THE WORD IN LENT - 5th week, Friday
April 3, 2020: Jeremiah 20: 10-13; John 10: 31-42
Point for Dialogue #30: the crowd of evil and the grace of good.
Dedication to God's mission and distress are at times inseparable, as the world has forces working intently against God and anything pertaining to God. Apart from that some so-called natural calamities and crisis (I prefer to say so-called natural, because in the final analysis it is we humans who would have created it, in a dominoes effect), that crop up, like the one we are through right now, and challenge that dedication and affinity to God.
"We must be on the guard against the presence of evil in the world," reminds the Holy Father. Explicitly or indirectly, we are bound to face oppositions, criticism, discouragement and disparaging attacks, when we choose to stand by God and carry God's message to others. If for long we do not find any opposition, it would be high time to review whether we are really doing God's mission, carrying out the design as laid out by God.
Both Jeremiah and Jesus chose to stand by God and they were derided, tortured, were considered liable unto death. But they were unmoved, unperturbed; they counted no cost and were prepared for anything for the sake of God's will. In my anguish I called to you and you answered me O Lord, they prayed! But what was the answer - death! It did not matter for them, as long as it came within the plan of God and this, the very death, became a saving grace!
Hence the call today is to initiate a dialogue within us, between the tendency to fear the crowd, be bogged down by them and follow them to perdition and the courage to stand by good, listen to God, and count no cost.
Would we be able to repeat what Jesus says in the Gospel today: the Father is in me and I am in the Father. We would be able to do, if only we are ready not to count the cost when it comes to love for the Lord and commitment to the Lord!