Reflection for MONDAY, 18th Week, Ordinary Time.

By

Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Assistant Parish Priest,Manjeshwar,Kasargod

Gospel Passage for Today

Matthew 14:22-36 

When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But the people heard of this and, leaving the towns, went after him on foot. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them and healed their sick.

 When evening came, the disciples went to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place, and the time has slipped by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘There is no need for them to go: give them something to eat yourselves.’ But they answered ‘All we have with us is five loaves and two fish.’ ‘Bring them here to me’ he said. He gave orders that the people were to sit down on the grass; then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing. And breaking the loaves handed them to his disciples who gave them to the crowds. They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining; twelve baskets full. Those who ate numbered about five thousand men, to say nothing of women and children.

Reflection on the Readings 

In life, we will certainly face setbacks.

As much as we will pray for peace and happiness in life, we also need to be prepared for sadness and grief.

That is the undeniable common experience in life, and everyone will have to go through it.

Even for Jesus, when He heard about the death of John the Baptist, He would have felt sadness and grief.

Jesus had a personal relationship with John the Baptist, and his sudden death would have affected Jesus.

So, Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and sent them off to the other side.

Then He went up into the hills by Himself to pray.

So, even Jesus need to come to terms with His sadness and grief.

We may not know what His prayer was, but going by our experience of sadness and grief, we could make some assumptions.

We would be angry with God, we would be frustrated, we would want to blame someone or we may blame ourselves in regret.

But we know that we need some time to let the pain and hurt subside before we can move on.

May the image of Jesus praying alone in the hills also remind us to pray for those who are in pain and hurting over their sadness and grief.

When we show compassion and understanding to those who are in sadness and in grief, then we too will be comforted in our time of need.

GOD BLESS YOU

Good morning. Have a nice day