Reflection for WEDNESDAY, 3rd Week of Advent.

By 

  Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Director, Social Action Movement, Don Bosco Bidar 

Gospel Verses for today 


Luke 7:19-23   

 he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” 

 When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” 

 At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” 

Meditation on the Word of God 

No one can ever say that there are no questions about life, especially when there are contradictions and disappointments.

Life is not as clear and straight-forward as we would like it to be or expect it to be.

And when it come to the aspect of faith in God, we can also say that we have our doubts especially when our desperate prayers are not answered and our hopes for a favourable outcome turn out otherwise.

In the gospel, even the great prophet John the Baptist has his doubts and uncertainties.

He was in prison and in the darkness of his cell and alone and cut off from the rest of the world, his faith was put to the test.

He wasn’t sure about Jesus anymore, even though he had pointed Jesus as the Lamb of God.

We too will have our moments of doubts and uncertainties, especially when our faith is tested and we feel that God has forsaken us or forgotten about us.

But it is in times like these that we must persist and persevere in our faith, turn to the Bible to see what God wants to tell us.

In the 1st reading, God says this: Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled, there is no other god besides me, a God of integrity and a saviour.

God’s Word is truth, and His Word gives us strength and life and His Word shows us the way.

This Advent, let us take up the Bible and listen deeply to the Word of God.

May the Word of God be our light and our life in times of doubts and uncertainties.

Saint of the day 

John is a saint because his life was a heroic effort to live up to his name: “of the Cross.” The folly of the cross came to full realization in time. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34b) is the story of John’s life. The Paschal Mystery—through death to life—strongly marks John as reformer, mystic-poet, and theologian-priest.

Ordained a Carmelite priest in 1567 at age 25, John met Teresa of Avila and like her, vowed himself to the primitive Rule of the Carmelites. As partner with Teresa and in his own right, John engaged in the work of reform, and came to experience the price of reform: increasing opposition, misunderstanding, persecution, imprisonment. He came to know the cross acutely—to experience the dying of Jesus—as he sat month after month in his dark, damp, narrow cell with only his God.

Yet, the paradox! In this dying of imprisonment John came to life, uttering poetry. In the darkness of the dungeon, John’s spirit came into the Light. There are many mystics, many poets; John is unique as mystic-poet, expressing in his prison-cross the ecstasy of mystical union with God in the Spiritual Canticle.

But as agony leads to ecstasy, so John had his Ascent to Mt. Carmel, as he named it in his prose masterpiece. As man-Christian-Carmelite, he experienced in himself this purifying ascent; as spiritual director, he sensed it in others; as psychologist-theologian, he described and analyzed it in his prose writings. His prose works are outstanding in underscoring the cost of discipleship, the path of union with God: rigorous discipline, abandonment, purification. Uniquely and strongly John underlines the gospel paradox: The cross leads to resurrection, agony to ecstasy, darkness to light, abandonment to possession, denial to self to union with God. If you want to save your life, you must lose it. John is truly “of the Cross.” He died at 49—a life short, but full.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.


      GOD BLESS YOU

Good morning. Have a nice day.

Happy feast of St. John of the Cross