Hidden from the learned

On one occasion Jesus said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to simple people. Yes, Father, this is what pleased you.

“Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

D@iGITAL EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

The misfortune of an enemy gladdens a bitter person but moves the heart of the godly to sympathy. A bitter person rejoices over the fall of an enemy because he finds in revenge the perfect balm to sooth his aching heart. “Revenge is sweet” doesn’t sound Greek to the vengeful. But the true followers of Christ turn the other cheek. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, says the Lord (Deut. 32:35). Because vengeance belongs to God, we leave our quest for immediate justice to the hands of God.  After all, when God’s righteous hand strikes, justice is more than fully satisfied.
A man of God will not feel triumphant over the fall of an enemy. While it is true that divine retribution may strike in this lifetime in the form of misfortune, the godly person will not immediately conclude from the enemy’s misfortune that the hand of God has stricken that enemy. He looks upon it, instead, as a timely admonition that he will end up similarly if he fails to bring his life to perfection. This attitude is definitely more beneficial. For while the man with a bitter heart looks at the misfortune of an enemy as sweet revenge, the man of God looks at the fall of an enemy as lesson learned. A person reacting this way has already reached an appreciable level of spiritual sensitivity.

This kind of spiritual sensitivity is available only to those who are prayerfully linked to God. Prayer is God’s chance to reveal to the humble the things hidden from the wise and the learned. Those not linked to God in prayer do not only rejoice over the misfortune of others but also actively seek out their destruction. They look at life from what Steven Covey calls the “win-lose’ perspective. The operative slogan under this perspective is “Their defeat, my triumph”. Under this perspective a person actively seeks the misfortune of others in order to raise himself up. He cannot scale the ladder of success without stepping on the heads of other persons.

Let us be prayerfully connected to God so that we too may exercise wisdom more beneficially in the spirit of charity.  – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:[email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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