Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
“As was his custom, He again taught them”
Today, dear Lord, I would like to say a little prayer to thank you for your teaching. You taught with authority, and took the opportunity to do so on every occasion they let you; as a matter of fact, I understand Lord that your basic mission was to transmit the Word of the Father. And you did it.
Today, while “connected” to the Internet, I ask you, Lord: Speak to me for, as a faithful disciple, I want to pray a little. First, I would like to ask the capacity to learn what you are teaching; and, secondly, I wish I would know how to teach it to others. I know it is easy to fail in the error of making you say something that you didn’t really say and, with malevolent daring, I change what you are saying to what I like to hear. I admit that I am, perhaps, more hard-hearted than those listeners.
I know your Gospel, the Teachings of the Church, the Catechism, and I remember Saint John Paul II's words in his Letter to Families: “The program of utilitarianism, based on an individualistic understanding of freedom —a freedom without responsibilities— is the opposite of love, even as an expression of human civilization considered as a whole”. Lord, turn me away from the desire for utilitarianism happiness, and turn me instead to your Divine Truth, which I so much need.
From this vantage point, like standing atop a mountain, I can see that You speak of marital love as the love that lasts forever, and that adultery —as any other grave offense to You, Lord of Life and Love— is the wrong way to happiness: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her” (Mk 10:11).
I remember a young man who said: “Father, sin promises a lot, gives nothing and takes everything”. Good Jesus, let me understand you, that I too may teach: “What God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mk 10:9). Outside the Truth which you teach, there is no happiness. Jesus, teach me again!
Thank you Jesus, for I am hard-hearted, but I know you are right.