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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

WITH THE LORD, FEAR TURNS TO PEACE - By: Fr. Benny Tuazon


 
As a new priest sitting inside the reconciliation room, listening and pasturing a penitent can be intimidating yet satisfying. Seeing them leave, healed and pardoned brings happiness and relief. But each penitent is different. It is hard to know their situation beforehand. What to say and how to say the appropriate things involve great difficulty. The idea that a soul is at stake makes me shiver. But knowing that it is not me who forgives makes me confident. I know that God is there and He leads and guides me to let the penitent experience His loving forgiveness. Always, I feel God’s wisdom flowing through me to the penitent. And many times, I am surprised at the things I have said and done that fulfill the penitent.
 
Jesus tells the Christian not to prepare or worry about what to say. He asks for our complete and absolute dependence on Him. He will give us the wisdom that nobody could resist or refute. Through all those challenges and trials, God will always be present.
 
Being a Christian is about recognizing and serving our Master. Our baptism and ordination do not free us from Him, but rather enslave us to Him. God is enough. Asked which is the first commandment, Jesus responded by saying that we must love God with all our strength, all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul. There should be nothing in us that does not worship God. As the song goes, “All that I am, all that I do, all that I ever have, I offer them to you!”
 
Faced with suffering and death, we can be at peace if we know that God is with us and will never leave us. He is Emmanuel, remember? This we must be able to appreciate and live. The daily awareness and experience of the Lord will help us very much to know Him more, love him more, and serve Him more. And when we do, it would be easy to say what He wants us to say and do what He wants us to do. 
 
REFLECTION QUESTION: Do you believe that God is in the midst of your fears?
 
Father, there are many people and things that I am afraid of. Let Your light shine through the darkness of my fears and give me courage to face them.

GOSPEL READING TODAY - November 28, 2012

Luke 21: 12 - 19

12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake.
13 This will be a time for you to bear testimony.
14 Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer;
15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.
16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death;
17 you will be hated by all for my name's sake.
18 But not a hair of your head will perish.
19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.