Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
If our liturgical readings for today could be color-coded to measure their emotional content, we would get a full spectrum of color. Since the Word of God uses the prism of human experience to teach us, it’s not surprising to see the full range of human feelings.
The first reading from the Second Book of Samuel gives us the painful picture of King David and his gut-wrenching disappointment in his son Absalom and the need to flee because of the chaos. But then the picture darkens even more as David is brutally cursed by an indignant bystander bringing David to even deeper remorse for his sins.
This dark chaos seems to continue with today’s Gospel as Jesus stops to enter the territory of the dead and calmly, with absolute authority, confronts the power of evil. It is a moment of transformation. Evil must give way and flee in the face of divine power. The person who once raged in the darkness of the tombs becomes a new person. That person now peacefully sits at the feet of Jesus and desires to follow him.
A brilliant new light appears as Jesus uses his authority to bestow a commission on this person now unbound. No longer enslaved by the power of evil, this person, representing all of us, is sent to return to the once terrified and scandalized community and allow healed scars to testify to the power of God’s compassion.
Reflection by Fr. Daniel Petsche, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections