Monday of the 30th week in the ordinary time of the year
Theme: A life of love
In our 1st reading of today, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, encourages us to live in love as children of God. This is very important today in our world, because it will go a long way towards reducing the difficulties in the world. We live in a world where people are becoming increasingly self-centered and are manipulating others for their personal interest. This attitude has given rise to a lot of quarrels and hate, and has brought about wars and unnecessary rivalry. My brothers and sisters in Christ, St. Paul is simply saying that we should give love a chance in our lives. Let all your words and actions be guided by love. When this becomes the situation, there will be no need for wars and the hate and bitterness that we see everywhere in our world today. Rather there will be peace, unity, love, happiness and collective growth. When there is love, no one will be planning on how to hurt the other person for selfish reasons and personal interest; and our world will become a better place, and people will live their lives with less fear of been hurt by someone else. If we are able to make it happen in our own time, we will be reliving the true Christian lives like it was with the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostle. It does not mean everything will be perfect, it simply means that the imperfections will be very few that it will not be noticed. In view of this, St. Paul is encouraging us to live a good life, and not to live like disobedient children.
The ruler of the synagogue in today’s gospel would have been celebrating that Jesus healed the woman who was sick for 18 years, if he was guided by love of God and neighbor in his actions. This would have been an opportunity to glorify God for restoring her to good health, and not an opportunity to fault the good action of Jesus. The question is, if he was the woman that was healed on the Sabbath day by Jesus, would he have said Jesus did something wrong? This is a sign of a person that is self-centred. He is attacking Jesus because the womans condition does not affect him in any way. As children of God, we are all encouraged to allow love guide our actions, by giving love a chance in our lives. As you do this, may almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Peace be with you.