Suy Niệm Thứ Hai Tuần thứ 14 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Thứ Hai Tuần thứ 14 Thường Niên

Ân sủng là món quà đạc biệt miễn phí của Thiên Chúa muốn trao tặng cho chúng ta. Món quà này Chúa cho chúng ta vời mục đích là giúp khuyến khích chúng ta hợp tác với Ngài trong các ơn gọi mà Thiên Chúa muốn chúng ta sống trong đời sống chúng ta.

Trong bài Tin Mừng, chúng ta lại được chứng kiến về những ân sủng của Chúa thường ban cho chúng ta mỗi ngày. Khi một người đầu mục của hội trường người Do Thái đến xin với Chúa Giêsu giúp cứu người con gái ông sắp chết. Tuy nhiên, với đức tin sẵn có của ông, mà Chúa Giêsu đã sẵn lòng cứu con gái của ông, mặc dù nó đã chết mà Chúa vẫn có thể cứu sống cô bé ấy và đưa trả về với bố mẹ. Đức tin của ông chính là phần thưởng mà ông đã nhận được ơn cứu sống người con gái của ông. Với ân sủng của Thiên Chúa, Chúa Giêsu đã đưa tay Ngài ra một cách thân mật mật nắm tay và làm cho cô bé ấy được sống lại. Cô và gia đình cô đã may mắn có được một cuộc sống mới.

Đã có bao giờ chúng ta đã cơ hội là đón nhận được ân sủng của Thiên Chúa trao ban? Có bao giờ chúng ta cảm thấy Thiên Chúa chúc lành và cho chúng ta quá nhiều ơn lành, nhiều hơn tất cả những gì mà chúng ta mong đợi hay nhiều hơn những gì mà chúng ta đã xứng đáng để được nhận? Nếu vậy, Chúng ta đã nhận được những hồng ân của Thiên Chúa ban cho. Đó là sự sống. Chúng ta có thể quay trở lại với thời gian mà chúng ta đã nhận được ơn sủng đấy mà ta hãy dâng lên lời nguyện xin và cảm tạ ơn Chúa; để Thiên Chúa chúc lành cho chúng ta một lần nữa. Chúng ta cũng hãy nhớ lại với Chúa Jesus, là tất cả những gì mà chúng ta đã cảm thấy mê thích và muốn được nó muốn được có .

Reflection SG

Grace is a free gift offered to us from God. It encourages us to cooperate with God’s call in our lives. In today’s Gospel we hear about another moment of grace. When the leader of the synagogue comes to Jesus for help, his daughter is already dead. Yet he has faith that Jesus can still somehow help her. His faith is rewarded. In a moment of grace, Jesus intimately takes the girl by the hand and raises her up. She and her family are blessed with new life. Have you ever experienced a moment of grace? Have you ever felt God blessing you beyond what you expect or deserve? If so, you have received a gift from God. It is alive. You can return to this moment in the quiet of prayer; allow God to bless you again. Recall with Jesus… what was it like to be there? Lord, help me to recognize Your grace in my life.

Opening Prayer: 

Lord Jesus, come to my aid and meet me in my deepest need. I believe in you. I trust in you. I love you. Thank you for your grace.

Encountering Christ:

1. Faith Does Not Compare: Today’s passage allows us to compare the faith of two contrasting people: an elite official synagogue of society and an outcast hemorrhaging woman. God does not see social classes, but he does see our personal history. He knows what it took to come to the faith we have presently. And he rewards it, when it is sincere. Jesus responds to the faith of both of these personages, inspiring us to have courage to go forth to meet him and ask him for what we need.

2. Courage, Daughter!: The woman suffering from the blood disorder would have been outcast or at least considered impure by Jewish standards. The punishment for an impure woman who touched a rabbi could have been stoning. And yet this woman risked it all. Jesus, seeing her desire mixed with fear, put her at ease and saved her not only from her physical illness, but from social punishment. He brought her under the protection of his family, making her his “daughter.” Likewise, Jesus does this for us. Through the grace received in faith, particularly in baptism, we inherit a new identity as sons and daughters of God. He saves us from a fate worse than stoning—eternal death. Faith is the door that leads to Jesus Christ and the best healing: salvation for eternal life.

3. “Talitha Cumi”: After healing the woman from her twelve-year illness, he turned to a twelve-year-old girl who had apparently passed on to death. But Jesus worked once again through the faith of the Father. “Little girl, rise (Talitha cumi),” he told her. Like God the Father’s words at the beginning of creation, Jesus’s words were the breath of God giving life to humanity, this particular “humanity.” He brought her back to life. Jesus wants to do the same for us, but the life he gives us is for eternity. God created us and brought us into this world. Thanks to the grace that comes from faith in Jesus’s redemption, we can be born again into a new life in Christ. Jesus’s miracles remind us to look beyond this world to see the inheritance to which we are called.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of life, both physical and eternal life. Help me to live with my feet on earth, but my eyes toward heaven, set on the inheritance you have won for me.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will exercise my faith wherever I see I have lowered my eyes to a mundane and secular vision.

Reflection:

Faith can be developed within us by believing what we cannot physically see. We learn from the testimonies of those who live lives filled with faith. We commemorate the faith of St. Maria Goretti who protected her purity for God's greater glory. She would rather give up her life then succumb to the lustful intentions of her attacker.

In today's Gospel, the woman who had suffered bleeding for more than 12 years believed that she would be healed by touching the cloak of Jesus. Her simple gesture filled with faith and hope was rewarded by her being healed.

My own faith was severely tested when my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. I could not understand why the Lord sent my family this trial. Somehow my daughter's illness strengthened the faith of our family. We started to pray the Rosary together and frequently visited the Adoration Chapel. The word of God became our source of strength and consolation. We were also blessed to go on a pilgrimage to Fatima and Lourdes.

These trying yet sacred moments made our family realize that God is always there. Whatever we were going through, God helped us realize that he is there by our side.

Even though my daughter had gone, we are comforted that she is finally in the loving embrace of our Lord. Our lives are now filled with faith even after all these challenges and difficulties. May we continue to build our faith in God through prayer, trust, and perseverance. He is so very good and knows what is best to enrich our faith.