Saturday, October 05, 2013
26th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading:
Bar 4:5-12, 27-29 Gospel: Luke10:17-24
The seventy-two disciples returned full of joy. They said, “Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we called on your name.” Then Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. You see, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the Enemy, so that nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, don’t rejoice because the evil spirits submit to you; rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven.”
At that time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and made them known to the little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. I have been given all things by my Father, so that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said to them privately, “Fortunate are you to see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings would have liked to see what you see but did not, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life Experience)
Jesus’ remark that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven reminds me of a time in my life when falling down from a ladder was the only way to save my life. While under formation at the Major Seminary I dabbled as the seminary electrician. One afternoon, the rector asked me to work on the electrical connections of the old sacristy which he had converted into a lounge. Standing on an aluminum ladder, I was splicing a live wire near the ceiling. Too tired from a class outing that day I leaned on an old iron fire-escape ladder protruding from a wall nearby.
Suddenly I became part of a high voltage circuit. Since I could hardly move, I prayed that I’d fall from that ladder so I would no longer be part of the live circuit. I bent my knees. When I did, gravity took care of the rest.
My fall and Satan’s fall share some parallelisms. While I fell down from the ladder and lived, Satan who once was Lucifer the Archangel fell from heaven and “died”. Flexing my knees spared me; the refusal to flex his knees in humility led Lucifer to death for all eternity. That death made Lucifer a being of the past. The word “devil”, in fact, is “lived” read in reverse.
Life too was restored to us at baptism. But we can lose this life if we refuse to bend our knees. Humility is the secret to remaining alive. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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