Daily Retreat 02/13/07
2007 Feb 13 Tue
Gn 6: 5-8; 7: 1-5. 10/ Ps 28(29): 1a and 2. 3ac-4. 3b and 9c-10/ Mk 8: 14-21
From today’s readings: “Then the LORD said to Noah: Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone in this age have I found to be truly just.... The Lord will bless His people with peace.... The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.”
Food for Thought
More than any other evangelist, St. Mark is quite candid about the disciples' slowness in understanding Christ's crucial teachings. For instance, when warning about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, Christ was clearly speaking metaphorically, cautioning His disciples against hypocrisy and worldly ambitions, the principle vices of the Pharisees and King Herod. Yet the disciples figured that Jesus was just making a veiled reference to their own oversight in packing insufficient bread for their journey.
To help the disciples open their hearts and minds and eyes and ears to the real issues at stake, Jesus asks a barrage of questions, concluding with queries about how much bread left over there was after the miraculous feedings of five thousand and four thousand. The memory of the overflowing wicker baskets should have well reminded the disciples that the Lord was leading them to leave behind their preoccupations about such mundane things in order to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," as He had instructed them in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 6:33).
You and I can laugh at the comical obtuseness of the disciples who were so worried about their lack of bread when they had the very Bread of Life with them! Yet, when we personally consider the Lord's barrage of questions, a number of parallel situations in our own lives come to light! How often our worries and even our prayers get tangled up in such insignificant matters, all because whenever we overlook the providence of God, and start to think and act as if everything depended on us, we prove that we too still do not understand....
Gn 6: 5-8; 7: 1-5. 10/ Ps 28(29): 1a and 2. 3ac-4. 3b and 9c-10/ Mk 8: 14-21
From today’s readings: “Then the LORD said to Noah: Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone in this age have I found to be truly just.... The Lord will bless His people with peace.... The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.”
Food for Thought
More than any other evangelist, St. Mark is quite candid about the disciples' slowness in understanding Christ's crucial teachings. For instance, when warning about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, Christ was clearly speaking metaphorically, cautioning His disciples against hypocrisy and worldly ambitions, the principle vices of the Pharisees and King Herod. Yet the disciples figured that Jesus was just making a veiled reference to their own oversight in packing insufficient bread for their journey.
To help the disciples open their hearts and minds and eyes and ears to the real issues at stake, Jesus asks a barrage of questions, concluding with queries about how much bread left over there was after the miraculous feedings of five thousand and four thousand. The memory of the overflowing wicker baskets should have well reminded the disciples that the Lord was leading them to leave behind their preoccupations about such mundane things in order to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," as He had instructed them in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 6:33).
You and I can laugh at the comical obtuseness of the disciples who were so worried about their lack of bread when they had the very Bread of Life with them! Yet, when we personally consider the Lord's barrage of questions, a number of parallel situations in our own lives come to light! How often our worries and even our prayers get tangled up in such insignificant matters, all because whenever we overlook the providence of God, and start to think and act as if everything depended on us, we prove that we too still do not understand....
posted by FrPitstick | 2/07/2007
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