Monday, July 24, 2017
16th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Ex 14:5-18
Gospel:
Matthew 12:38-42
Some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign, but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the monster fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the depths of the earth.
“At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and here there is greater than Solomon.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A man dreams that he is walking with the Lord on the beach. He is surprised that the Lord is carrying his friend, leaving him behind to walk by himself. Envious he asks: “Lord, why are you carrying my friend?” The Lord replied: “Don’t be envious; he is suffering from gout!”
Hilarious dreams entertain us, meaningful dreams educate us, happy dreams uplift us, sad dreams depress us, and mysterious dreams can guide us. Because dreams have guided kings in the past many of us look to dreams as source of signs for future events. But this is really out of order. If dreams provide a good peep into the future then people will just go to sleep to live the future in advance and live it twice at different levels. In the process they forget to live the present moment. What a waste of God’s grace!
Seeking for signs is not bad per se. Even in our relationship with God we need signs to communicate with the God we cannot see. Even our Sacraments are administered in signs and symbols. Aware of our nature as corporeal beings God also communicates to us through signs, as when miracles happen.
But the love for signs becomes inordinate when we seek them out of curiosity. There will be no more need for faith if every time we doubt God should perform miracles. At Calvary people were tempting Jesus to perform a sign miraculous enough to make them believe. Jesus did not. In the parable of Lazarus, the rich man asked that somebody should rise from the dead to warn his living relatives. No such sign was given even if the reason was apparently meritorious.
Today’s Gospel invites us to deepen faith rather than increase the stimuli for the senses. As faith deepens, our eyes glow day by day in wonder while contemplating the marvels of God in our lives. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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