Saturday, 05 January 2019 First Reading: 1 Jn 3:11-21 Gospel Reading: Jn 1:43-51
Jesus decided to set off for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one that Moses wrote about in the Law, and the prophets as well: he is Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming, he said of him, “Here comes an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him.” Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” And Jesus said to him, “Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.”
D@iGITAL EXPERIENCE
D@iLY GOSPEL IN OUR LIFE EXPERIENCE
Today’s Gospel scenario was the first meeting between Nathanael and Jesus. Surprisingly, it seems Jesus had known so much of Nathanael already. In much the same way, long before we became Church members through baptism, God already looked upon us with his eyes of mercy. He was the first to love us as the Shepherd who searches for lost sheep.
God is a proactive God who searches for the lost sheep. But this should not suggest that we leave everything to God and just wait in passivity. Like Nathanael we have to seek the Lord out. Seeking the Lord out is an exercise of freedom, which is indispensable to any divine action on our behalf. If a shepherd finds his lost sheep but the lost one refuses to go with him back to the fold, God will not drag it or bodily carry it back to the fold against its will.
One seeks the Lord out in an environment of prayer that awakens his awareness of his Christian identity, bringing him to repentance and moving him to exercise self discipline thereafter. These make for endurance in one’s chosen path to seek the Lord.
Where else do we seek the Lord if not in moments of prayer? Some people justify their failure to go into seclusion to pray by saying that they are praying as they are working anyway. But like cars that must stop at the fuel station to gas up, we must retire to a lonely place by ourselves to pray. Such environment of prayer strengthens our awareness of our Christian identity and moves us to repentance realizing that sin and God cannot coexist in the life of a Christian. By disciplining the body that normally bridles the spirit, one endures in his quest to seek the Lord.
As in the case of Nathanael Jesus is interested in us but won’t gate crush his way into our lives. We have to seek him out through prayer and repentance. —(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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