Thursday, September 28, 2017
25th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Hg 1:1-8
Gospel: Luke 9:7-9
King Herod heard of all this and did not know what to think, for people said, “This is John, raised from the dead.” Others believed that Elijah or one of the ancient prophets had come back to life. As for Herod, he said, “I had John beheaded; who is this man about whom I hear such wonders?” And he was anxious to see him.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Hearsay, as a general rule, is not admissible in evidence in our courts of justice. This is because there is no way to establish the impossibility of alteration in the process of message transmission. The information that reached Herod about Jesus was hearsay. He just heard it from people that John whom he had beheaded was back in the person of Jesus. But Herod gave much weight to this rumor.
Today’s Gospel tells us that he was anxious to see Jesus. This anxiety was the handiwork of guilt. He was guilty because he had John beheaded even though John was only preaching the truth about his immoral life. He may have killed the preacher of truth, but the voice of truth continued to haunt his conscience. With the start of Jesus’ public life, the John that Herod had beheaded was speaking again, and even louder this time to the conscience of Herod. Unwanted memories never die.
The time between John’s death and Jesus’ appearance may have muted Herod’s guilt. But the lull gave enough time for his guilt to petrify into a big boulder of fear. Now he was trying to break this boulder into manageable chunks. The strategy was to monitor Jesus first and to spy on him. Good strategy! But unknown to him, these strategic chunks became the sharp-edged stones that his conscience threw at him day and night. The paradox of it all is that Jesus, the bearer of peace, was the source of his fears.
Many people struggle with the unmanageable consequences of past mistakes and are restrained by the ugly tentacles of guilt. The power of guilt cannot be underestimated. That is why one must address guilt at its inception. The best thing to start with, before doing acts of restitution, is to come to the merciful embrace of Jesus. Trouble comes when one has made Jesus the source of his fear. Where else can he go? Jesus is Lord of yesterday, today and tomorrow. He alone can heal us of the binding effect of yesterday. He alone can restore us to the brilliance of today. In him alone we can find assurance of a brighter tomorrow.
Fortunately for the guilty Jesus says, “Fear is useless, what is needed is faith”. These words are not hearsay; the Word himself became flesh to make this assurance a reality.– (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.
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