Friday,
February 17, 2017
6th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Gen 11:1-9
Gospel: Mk 8:34–9:1
Jesus called the people and his disciples and said, “If you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For if you choose to save your life, you will lose it; and if you lose your life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, you will save it.
“What good is it to gain the whole world but destroy yourself? There is nothing you can give to recover your life. I tell you: If anyone is ashamed of me and of my words among this adulterous and sinful people, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the Glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
And he went on to say, “Truly I tell you, there are some here who will not die before they see the kingdom of God coming with power.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated
Life Experience)
The Gospel readings starting yesterday follow Jesus as he leaves his Galilean Ministry and moves towards Jerusalem to suffer and die. Meanwhile he takes advantage of the long journey to gradually open the eyes of his apostles to the mystery of his Passion and Death. The Caesarea Philippi scene (Gospel reading yesterday) is the first of the series of readings in Mark showing how Jesus tries to make his apostles understand the meaning of his Passion. Like the blind man (the other day’s Gospel reading) whose sight Jesus restores gradually and not in an instant, the apostles will be introduced gradually to the mysteries of his Passion and Death.
Caesarea Philippi (yesterday’s reading) is an oral exam to test the apostles about their knowledge of Jesus (Mk. 8:27-33). Peter gives the right answer but the answer suffers fatal defect because it is anchored on the wrong concept of a political Messiah. In today’s Gospel we find Jesus revving up his efforts to draw his disciples into deeper understanding of his identity. Here he unleashes one of his hardest lessons. He says, “If you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me…”
Since we have professed to follow the same Jesus who hasn’t revised this teaching as yet, let us revisit our expectations about our Christian discipleship lest we end up following what Fulton J. Sheen called the crossless Christ. Those who are not open to the formative value of sufferings follow a crossless Christ to a meaningless existence. Calvary is the only mountain with the tomb of the resurrection. Those who suffer willingly can reasonably expect the dividends of the resurrection. In tomorrow’s Gospel Jesus will allow his apostles a glimpse of this glory with their experience of his Transfiguration. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.
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