Reflection for March 9, Monday of the Third Week of Lent; Luke 4:24-30

Gospel: Luke 4:24-30

Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth: “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. When the people in the synagogue heard this they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

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Reflection:

Do you expect Jesus to bless you abundantly because you always pray and you do good? How would you feel if your expectation is not meet by Jesus with the same expectation that you have?  Would you now be indifferent to Jesus?

We cannot fathom the mind of God, there are times that His decisions will not fit our own comprehension. We nevertheless should continue to be faithful to Him even if His will is often times not attuned to our own will. In His own time God will eventually give us what we want. We simply have to be patient and not be uninterested with God.

In our gospel the people of Nazareth is angry with Jesus for the simple reason that what Jesus said did not fit their expectation. Their minds were already conditioned to believe their own expectations. But we cannot read the mind of Jesus and we cannot put Jesus in a box because His decisions are often times out of the box.

We simply have to believe and hold-on to our faith in Jesus no matter what happens. Even if sometimes or even often times His decisions doesn’t fit our own selfish expectations. Who knows one of these days Jesus will suddenly give us what we want. During these times when we least expect Him to give it to us.

Let us continue to have faith in Jesus in good times and in bad for He knows what is best for us. – Marino J. Dasmarinas