By Arockia Raj, CSC –
Readings: Jer 7: 23-28; Lk 11: 14-23
When I was reading today’s Gospel text, I was finding myself in the crowd looking at Jesus with admiration of what he was doing and saying. While standing amidst the crowd I was admiring at Jesus’s courage to speak against the crowd who were questioning and testing him for driving out the demon. My focus was on Jesus who without any fear stood in the center of the crowd facing all kinds of people, people who liked him, people who did not like him and the people who pass by.
The second thing I was admiring at him was his sayings about the unity, he says “every nation divided by civil war is on the road to ruin and will fall”. In other words, he says when the nation is united it will stand strong before any nation or any war.
The message for us today is that we may be courageous when people are against us when we do good or when we stand for truth. And we may also be united, united in Christ and with God’s people and with everyone. What we need is to trust in the Lord and let him do all that he wanted us to do.
We pray to Jesus, that we may be with Him and not against Him. He says “Whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not gather with me scatters”. We pray that he gives us the identity as his brothers and sisters by calling God as Our Father that we may be together with Jesus as one.