July 12, 2013
Friday 14th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Gen 46:1–7, 28–30
Gospel: Mt 10:16–23
Jesus said to his disciples, “Look, I send you out like sheep among wolves. You must be clever as snakes and innocent as doves. Be on your guard with respect to people, for they will hand you over to their courts and they will flog you in their synagogues. You will be brought to trial before rulers and kings because of me, and so you may witness to them and the pagans. “But when you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say and how you are to say it; when the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. For it is not you who will speak; but it will be the Spirit of your Father in you.
“Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved. “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. For sure, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated Life
Experience)
Jesus told his disciples to be “clever as snakes and innocent as doves” (Mt. 10:16). The Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Chapter 16 of Luke gives us a fair idea what being clever as snake means. But the shrewdness Jesus wanted his disciples to exercise was only for the furtherance of the kingdom and not for promoting evil. Obviously Jesus did not want naïve and gullible evangelizers. He wanted them to be “wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Rom. 16:19). What St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians is also instructive: “In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking, be adults” (1 Cor14:20).
Jesus warned them about the inevitability of persecutions. We who are also called to be evangelizers today need no such warning because we have seen in history how Jesus was treated. If the Master was treated shabbily, what can the followers expect? Our Master was treated shabbily even by the religious leaders who were supposed to be more discerning in matters of spiritual realities. They even branded him as prince of devils. Should we expect better treatment?
Baptism has commissioned us to be evangelizers. Let us strive to be as clever as snakes by being resourceful in our apostolate even to the point of being “shrewd”. As to the persecutions foretold, let us not lose heart because Jesus said: “When the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. For it is not you who will speak; but it will be the Spirit of your Father in you”. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website:www.frdan.org.
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