Saturday, September 30, 2017 25th Week in
Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Zec 2:5:9. 14-15 Gospel: Luke 9:43-45
While all were amazed at everything Jesus did, he said to his disciples, “Listen and remember what I tell you now: The Son of Man will be delivered into human hands.” But the disciples didn’t understand this saying; something prevented them from grasping what he meant and they were afraid to ask him about it.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Earlier Peter confessed that Jesus was “the Messiah of God” (Luke 9:18-22). Although what Peter said came close to the core of Jesus’ identity, it was a dangerous one because it also captured the hidden longing of the Jews for a political king. Rightly did Jesus evade the title “Messiah”. He used instead “Son of Man”, a title derived from the Book of Daniel. This Book describes “Son of Man” as someone who comes in glory to judge the nations with justice but suffers terribly at the hands of people. Jesus identified himself with this image. This should have rung a bell on the disciples because they were not ignorant of Scriptures. Yet even though they were familiar with the Book of Daniel, “something prevented them from grasping what he (Jesus) meant…” (Lk. 9:45).
What was it that prevented them from grasping its meaning? Blame it on their paradigm that equated suffering with defeat. Since they could not allow Jesus to end up in defeat lest they too would perish, they refused to understand the necessity of Jesus’ submission to the enemies. We cannot share this paradigm. For us suffering plays an important role in character flexing and faith building. Even psychologists have acknowledged this when they set aside Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to give way to Adversity Quotient (AQ).
The formula of AQ should be faith over adversity multiplied by 100. Faith must maintain a one to one ratio with adversity to generate a hundred percent AQ. One’s AQ drops when his faith remains stagnant as his adversity increases. To sustain a hundred percent AQ, faith must grow as adversity increases, maintaining a one to one ratio. By maintaining a hundred percent AQ, one’s faith grows sturdier as adversity batters him the stronger.
It was not for AQ, though, that Jesus underwent sufferings. He did not need any faith flexing and character building. It was more to make us understand what Peter did not understand properly then. If he, the Messiah, willingly took the role of the Son of Man with all its implications of sufferings and tribulations, with how much more alacrity should we go through testing for our own spiritual growth? –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M., Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
May comment ka ba sa column ni Father Dan? May tanong ka ba sa kanya?
I-type ang BANDERA REACT <message/ name/age/address> at i-send sa 4467.