Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
The Benedictine abbot, Blessed Columba Marmion commented that the mysteries of Christ are our mysteries as well as Christ’s.
In today’s Gospel we have an example of this: “(Jesus) …looked up to heaven and groaned”
Here we have a mystery of Christ’s life – groaning or sighing. This man comes before him Jesus and “begged him to lay his hand on him,” for he was deaf. In the face of all human suffering, including that of being possessed by demons or affected by them, Jesus knows that His Father had not intended it so “from the beginning,” before the serpent’s disruption of his creation.
Jesus groans or sighs “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Rom. 8)
In our lives, we can groan or sigh when we are faced with the baffling effects of evil, whether in our lives or in those of others, aware that God intends something eternally good for us. We can hear this in something St. Columban said:
“It is natural for travelers to hasten toward their native land, and natural too that they should have trouble on the way and safety at home. So let us who are on the way to it hasten toward our native land; for our whole life is like a single day’s journey. And therefore let us devote ourselves to the divine rather than human affairs, and like exiles be always sighing for our native land and longing for it.”
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
[1] Quoted in Magnificat, 12-9-06 and taken from A Word in Season VII, Ordinary Time, Year II, Weeks 1-17 pp. 177.
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections