April 25, 2017
Tuesday
2nd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 4:32–37
Gospel: Jn 3:7–15
Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Don’t be surprised when I say: ‘You must be born again from above.’
“The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus asked again, “How can this be?” And Jesus answered, “You are a teacher in Israel, and you don’t know these things!
“Truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we witness to the things we have seen, but you don’t accept our testimony. If you don’t believe when I speak of earthly things, what then, when I speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ever gone up to heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated Life
Experience)
I saw a “taong grasa” (vagrant) walking along the street with an umbrella. The strong wind already twisted her umbrella but she never folded it up. Mentally deficient though she was, she understood that she just had to keep walking with her twisted umbrella because she had no control over the power of the wind.
Jesus likened the unpredictability of the Holy Spirit to that of the wind. Now we understand why people living lives in the Spirit appear unpredictable to the world. The Spirit that animates a disciple cannot be governed by worldly standards. Thus if the standard of the world is to condemn an erring religious leader, persons living lives in the Spirit will pray for him instead of jumping into the bandwagon of persecutors.
Flesh begets flesh, Spirit begets spirit. From the Flesh we inherited our sinful nature; in the Spirit we inherit everlasting life. “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned… For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:12)
It is now possible to live in the Spirit because Jesus has won for us salvation. Unfortunately, some would like to have the best of both worlds by availing of life in the Spirit but remaining attached to the world. The duplicity is disastrous because God abhors hypocrisy. God vomits those who are neither hot nor cold (Rev. 3:15). In trying to make the best of both worlds they fall headlong to the pit of destruction.
Life in the Spirit allows no compromises with the world. For this, one desiring to live the life of the Spirit may suffer ostracism for defying worldly standards. But in the process they shake the worldly from their comfort zones with strength of testimony as disturbing as the power of the wind. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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