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Wednesday, Second Week of Lent B (March 3/2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May the Lord protect you from all evil plots of your enemies! Amen.
Read Jer 18:18-20; Matt 20:17-28; pray Ps 31[30].
NARRATION: A friend of mine received a gift from one of his friends. Opening it he found it was used clothes.
NARRATION: A friend of mine received a gift from one of his friends. Opening it he found it was used clothes.
He was shocked that one of them was a trouser (pant) that was completely rotten – at the crutch point (in between the legs), leaving a gaping 10 inch hole where the clothes literally rot away through over use. He was shocked that his friend sent this to him as a gift.
They say that the gift describes the giver. And there are different categories of gifts. Some gifts are meant to spite; while others are meant to uplift. Interestingly, when my friend confronted his friend about the gift, his friend accused him of ingratitude! Obviously, he failed to ‘see’ anything wrong with his gift.
In the readings today, religious leaders were plotting to kill a prophet because he tells them the truth; and in their thinking, killing him would be doing the community a favor (giving them a gift). Ironically, they didn’t seem to ‘see’ the evil in their proposed action. As far as they were concerned, their action was good.
It used to baffle me how some people could be so indifferent about some evil actions they carry out, until I realized that it is a state of mind.
Apart from upbringing, brainwashing (mis-education), and hypnosis, we are completely responsible for our state of mind.
Sometimes, while meddling with evil we may reach a stage where our conscience is considered ‘dead’ such that we become impervious to feelings of guilt, and insensitive to the pain we cause others.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, please help me to see the evil in my actions at all times and grant me the grace to resist acting upon my evil impulses.
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