May 22, 2017 Monday
6th Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 16:11–15
Gospel: Jn 15:26—16:4
Jesus said to his disciples, “From the Father, I will send you the Spirit of truth. When this Helper has come from the Father, he will be my witness, and you, too, will be my witnesses for you have been with me from the beginning. “I tell you all this to keep you from stumbling and falling away. They will put you out of the Jewish communities. Still more, the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God; they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. I tell you all these things now so that when the time comes you may remember that I told you. “I did not tell you about this in the beginning because I was with you.
”D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A story is told of a man who found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress.It appeared like it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
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 God’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.” (From the internet).
In today’s Gospel reading the Lord warned disciples about impending persecutions. He promised the help of the Holy Spirit though. But even then, sufferings are important to discipleship. Without the right dosage of suffering, we won’t be as strong as we are meant to be. We are talking here, or course, of redemptive sufferings, not those resulting from self-indulgence. Redemptive sufferings are those inflicted upon us by bad people who use their freedom to make us suffer despite our prophetic denunciation of their evil deeds.
Let’s not chicken out in times of crisis. We have the Holy Spirit as helper. It is his role to enlighten our minds when harassed by tribulations. With the light of the Holy Spirit we do not only appreciate the value of sufferings but also meritoriously persevere in every significant trial that comes by. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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