By Charles Muchiri
18th June 2012
Mass Readings
First Reading:
1 Kings 21: 1-16
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 5: 2-3ab, 4b-6a, 6b-7
Gospel: Matthew: 5: 38-42
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| Ahab and Jezebel, artistic impression |
In today’s
first reading, we are treated to a sad story of Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab who
plots and succeeds to kill Naboth of Jezreel.
This is a
story of a woman who is deliberately willing to go to great lengths in order to
usurp wealth and property for her husband, the King.
Jezebel deviously
uses her powers and her proximity to powers to execute evil. In her view, she
is perhaps doing a favour to her husband, who in this particular circumstance seems
incapable of obtaining his wish – Naboth’s vineyard.
As we
reflect on this reading, it is important that we place to focus, the powers and
the proximities to powers that God has granted us.
Through
the powers that we have in our work places, in our communities, in our
families; are we by any means bent on attaining our earthly desires at the cost
of goodness, at the cost of our Christian virtues, at the cost of God’s holy
will?
Jezebel
had a choice to choose evil or to do well. She could have opted to cool off
Ahab’s desire for Naboth’s little land, if she so wished (As a wife, she
certainly has a positive matrimonial proximity that could sway her husband’s
hearth, the right way). But other than choose these; she opted to please her earthy
husband and king, over the Heavenly King, who is God of both the poor and the rich.
When, as
Christians; we are faced with situations that tempt us to choose the earthly
over the Heavenly, let us always seek the Almighty God’s graces so that we may
be able to make a choice that is in conformity with our Christian’s intrinsic
worth.
Today’s
Gospel is also a calling that isn’t much easier. Christ calls upon us to be meek,
to be humble at the face of injustices.
Well, now
that’s a real hard calling, especially in a world that so believes in earthly
justice, in revenge and street retribution.
It is
therefore, only through the graces of God that we can be able to heed to Christ
calling today: To offer the other check for a smacking; to walk that extra mile
in service for others, to offer ourselves selflessly to those who may be in
need.
All these,
not for our self glory, but for the glory of the Most High God, who only so
well understands what we are going through and who sees our future, vividly
drawn on the palm of His Holy Hand.
/E-mail
this writer: paradisedoorstep@gmail.com/
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