Word to the Wise
Saturday, September 28, 2019 - Saturday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time
[Zech 2:5-9, 14-15a and Luke 9:43b-45]While they were all amazed at his every deed, Jesus said to his disciples, "Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men." But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was bidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying." [Luke]
SEPTEMBER 28 STS. DOMINIC IBANEZ, JAMES TOMONAGA, LAWRENCE RUIZ AND COMPANIONS - Dominican Martyrs in Japan.
Jesus and his disciples are on the road to Jerusalem. His singular focus on getting there, especially during the feast of the Passover, seems to have escaped the disciples. How was this any different from any Passover, except that some of the disciples probably had never set foot there from Galilee? Jesus' predictions about his fate in Jerusalem seemed strange, even outlandish, and the power of denial may have been at work in the disciples. Denial can shield us from the truth.
Denial in the face of the gospel has always been an obstacle. We hear the familiar words with their challenging content, but their sheer familiarity shields us from their impact and we become comfortable in our way of living. The gospel can become stale in us and fail because we simply deny that we need to do anything about what we are hearing! This could be particularly true if we worried that we might experience the same fate as Jesus if we took him too seriously. Luke wrote his gospel to a community under persecution. Jesus' predictions about his own fate would become their own. The Dominican martyrs in Japan knew well that their journey might end like Jesus' did. Can anyone else tell from our behavior that we are one of his disciples? AMEN