The Catholic Calendar for Monday, October 2, 2006
Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
The Guardian Angels

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Job 1:6-22
Psalm 17:1bcd, 2-3, 6-7
Matthew 18:1-5, 10

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

A child is happy to simply be in the presence of his parents. When a parent leaves to go on a trip, the thing the child longs for the most isn't the fact that his parent will come back with a present, but simply the fact that they come back. Job had received many gifts and graces from God, because God loved him and Job in return loved God.

Satan does not understand that it is God's parental love that sustains a person through the good and the bad. Satan's values lie in physical pleasures and material goods. Because of his misunderstanding of love, he believed that if Job would no longer have the physical comforts of life, he would no longer love and be obedient to God. But the devil was wrong. Even after losing everything, Job knew that God still loved him, and it is from this love that Job was able to praise God. "Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, and naked shall I go back again. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)

It is His love, which Jesus refers to in today's Gospel. God is our Father and He loves us with a fatherly love. We are His children; if we so choose, we can receive His love, which fulfills us more than any material goods. Just as a child is drawn to love because instinctively they know that love is what is best for them, God our Father is calling us to Himself, so that no matter what happens to us on earth, we may be fulfilled.

- Danielle