The Catholic Calendar for Thursday, May 6, 2004
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Scripture from Wednesday’s Liturgy of the Word:
Acts 13:13-25
Psalm 89:2-3,21-22,25,27
John 13:16-20

A reflection on today’s Sacred Scripture:

“I know those whom I have chosen. . . “

Jesus knows each of us by name. He is present to us and He loves us. He tells us “No slave is greater than His master.” In so doing He tells us directly two things, one about Himself and one about Us.

The first thing He tells us is that He is not greater than the Father who sent Him. In these terms He is equal to the father and still the servant of All. He is at once slave and master, servant and the one served. In His earthly role He was fully God and fully man, and while it lay in his power to come to a different end, He did not choose to override His Father’s will to obtain His own end.

The second thing He tells us is that we cannot be greater than He is. Whether I wear a crown or lead a nation, even were I to sit at the very apex of His Church as His own Vicar, I am not His equal nor even close to His equal.

Now, why would He think that this needed to be said? Too often, I know that I attribute sometimes accidentally, sometimes with purpose, those things that He has accomplished through me, to myself. I think my prayers have done thus and so. I think that I have served in the soup kitchens and have helped the poor. The reality is, that were He not within me moving me every step of the way, I would have done nothing. Of myself, I am nothing and He is my All. I can write the greatest poems, sing the most wonderful songs, compose the greatest music, paint and sculpt the greatest canvases, liberate the entire world from poverty and hunger, and still, I am a frail thin shadow. What I have, comes from Him alone.

And so He speaks to me, “I know those whom I have chosen.”
And my humble prayer is, “Lord, let me be among them.”

- JuandelaCruz
(sriddle415 at yahoo dot com)

posted by joachim at 4:28 AM