HEALING PRESENCE

HEAlING PRESENCE

“This will be a time for you to bear testimony.” – Luke 21:13

Sometime ago, we heard that our good friend Rosanne was sick. So my wife, Reng, and I went to visit her. Rosanne and her husband, Omy, who are both Christian leaders and writers, are one of the most wonderful couple friends we have. They’re one of the funniest, too.

Rosanne is afflicted with MS or multiple sclerosis. Not a single moment passes that she doesn’t experience pain. But when you talk to her, you won’t even get a hint that she is in constant struggle.

This she proved again when we visited her that day. Instead of ministering to her, we felt that we were the ones who had been ministered to. And why not? We felt God’s grace flow within us just by being with her and listening to her soft voice. Her countenance assured us that God is in control.

We left feeling… healed. Hermie Morelos

REFLECTION:

When people encounter you, do they see the Lord at work in your life?

Lord, let my life proclaim Your wondrous deeds today. Amen.

speAking specificAlly And geneRAlly

When we hear Jesus addressing His disciples, we obviously have to see it as an instruction to them for their benefit. This is the specific meaning attached to Jesus’ words. However, I think we can also draw lessons for our own lives — not just a literal interpretation but one that takes into account that we, too, are disciples of Jesus although a couple of millennia removed from the original ones.

Take today’s Gospel where Jesus tells His disciples that they are going to face persecution. We know that this prediction was true based on the history of the Early Church. It is also true of us as we face persecution as well. Indeed, all disciples of Jesus have faced one sort of persecution or another throughout the centuries of the existence of the Church. Jesus knew this to be true when He spoke the words to His first disciples.

What then you may ask is the persecution we face? That will depend on many things such as where you live and your life situation. There are Christians today who are persecuted with threats to their lives by hostile religions, particularly Islam. If you live and work in Saudi Arabia, you are not permitted to publicly practice or proclaim your faith. Another type of persecution is that which is prevalent in the western world today where the Christian faith is literally being written out of the history of civilization. These modern democracies no longer see it as useful or profitable to acknowledge the Christian basis of their existence, and so they simply try to forget and deny it. This is a form of intellectual persecution. I cannot detail all the forms of persecution here; suffice it to say that there are many ways to attack a faith and we must be ready to defend ourselves against them all.

Jesus struggled against various forms of persecution: from the attempt by Herod to kill Him as a child to the various attempts of the authorities to silence and kill Him during His years of ministry. He was eventually crucified and perhaps in this fact we see that each of us will experience persecution leading to some sort of suffering. Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL

Reflection Question:

Am I ready for what the world will throw at me in order to try and dislodge my faith from my life?

Jesus, help me to stand firm in the face of all persecutions; firm so that the world will know that Christians will not be intimidated by it.

St. Mercurius, Martyr, pray for us.