Breaking the Word

21^st Week in Ord. Time, Thursday – 25^th August 2022 — Gospel:     Mt 24,42-51

Being with Much More

The Lord invites us to be faithful and prudent servants. They are the ones who treated their fellow servants with respect, stayed awake to defend the home from attack, and fed others at the right time and place. The Lord says that “much will be required of the person entrusted with much and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” None of us has been entrusted with “little,” but “much” and “more.” To be a good servant of the Lord we need to be respecting, loving and treating others as the Master treats us. It means to give to others generously. At the same, it requires welcoming the Lord whenever he chooses to reveal himself in the circumstances of our life. The Lord is constantly coming, knocking at the door of our hearts, and he wants us to be ready with lamps lit and loins girded, that is, to keep our hearts and lives open to him. The unfaithful and imprudent servant is unprepared, lacks this awareness, the expectation of the Lord. He also believes that his master is delaying and begins to sin privately and against others, getting hammered and beating others. But when we are aware that God is on our side, we would almost never choose to sin. When we strive to know the heart and mind of the Master, then we would be found doing what we should be doing.

Bartholomew, Apostle,  Wednesday – 24^th August 2022 — Gospel: Jn 1,45-51

Transformed Skepticism

The Gospel of John speaks about the man named Nathanael, whom the Synoptic Gospels call  Bartholomew. He is mentioned six times in John’s Gospel, whereas Bartholomew is mentioned once in each of the three other Gospels in the list of the names of the Apostles.  John portrays Nathanael as a man who speaks his mind. It appears that he was friendly with Philip who lived and told him about Jesus. His immediate and spontaneous response was skepticism: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”. However, Philip dismissed his initial disbelief and told him to “come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael and recognized him as a man of integrity, saying, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  Despite his initial skepticism, Nathanael opened his heart to encounter the truth. He professed his faith in Jesus in the words, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel.”  His former disbelief in someone from Nazareth is changed to an awareness of the person of Jesus. Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus brought a breath of fresh air.