kingdom in the midst of the people that Jesus reveals himself to the poor of his land. And this is the seed of the Kingdom which will receive the rain of his Word and the warmth of his love.

c) Convert yourselves!

The exact meaning is change the way of thinking and of living.

In order to be able to perceive the presence of the Kingdom in life, the person should begin to think and to live in a diverse way. The person should change way of life and find another way of living together with others!

He/she should leave aside all legalism

of the teaching of the Pharisees and allow the new experience of God to invade his/her life and give him/her a new way of looking so as to read and understand the facts in a new way.

d) To believe in the Good News! It was not easy to accept this message. It is not easy for us to begin to think in a different way from all that we have learnt, since we were small children. This is possible

only through an act of faith.

When someone give a diverse news, it is difficult to accept it, and it is accepted only if we trust the person who gives the news. And thus, you will say to others: “You can accept! I know this person! This person does not deceive! You can trust him/her! We can trust Jesus!

• The first objective of the proclamation of the Good News is that of forming a community. Jesus goes by, he sees and he calls. The first four who were called, Simon, Andrew, John and James, listen, abandon everything and follow Jesus in order to form a community with him. It seems to be love at first sight! According to Mark’s account, everything takes place in the first encounter with Jesus. Comparing with the other Gospels, people perceive that the four already knew Jesus (Jn 1, 39; Lk 5, 1-11). They had already had the opportunity to live with him, to see him help the people and to listen to him in the Synagogue. They knew how he lived and what he thought.

The call was not something of one moment, but a question of repeated calls and invitations, of progressing and of retreating. The call begins and begins again always anew!

In practice, it coincided with the living together with Jesus for two or three years, since the time of the Baptism until the moment when Jesus went to Heaven (Acts 1, 21-22). And then, why does Mark present this as something sudden, an act of love at first sight? Mark thinks in the ideal:

the encounter with Jesus should bring about a radical change in our life!