Reflection for Tuesday September 27, Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest: Luke 9:51-56

Gospel: Luke 9:51-56

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. 

When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

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Reflection:

What is your attitude when somebody rejects you? Do you feel bad and offended or you simply shrug it off, move on and treat rejection as simply part of life. 

Jesus was refused entry into the Samaritan village but instead of sulking and harboring resentment towards the Samaritan people. Jesus simply walked away without harboring any ill will against them. 

Perhaps Jesus was silently saying: “You refused me entry into your village so I move on without any ill feelings against you people of Samaria. In that negative reception Jesus had a positive reaction: Let’s move on and go forth with our mission.   

Every now and then there would also be people who will try to offend us or bait us to stoop to their level of arrogance. So what are we going to do? We must not bite their bait, we instead should keep calm and not allow ourselves to be offended.   

We simply have to take the higher road and squeeze whatever positive lessons that we could take amidst the negative situation.  We have to remember that nobody is in charge of how we would react in any situation that is thrown to us except us. 

Being so, we should not forget to look at the positive in every negative situation that is thrown our way. – Marino J. Dasmarinas