Daily Reflection for Monday February 01, 2021
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners,
We encourage you to reflect on Monday’s readings at this link:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020121.cfm
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Hebrews 11:32-40
Responsorial: Psalm 31:20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Gospel: Mark 5:1-20
Our reflection on Monday’s readings:
Yet all these, though approved because of their faith, did not receive what had been promised. God had foreseen something better for us, so that without us they should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:30-40
God’s timing is seldom our own because his ways are not our own.
I have four children. I always wanted daughters but apparently while I was praying for girls, my husband was praying more fervently for boys.
It seemed to me that the son with the most promise was the third one, Patrick. Growing up he was extremely bright, studying courses during the summer of his sophomore and junior years in high school at Wabash College. He was also a talented athlete who was recruited by the University of Louisville and ultimately accepted a football scholarship at the University of Evansville. He had a wicked sense of humor and was a loveable prankster. He was the heart of our family.
So perhaps you can understand our dismay when he announced in his junior year that he was going to be a father. Even worse, a few months later he informed us that he was having another child with another young woman. By the time he graduated from high school he had two daughters.
Two months before he turned 21, he was shot through the heart during a home invasion at an apartment he shared with one of his older brothers. Though he survived, he did so in a persistent vegetative state. He was lost to us. He passed away just before his 30th birthday.
Patrick’s moral lapses scandalized us. Having two children out of wedlock while still a child himself seemed like horrible timing for such a promising kid. And yet…those two little girls are now grown women who share their father’s intellect and humor and to some degree fill the desire I had for daughters. Patrick did not get to enjoy his children. But because of him they have life. Without their errant father, they would never have had the opportunity for eternal life in Christ.
Isaiah says God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts and His ways are not man’s ways. I try to remember that when I am tempted to judge someone’s words or am scandalized by someone’s actions. If only we would exchange our judgmental mind-sets for the quiet humility that urges us to have faith in how God works things out. No matter how good we think we are, our ways are not God’s ways.
Is there some scandalous thing in your life that you need to look at from God’s perspective? If there is, by faith He can help you with that if you ask Him.
May the love and grace of God comfort your hearts today and every day.
Melissa Kittrell