August 11, 2018 Saturday, 18th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Hab 1:12-2:4 Gospel: Mt 17:14–20
A man approached Jesus, knelt before him and said, “Sir, have pity on my son who is an epileptic and is in a wretched state. He has often fallen into the fire and at other times into the water. I brought him to your disciples but they could not heal him.”
Jesus replied, “You, faithless and evil people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus commanded the evil spirit to leave the boy, and the boy was immediately healed.
The disciples then gathered around Jesus and asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive out the spirit?”
Jesus said to them, “Because you have little faith. I say to you: if only you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move from here to there, and the mountain would obey. Nothing would be impossible to you.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
The child in today’s Gospel story was introduced to Jesus as an epileptic. It turned out he was actually possessed by an evil spirit. Earlier the disciples of Jesus failed to heal the child. That’s why they came to Jesus. “Why couldn’t we drive out the spirit?” the disciples asked. Jesus said to them, “Because you have little faith.”
Except for its parallel in Luke 12:38, the term “little faith” as applied to Jesus’ close-in followers is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. How thought provoking indeed! If these disciples who had the historical Jesus in their midst remained shallow in faith, what more could be said of us who follow Jesus mediated by signs and symbols called sacraments?
As a people we have been Christianized for more than 400 hundred years. We are the “Cradle of Christianity” in the Far East. But it seems our faith has remained in the cradle. Worse, it is now dying even before it could get off that cradle. Let’s be concrete. The Commandments we vow at Baptism to practice says, “Thou shalt not kill”. There is killing everywhere in the guise of weeding society of evildoers. In the process life in general suffers devaluation. Who is coming to the defense of God’s Commandment?
The Commandments say, “Thou shalt not steal”. There is corruption everywhere and we are not disturbed anymore. Someone has proposed that we just have to level off the opportunity for corruption for everybody. He sounded very much like the Apostles who gave up on the boy from whom they could not drive the devil away.
If this is the attitude of many, then our faith has not only remained shallow but dead. Any compromise with the devil is venturing unto the mouth of the grave. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M
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