Monday, June 02, 20147th Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 19:1–8
Gospel: Jn 16:29–33
The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are speaking plainly and not in veiled language! Now we see that you know all things, even before we question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.”Jesus answered them, “You say that you believe! The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.“I have told you all this, so that in me you may have peace. You will have trouble in the world; but, courage! I have overcome the world.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A joke is told of a foreigner who confronted a waiter at a Filipino restaurant for the Peking duck he had chosen from the menu. “Why is your Peking duck so small?” he asked. The waiter replied: “It’s not even a duck, Sir, but an ordinary chicken”. “And you call it Peking duck?” the foreigner inquired. The waiter explained: “that’s our vernacular for ‘fake duck’, Sir!”
Language can also conceal meaning. Some take advantage of this to cheat. Others, however, use this to withhold full disclosure of meaning until the proper time for revelation arrives. Jesus did this when he preached in veiled language because his disciples were not yet ready for divine truths. One day Jesus was finally talking in plain language. He had to because the time to suffer had arrived.
Suffering is the great moment of truth. Without that preferential option for the truth, sufferings are fatal to the soul. Peter was walking on the sea while fixing his gaze on Jesus, the Truth and the Life. Then he sank when he removed his gaze from Jesus and focused on his capacity to walk over the water on his own. Similarly we too will drown in the sea of sufferings if we withdraw our gaze from Jesus.
We can actually float on any ocean of suffering because by baptism we already belong to Christ. Physics tells us that we all float on the sea whether we are fat of thin because the density of human body is always 1 gram per cubic centimeter. Ordinary water has the same density. This means that salty water has more. This explains why we float more easily on the sea than on the swimming pool. We are supposed to float on the sea, but not if we panic.
Similarly, we have enough buoyant force to survive sufferings because Jesus had already conquered the world (verse 33). But fear makes us sink. Fear thrives in those who focus on their own capacities and not on the formidable power of God. When sufferings come they panic like headless chickens. False ducks! – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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