Friday, August 05, 2016 18th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Na 2: 1. 3; 3: 1-3. 6-7 Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28
Jesus said to his disciples, “If you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For whoever chooses to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for my sake will find it. What will one gain by winning the whole world if he destroys himself? There is nothing you can give to recover your own self.
“Know that the Son of Man will come in the Glory of his Father with the holy angels, and he will reward each one according to his deeds…”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated
Life Experience)
A mother superior travels through Europe with another nun behind the steering wheel. Suddenly a little demon jumps unto the hood of the car. “Turn the windshield wipers on”, says the mother superior. The nun obeys but the demon clings on. “What shall I do now?” the nun asks. “Switch on the windshield washer; I filled it up with holy water at the Vatican,” the mother superior replies. The nun turns on the windshield washer and the demon screams as the water burns his skin, but he clings on.
“Now what?” the nun insists. “Show him your cross,” says the superior. The nun smiles, opens the window and shouts obscene words at the demon. “No, I didn’t mean that you go that nasty”, says the scandalized superior. “I’m just showing the demon my real cross,” the nun explains.
Some crosses are external like persecutions, while others are internal like compulsions. Compulsions are the ugly results of our own bad habits. These crosses often prevail because habits are hard to remove. This play of words is illustrative: HABIT is very hard to remove: if you remove H you still have “a bit”; when you remove A you still have “bit”; even if you remove B you still have “it”.
External crosses are the ugly results of the bad habits of others. The worst impact of the bad habits of others upon us is persecution. The habitual irresponsible exercise of freedom will always have innocent casualties. We draw merits from continuing to suffer the impact after trying, to no avail, non-violent means to convert the persecutor.
Can we derive similar merits from our own compulsions? Perhaps not! They may be real crosses but they cannot save since they are the results of our own wrongdoing. We can get rid of them through constant practice of self-denial. The repetition builds up will power. How repetitious must we be in order to build up stronger will power? As repetitious as the wiper of a car’s windshield throughout life’s journey is good enough!– (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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