Welcome to my blog. Peace be with you.
In today’s Gospel passage we actually see how
Jesus is praising his Mother for she is the one who listened to God’s Word and
fulfilled despite formidable difficulties. She is the Mother and model of all
believers.
Saturday 10
October 2020
Gospel
Luke 11:27-28
'Happy the
womb that bore you and the breasts you sucked!'
As Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd
raised her voice and said, ‘Happy the womb that bore you and the breasts you
sucked!’ But he replied, ‘Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep
it!’
Prayerful
reflection
Jesus is
not be disparaging with regard to Mary, his Mother. He is correcting a false
notion that puts ritualism above heartfelt devotion. Just by being the
biological mother of Jesus does not make Mary the worthy Mother of God. She is
the worthy Mother of God, the first of all disciples and the greatest of all
those redeemed by her Son precisely because she heard the Word of God from
Gabriel’s mouth and kept even to the point of the Cross on Calvary. She is our
model and we are proud that she is now our Mother too, given to us by the last
and significant action of Jesus at the point of death.
Blessed
are those who like the beloved disciple take her into their home.
Friday 9
October 2020
Gospel
Luke 11:15-26
The finger of
God has overtaken you
When Jesus had cast out a devil, some of the
people said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out
devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven; but, knowing what
they were thinking, he said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is
heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses. So too with
Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? –
since you assert that it is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils. Now if it
is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils, through whom do your own experts
cast them out? Let them be your judges then. But if it is through the finger of
God that I cast out devils, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken
you. So long as a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are
undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he is attacks and defeats him, the
stronger man takes away all the weapons he relied on and shares out his spoil.
‘He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with
me scatters.
‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a man it wanders through waterless
country looking for a place to rest, and not finding one it says, “I will go
back to the home I came from.” But on arrival, finding it swept and tidied, it
then goes off and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they
go in and set up house there, so that the man ends up by being worse than he
was before.’
Prayerful reflection
Do not think that Satan is not active. To be
destructive he makes himself unnoticeable. Many people today have dismissed the
idea of Satan going around enticing people to sin. Maybe because he is often
depicted in movies as an ugly man all black and having horns on his head. People
in olden days may have been taken in with such a figure, we think, but we have
grown out of it. Satan can possess people, but often he is a secret infiltrator
enticing people to abandon God, disregard his Law for our welfare, and fill themselves
with lust for their own pleasure and conceit. Jesus is the antidote to Satan. Our
closeness to Jesus will reveal his activity and bring it out into the open. Our
closeness to Jesus will save us from the deceptions of Satan.
We must all live for something or someone. Satan will
never say, unless we are truly reprobate, ‘live for me’. He will say live for
God, but, in reality, will encourage us to live only for ourselves. We become
the centre of our life. We become totally selfish. I, me, for me – this is the
criterion for everything. On the contrary, if Jesus fills our hearts, there is
no place for Satanic influence. We become a joy for ourselves and for others.
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