Gospel Reading: Mt 6:24-34
Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. 34Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
Reflection
RENEWING FAITH IN GOD AS “MOTHER-FATHER ALMIGHTY”
When I go home and see my aging and sickly parents, I wonder how they have managed so well… at least as I feel it.
And I worry for them, for myself, for life, for what tomorrow may bring. Life has changed; above all, I have changed.
I am no longer a little child before whose eyes father and mother are two big and loving super persons.
God’s Word makes us realize that the challenge is more than simply letting go of our anxieties over our human needs.
In the Gospel, Jesus does not deny the reality of human needs. We have to eat, drink, and clothe ourselves. However, if we are believers in the Christian God, we have to practice the art of going through everything with the eyes, the heart, and the mind of children. We must see ourselves as small and look at God as the “Big One,” who takes care of everything in a manner far better than we can imagine. Like little children, we should let God do the worrying. We should trust that with God, life is well.
The Gospel, from the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, stresses that for the wise King Solomon, considered the golden king of Israel, for the tiny and unnamed birds, and for the ephemeral wild flowers easily trampled underfoot, God is more than just the mighty universal Maker. More importantly for Jesus, God is the “heavenly Father.” God is “heavenly” not only because God dwells in the heavens, but because God as Father surpasses any earthly father in his power to provide and in his compassion. Imagine the best traits a human father may have, and extend such good
attributes to the maximum, and know that God the “heavenly Father” is far more than such… without comparison.
The prophet Isaiah (First Reading) underscores that God is not just the “heavenly Father,” but that the Lord is also the mother who bears the child in her womb! The nine-month period that the mother carries the baby in her womb produces a bond that is intimate and lasting, for in those months mother and child are truly one. The mother’s breath is the child’s own; the mother’s food is the baby’s nourishment, too.
God is the “Big One” – who is at the same time the heavenly Father and the ever-thoughtful Mother. Ours is the need to relearn how to be the little ones. This relearning may be made difficult by all that we have been through. But we must thank our own earthly fathers and human mothers. Their unselfish and “magical” ways enable us to say: “All can be well… because once upon a time, this was so. Life was worry-free since we believed that Papa and Mama were bigger than any concerns there were.”
an example: dying on the cross, he asks his Father to forgive his killers for “they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).
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SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord,” ST PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.