May 04, 2016 Wednesday,
6th Week of Easter 1st Reading: Acts 17:15, 22–18:1 Gospel: Jn 16:12–15
Jesus said to his disciples, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. When he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into the whole truth.
“He has nothing to say of himself but he will speak of what he hears, and he will tell you of the things to come. He will take what is mine and make it known to you; in doing this, he will glorify me. All that the Father has is mine; because of this I have just told you, that the Spirit will take what is mine and make it known to you.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
A man sits and watches a butterfly struggling for several hours to come out through the small opening on the cocoon. When he sees that the butterfly stops making any progress the man decides to help the butterfly. He takes a pair of scissors and snips off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly emerges easily. But it has a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.The man expects that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to support its body. This did not happen. In fact, the butterfly spends the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. To us Christians, the moral lesson is clear: without the right dosage of suffering, we would not be as strong as we are meant to be.
Jesus’ whole life was a demonstration of the importance of sufferings and how to go through them. We are talking here, or course, of redemptive sufferings, not those resulting from self-indulgence in immoral affairs. Examples of Redemptive sufferings include those inflicted upon us by those who abuse their freedom and in the process make us suffer. We are called to denounce their misuse of freedom.
Any suffering we endure in the process is redemptive suffering.
But while we are convinced of the importance of sufferings, our normal reaction to actual suffering is evasion. We need all the help we can get from above. The good news is that the Helper that heaven has assigned to help us is no less than the Holy Spirit. With the light of the Holy Spirit we do not only see the important role that sufferings play in our spiritual life but also gain strength to sustain our resolve to continue until we get to the finish line.— Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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