The Catholic Calendar for Friday, July 8, 2005
Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30
Psalm 37:3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40
Matthew 10:16-23

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"So be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves."

One of my favorite verses of the Bible. In other translations this reads, "Be ye as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves." And this, I believe, summarizes Jesus' many messages to a "T." Like the Hippocratic Oath, "First do no harm," the believer in presenting Jesus to the unbeliever or to a lapsed believer, must do no harm.

We must be ready to defend and give good reasons for our faith. But sometimes, we jump in ahead of introducing our faith. That is, our reasons jump out ahead of our appeal.

When we live the life Jesus commands of us, people will naturally come to us desiring what gives us peace, serenity, and an ability to cope with all that is going on around us. We are most wise when our strongest arguments for the faith are the lives we live day to day.

We must still stand ready to talk about it. But when our life is a mirror of humility, patience, meekness, prayerfulness, and compassion that is Jesus, people will flock to us wanting to talk. This is wisdom--"Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Live the life of the kingdom, and souls who are lost and looking, will see us like a beacon.

And then we employ Jesus' first rule--first do no harm, then lead them with bonds of love to the kingdom which is above.

- JuandelaCruz
(http://floscarmeli.stblogs.org/)

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