Daily Reflections

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
[365] 1 Kings 21:1-16
Psalm 5:2-3ab, 4b-6a, 6b-7
Matthew 5:38-42

First Reading: 1 Kgs 21: 1-16 This is the story about Ahab, king of Samaria, who wanted the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite. Naboth said to Ahab, “The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral heritage.”
Jezabel, wife to Ahab, arranged that Naboth would be stoned to death so that Ahab could possess Naboth’s land.

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 5:2-3ab, 4b-6a
Refrain: “Lord, listen to my groaning.”

Gospel: Mt 5 Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil….”

These are very difficult readings for me.
In the first reading -- like many stories in the Old Testament -- the story told is not one we want to emulate. The actions of Jezabel are certainly against the spirit of God…..Yet God works through humans’ actions to continue His covenant with the Jewish people.

In the Gospel story Jesus tells us, “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well….” Is a story that tells me that Jesus is trying to teach us that God’s ways are not our ways.

Jesus, in fulfilling the Scriptures, is once again telling us that He is teaching us that we are to live with a different spirit than what humans may naturally do in reacting to situations in life.

These readings also remind me that God’s will needs to be fulfilled – even though we cannot see the reason why. Mary, Jesus’s mother and our role model, said, “Thy will be done.” She didn’t understand the reason why…but she lived the life she understood God wanted her to live.

Every day we need to remind ourselves that we are to do as Mary did….live the life that we understand God wishes us to lead.

Let us pray: Mary, help us understand that God has created us to do some definite service. God has committed some definite work to each one of us. Each of us has his/her mission. We may never understand it in this life, but we will in the next.

We are a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created us for naught. We shall do good. We shall do God’s work. Amen.

(Taken in part from the Prayer by John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), “The Mission of My Life.”)