Daily Meditation - Thur 17th December - ACTIVE TRUST

[BarbaraTherese]

Note: Tomorrow, Friday 18th. January 2008, commences Week of Prayer for Christian Unity………for information go to:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3195353#post3195353
……….and scroll down to Post for Friday 18th. January 2008.

If you would like to post any comments/thoughts etc. please go ahead and do so.

DAILY MASS READINGS

usccb.org/nab/011708.shtml

Meditation

wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp?month=01&day=17&year=2008&x=4&y=8

Note: Further reflections on today’s Readings are in the next post

Can you imagine one of your children coming to you with a problem that you could easily solve, but instead of helping, you tell them to “deal with it?” That’s not the response of a loving parent. Our children come to us because they trust us and are confident that we can help them out. If we are so willing to respond to them, we can only imagine how much God wants to respond to us—especially when we consider how much bigger his heart is than ours!
The leper in this story evidently believed this is true. He knew that no one in his village could help him. Even his friends and family had rejected him because they were frightened and repelled by his disease. Yet, he approached Jesus with complete trust, saying, “If you wish, you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40). How could Jesus refuse? Moved with pity, he touched someone that we would probably never touch—and that touch alone was enough to heal the man. In an instant, his life was changed forever!
Does Jesus love us today any less than he loved this man? Of course not! He always wants to help us, just as any good father wants to help his children.

It may be hard for us to believe that, because his help does not always come in the form we’d prefer.

He doesn’t always cure our illnesses and take away our problems. Sometimes he walks through them with us so that we will come closer to him and draw strength from his presence.

No matter what the answer is, we need to believe that Jesus never treats us with indifference. He responds with what he knows to be best for us, even when we don’t know what that is.

And many times, he will intervene directly in our lives, bringing healing and other blessings at just the right time. As long as we ask him! So we should never be afraid to take our needs to him.

It’s part of growing in that childlike faith he wants us to have. After all, how can we know that we have a heavenly Father if we never learn to trust him?

“Lord, I give you praise for your love and provision. I have nothing to fear, for as long as I seek your kingdom first, I know that I will want for nothing!”

1 Samuel 4:1-11; Psalm 44:10-11,14-15,24-25

 

[BarbaraTherese]

ocarm.org/lectio/annoA_eng/040eng.htm

• Accepting and curing the leper, Jesus reveals a new face of God. A leper came near Jesus. He was an excluded, an impure person. He should be far away. Anybody who touched him, would also become impure! But that leper had great courage. He transgresses the norms of religion in order to be able to get near Jesus. And he calls out: If you want, you can heal me. You need not touch me! It suffices that you want, and I will be healed!. This phrase reveals two evils:
a) the evil of leprosy which made him impure;
b) the evil of solitude to which he was condemned by society and by religion

. It also reveals the great faith of the man in the power of Jesus. And Jesus profoundly moved, cures both evils. In the first place, in order to cure solitude, he touches the leper. It is as if he said: “For me, you are not an excluded one. I accept you as a brother!” And then he cures the leper saying: I want it! Be cured! The leper, in order to enter into contact with Jesus, had transgressed the norms of the Law. Jesus also, in order to be able to help that excluded person and therefore, reveal a new face of God, transgresses the norms of his religion and touches the leper. At that time, whoever touched a leper became impure according to the religious authority and by the law of that time.

• He integrated anew the excluded person in the fraternal living together. Jesus, not only cures, but also wants the cured person to be able to live with the others. He once again inserts the person in society to live with others. At that time for a leper to be accepted again in the community, it was necessary to get a certificate from the priest that he had been cured. It is like today. A sick person leaves the hospital with a document signed by the doctor of the department where he had been hospitalized. Jesus obliges the person to look for that document, in such a way that he will be able to live normally with others. He obliges the authority to recognize that this man has been cured.

• The leper announces the good that Jesus has done to him and Jesus becomes an excluded person. Jesus forbids the leper to speak about the cure. The Gospel of Mark informs that this prohibition does not serve. The leper, walking away, began to diffuse the fact, to the point that Jesus could no longer enter publicly into a city, but remained outside, in a deserted place (Mk 1, 45). Why? Because Jesus had touched the leper. Because of this, according to the opinion of the religion of that time, now he himself was impure and should live far away from all others. He could no longer enter the city. And Mark says that people did not care about these official norms, in fact, people came to him from everywhere (Mk 1, 45). Total subversion!

• Summarizing. In the year 70, when Mark wrote, as well as today, the time in which we live, it was and continues to be important to have before our eyes models of how to live and how to proclaim the Good News of God and of how to evaluate our mission. In verses 16 to 45 of the first chapter of his Gospel, Mark describes the mission of the community and presents eight criteria in order that the communities of his time could evaluate their mission. The following is the outline:
Text Activity of Jesus Objective of the mission

To form the community

To create a critical conscience

To overcome the force of evil

To give life back so as to serve

To accept the marginalized

To remain united with the Father

Not to stop at the results

To integrate anew the excluded