WORD 2day: Thursday, 4th week in Ordinary time
February 6, 2020: 1 Kings 2:1-4,10-12; Mark 6:7-13
David hands it over to Solomon; Jesus hands it over to his apostles; the Apostles have handed it over to us! We have to take it forward! a very clear message from the Word today - run your part of the race!
While Jesus gives a long prescription of how to take it forward, David sums it all up or the Lord sums it all up to David in a phrase: “If your sons are careful how they behave, and walk loyally before me with all their heart and soul"... that's the key! care of behaviour, loyalty in life and a life lived with all one's heart and soul before the Lord.
Persons like the martyrs Paul Miki and companions others (incidentally there was an Indian in the group - Gonsalo Garcia, the first Indian to be proclaimed a martyr-saint), show us by their example not only what it means to run the race that has been handed over to us, but also what it would be at the end of it all... the crown of success could very well be a crown of thorns! But should that disturb us, keeping in mind the ultimate crown of love that awaits us?
What I need to remember today is this: the key that the first reading gives: my call binds me in my conscience not merely in my external behaviour. Living for God is proclaiming God; Living with all my heart and my soul before the Lord is the surest form of proclamation, the concrete form of running the race. Living for God's Reign is establishing God's Reign here and now!