Reflection for THURSDAY, 6th Week, Ordinary Time.

By

 

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

Today's Gospel Verses 

Mark 8:27-33   

The way you think is not God's way, but man's

Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’


Reflection for the day 

Every time we see a rainbow, we can’t help but wonder at it.

Although there are explanations as to how a rainbow is formed, yet there is a mystery about it.

Maybe it is the colours that are attractive; maybe because we wonder what are at the ends of the rainbow; maybe because it is arched over the sky that makes it prominent and at the same time subtle.

Whatever it may be, in the 1st reading, we heard of what the rainbow symbolizes in the Bible, when God said:

“Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations. I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth”.

So the Biblical meaning of the rainbow is that it is a sign of the Covenant between God and man.

In its essence, God states the Covenant as such: I give you everything, with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it. I will demand an account of every man’s life from his fellow man. 

He who sheds man’s blood, shall have his blood shed by man, for in the image of God, man was made.

So the rainbow reminds us that God has given us everything.

He only wants us to respect the life of every person, for every person is created in the image of God.

We don’t need rainbows to remind us of that. For every person is a mysterious rainbow pointing to who God is.

GOD BLESS YOU

Good morning. Have a nice day.