Thursday,
September 25, 2014
25th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Eccl 1:2-11
Gospel: Luke 9:7-9
King Herod heard of all this and did not know what to think, for people said, “This is John, raised from the dead.” Others believed that Elijah or one of the ancient prophets had come back to life. As for Herod, he said, “I had John beheaded; who is this man about whom I hear such wonders?” And he was anxious to see him.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Hearsay is not admissible in evidence in our courts of justice unless the impossibility of alteration in the process of message transmission is established. The information that reached Herod about Jesus was hearsay. Yet he rushed to interpret it within the framework of his experience with John the Baptist. He was yet to meet Jesus in person yet the little information about him that reached him already disturbed him. The mere mention of his extraordinary activities drove Herod back down memory lanes where particular milestones hounded him. “He is John the Baptist come back to life”, he exclaimed.
He could have interpreted the Jesus event some other way. Unfortunately, unwanted memories refuse to die. The memory of John the Baptist came alive to him in the person of Jesus. Today’s Gospel reading ends with the description that Herod was “anxious” to see Jesus. This is descriptive of the guilt he was carrying. His guilt petrified into fear and became the boulder that he tried to break off into manageable pieces. The chunks became the very stones that his conscience hurled upon him day and night. The object of his fear was Jesus, the person who was supposed to be the bearer of peace. How pathetic!
Many people struggle with the unmanageable consequences of past mistakes and are restrained by the ugly tentacles of their own guilt. The power of guilt cannot be underestimated. That is why one must address guilt at its inception. The best thing to start with, before doing acts of restitution, is to come to the merciful embrace of Jesus.
Trouble comes when one has made Jesus the very source of his fear as Herod did. Where else can he go? From whom else can he draw strength? Jesus is Lord of yesterday, today and tomorrow. He alone can heal us of the binding effect of yesterday. He alone can restore us to the brilliance of today. In him alone we can find assure us of a brighter tomorrow. Woe to the one who cannot approach Jesus because of fear.
Fortunately for the guilty Jesus said that “Fear is useless, what is needed is faith”. These words are not hearsay; the Word himself became flesh to make this assurance a reality.- Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.
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