REFLECTIONS ON THE WORD – 12/4/21 (Saturday)

For the readings, click here: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/daily-readings

Blessed feast day of St. John Damascene! Jesus has a mission of preaching the gospel, healing the sick and driving out demons. In our gospel reading today, we had seen that Jesus was doing this as He was travelling to many villages out of His mercy for them. Then, He instructed the disciples to do the same thing, to proclaim the Kingdom, cure the sick and drive out unclean spirits. What's the significance of this? 

Jesus has chosen His disciples to be the extension of His mission on earth. Since then, He has always called many men to be priests in order to be instruments of His healing mercy. In our lives, we need to acknowledge how sick we are spiritually because of our sins in order for us to be saved. We need to acknowledge how easy it is for us to be deceived by the evil spirits, so we may be protected from them. Only by God's grace can we be saved, and He communicated it to us through the sacraments which the priests, as part of their ministries, administer to us. 

Let us listen to the gospel proclaimed to us by the teachers of our faith. Let us seek to repair the past errors we committed by going to the priests and receiving the sacraments, most especially the sacrament of reconciliation and Eucharist, where we receive His infinite mercy that forgives us of all our sins and grants us grace to be like Christ. As we recognize our need to have shepherds, let us pray to God that He may call more priests to continue His mission on earth for the salvation of souls. And, let us discern His will for us as to how we can contribute to the building up of His Kingdom.

 Amen +

 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, be with us always until the hour of our death. Amen. +

 

Mary God bless us and may He repair our past errors through His sacraments. May He grant us the gift of discernment to listen to the voice of our Shepherd. Amen. + 

Reflection by: Dominic