Posted by The WORD in other words (2006) by – Frater Cirilo Boloron SVD – Austria
Saturday 25th Week in Ordinary Time
In his meditation on Meaning, Anthony de Mello wrote the following conversation: A traveler said to one of the disciples, “I have traveled a great distance to listen to the Master, but I find his words quite ordinary.” “Don’t listen to his words. Listen to his message.” “How does one do that?” “Take hold of a sentence that he says. Shake it well till all the words drop off. What is left will set your heart on fire”.
Perhaps the reason why the disciples in today’s Gospel do not understand what Jesus was talking about is because they have only listened to his words or seen his deeds but missed to discern the message. Jesus himself is the message.
If we read the whole chapter 9 of Luke’s Gospel, we will notice how the disciples were astonished with what they have seen and heard. But their amazement was simply both a manifestation and a reaction of something which they do not expect. They failed to see the connection between what Jesus did and who Jesus was. It took time for them to see it. The message was not actually “hidden”. It was there. It was only that the disciples have missed to realize it.
This is the same challenge posed to us today. Yes, we still listen to the words of Jesus in the Gospels but oftentimes we fail to see and understand the message. This explains why nowadays there are many who profess the Christian faith but only a few live Christian lives. For to do this, it requires constant self-reflection and love of the Word of God.
St. Jerome has illustrated this in his own life. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task of translating the Sacred Scriptures, but his love of the Word of God and a certain tenacity of purpose kept him at it. With him, we may say: “I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus…I am not now what I then was”.
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