May 18, 2015
Monday,
7th 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)
Too often one’s faith in his neighbor is anchored on remarkable performances. The same could be said of the disciples’ faith in Jesus. In today’s Gospel reading they said to Jesus, “Now we see that you know all things even before we question you; because of this we believe that you came from God”. If the reason for their belief in Jesus was Jesus’ amazing display of knowledge, then they were mere fanatics. Faith is not fanaticism but relationship.
When I was a deacon, I was assigned to serve all the Masses of the then Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. We were on our way to the Northern part of the Archdiocese one morning when a beggar took advantage of the red light to beg from him. The Cardinal politely waived his hand. If I relied on what I saw, my conclusions would have been adverse to the Cardinal. But I have known the Cardinal to be exceedingly generous. What I saw did not in any way diminish my faith in him. Instead, the scenario became instructive of what charity should be. That day I learned that giving must be done responsibly, and red traffic lights are not the safe moments to exercise responsible giving.
Dublin (Ireland) Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told an assembly at the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, County Donegal in 2005: “Faith is different from seeing or knowing. If what I see turns out to be an illusion, I may be disappointed… (But if I have faith) I can set out to find correctives”. The Archbishop was trying to exhort his listeners not to remain at the level of seeing and knowing. We cannot anchor our faith on what we see because of the propensity of our eyes to look for the spectacular. Jesus told the disciples who said they believed in him now that he was no longer speaking in veiled language: “The hour is coming when you will be scattered, and you will leave me alone.” True enough they all abandoned Jesus in the end. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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