COLLECT: “INCLINE A MERCIFUL EAR TO OUR CRY, WE PRAY, O LORD, AND, CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARKNESS OF OUR HEARTS, VISIT US WITH THE GRACE OF YOUR SON. WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU IN THE UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, GOD, FOREVER AND EVER. AMEN”.
Num 24:2-7,15-17a; Ps 24:2-7,15-17a and Mt 21:23-27
Both readings today concern God’s activity in our lives. In the first reading, Balaam prophesies in response to a divine impulse. In the Gospel, Jesus sidesteps a question because his questioners are insincere, but he implies that his authority comes from God his Father. May we sincerely seek God’s will and inspiration in our lives.
There is a Dagaare adage that: “Two wise people cannot crack or operate or work on a cat’s head” (“Nyaanee ba yi kong tuo peri kolaa/die bie/nyaanyuo zu”). Maybe because the head of the cat is so small, and each of these two wise men may want a ‘lion’s share’ of the meat, they will certainly end up harming or hurting one another. The safer side will be for one to be a ‘fool’ by allowing the other one to crack it.
In this world, a lot of us behave as very ‘wise’ people. When we believe that we can use our knowledge and intelligence to deceive and manipulate others to achieve our hidden and malevolent motives and intentions, then we think we are wise.
Such people are, in actual fact, not truly wise; a person is truly wise who is attuned to God and all to do God's will of God. When such a person is trapped by the tricks, manipulations and schemes of the so-called wise people of this world, God, through the Holy Spirit will always show him/her a way out. Jesus even promised and assured his disciples that they should not be afraid of what to say when they are arrested and brought before the chief priests and elders of this world, or when they stand before courts, for the Holy Spirit will tell them what to say.
The passage from Matthew’s gospel we reflect on has said it all. The Chief Priests, elders and Pharisees demanded to know where Jesus got his authority. These people did not really want an answer to their question. They only wanted to trap Jesus. They had their hidden and evil motives and intentions and they were scheming, looking for a fault to accuse Jesus. Jesus was in tune with his Father and the Holy Spirit, and therefore, these evil people failed. They became like ‘fools’ at the end.
This season of Advent, we are all urged to work on areas and activities in our lives and where we have traces of tricks, manipulations, hidden and evil intentions and agendas, as well as areas where we scheme to mislead others.
We are also urged to work on areas and actions in our lives where we set traps for others, especially innocent people, to fall in. We should rather help others develop their gifts and talents, to eventually use them for the development of society and humanity.
We pray to do away with and eliminate all tendencies of envy and jealousy. Let us avoid the canker of ‘Pull Him/Her Down’ (PHD) in our lives and allow everyone to contribute his/her ‘widow’s mite’ and quota toward the building of the world and humanity. Learn to be a ‘wise’ person in the sight of God, but not a ‘wise’ person only in this world. Stay blessed, and may your working week, which you start today, be fruitful.
WE MEDITATE TODAY, MONDAY, ON THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES: ‘THE ANNUNCIATION, THE VISITATION, THE BIRTH OF JESUS, THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE AND THE FINDING OF THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE’. (LET US PRAY FOR HUMILITY, LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR, POVERTY IN SPIRIT, OBEDIENCE AND JOY IN FINDING JESUS) “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen”.
PRAYER: “MAY THESE MYSTERIES, O LORD, IN WHICH WE HAVE PARTICIPATED, PROFIT US, WE PRAY, FOR EVEN NOW, AS WE WALK AMID PASSING THINGS, YOU REACH US BY THEM TO LOVE THE THINGS OF HEAVEN. THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN”.
Rev. Fr. Aloysius Kpiebaya, Catholic Diocese of Wa, UW/R, Ghana. (00233) 0207867239/0545462863. Email: aloybaya20@yahoo.
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