WELCOMING JESUS INTO OUR LIVES
We
are now on the third week of the Lenten season, or the last week of its
first part. In this first part of Lent, the liturgy is designed such
that there is always a spiritual lesson in every Mass through the
readings.
There is a kind of linchpin between the First Reading and the Gospel, a
connection point tying them together. This is about Naaman, the leprous
Syrian army commander. The lesson is such that if the pagan Naaman came
to Israel to be healed of his disease, so too must the Jews who, sadly,
rejected Jesus, the Divine Physician.
It was so bad as “they were all filled with fury.” It reached the point
that they wanted to hurl Jesus over the edge of a cliff. But, as the
last verse of the Gospel passage puts it, “He passed through the midst
of them and went away.”
It sounds so ominous. Can it be that Jesus does the very same thing to
us, too, because of our sinfulness and lack of repentance? That He
simply walks through our midst and goes away?
This happens when we do not give Him the place He deserves: in our very
selves, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our society, in all our
other venues and forums. God ought to have a place in every area of our
lives. He need not be limited to churches and chapels only.
We ought to undo or disprove the dictum of Jesus: “No prophet is
accepted in his own native place.” We can do that if we welcome and
allow Him to feel at home and stay in our hearts. He, after all, is
surely not a Naaman, carrying with Him an infectious disease. Let Him be
for us a native — not an alien or stranger. Fr. Martin Macasaet, SDB
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Have you opened all the areas of your life to God? If not, what’s keeping you from doing so?
Dear God, make Your dwelling in me that I may always be with You.
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