Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Sáu Tuần thứ 7 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Sáu Tuần thứ 7 Thường Niên

Trong cả hai bài đọc hôm nay, đều có một chủ đề phổ thông đó chính là mối quan hệ giữa con người với con người. Trong bài đọc thứ nhất, chúng ta được nghe về mối quan hệ giữa những người bạn. Một sự tương phản được thực hiện giữa những người bạn giả dối và người bạn chân thật. Kinh nghiệm cho thấy rằng một người bạn tốt, chân thật là một người biết giữ đúng lời, vị tha, và luôn có mặt trong những lúc đặc biệt và cần thiết. Làm thế nào để chúng ta tìm thấy những người bạn như vậy? Bởi vì kính sợ Thiên Chúa trong nội tâm và cách hành xử tốt, phải đạo (đàng hoàng) thì thể hiện ngay từ bên ngoài. Việc này có nghĩa là tình bạn chân thật thực sự không thể xảy ra nếu chúng ta không có mối quan hệ nào với Thiên Chúa.

    Trong Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu nhấn mạnh những vấn đề quan trọng về lòng trung thành của vợ chồng trong sự quan hệ hôn nhân. Trọng tâm của bài giáo huấn của Chúa Giêsu là thách thức những cặp vợ chồng nên sống trong sự hiệp nhất vĩnh viễn và trung thành cho đến chết vì hôn nhân không cho phép ai có thể "tách những gì Thiên Chúa đã liên kết với nhau." Đồng thời, Ngài cũng thừa nhận rằng trong thực tế vợ chồng cũng có thể không còn yêu thương nhau như vợ chồng thì phần đầu trước Tin Mừng hôm nay cũng cho phép sự ly hôn mà không tái hôn.

    Hai bài đọc hôm hay nhắc nhở chúng ta rằng cốt lõi của tất cả những mối quan hệ dù là giữa bạn bè hay là giữa vợ chồng, ngay cả khi họ chọn ly hôn hay ly dị thì là mối quan hệ của người đó với Thiên Chúa. Ngài luôn luôn hiện diện trong suốt cuộc sống của chúng ta, và trong tất cả những mối quan hệ của chúng ta, thậm chí có sự đổ vỡ. Chúng ta được mời gọi để tin tưởng vào đường lối của Ngài khi chúng ta cầu nguyện với những lời thánh vịnh, “Trên đường mệnh lệnh Chúa, xin dẫn con đi,vì con ưa thích đường lối đó.” Lạy Chúa, Xin Chúa luôn luôn thường xuyên hướng dẫn chúng con.

REFLECTION

If there is a common theme in both readings today, it is that of relationship. In the first reading, we read about the relationship between friends. A contrast is made between false and true friends. Experience shows that a friend is one who is true to his or her word, selfless, and is present particularly in times of need. How do we find such friends? By fearing the Lord internally and behaving in the right manner externally. It means that true friendship cannot take place without us having a relationship with God.

In the Gospel passage, Mark highlights the important issue of the fidelity of spouses in the marriage relationship. He passes on the tradition of Jesus’ teaching and attitude towards marriage and divorce. At the center of Jesus’ message is the challenge to spouses to live in perpetual and faithful union until death as it was not permissible “to separate what God has joined together.” At the same time, recognizing the reality that spouses can also no longer love one another as husband and wife, this early Gospel also allows for separation, without remarriage.

The readings remind us that at the core of all relationship whether between friends or between spouses, even when they choose to separate or divorce is one’s relationship with God. He is the ever present constant in all our lives, and in all our relationships, even broken ones. We are called to trust in His ways as we pray with the psalmist, “Guide me in the path of your commands, for there is my delight.”

Lord, be my constant guide.

Friday 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, I love you. Knowing that you created me in your image and likeness and that you call me to share in your life gives my life meaning and purpose. In you, I find my joy and my peace. I believe in you. I believe that you know me and want me to know you in and through the realities of my life. Knowing that you are always with me gives me hope. You are always working for my good. Lord, I ask that in this prayer time, you help me learn from your example of availability and attentiveness so that I can better love those you have placed in my life.

Encountering Christ:

Crowds Gathered and Jesus Taught: As Scripture so often describes, Jesus reached a town and a crowd gathered to hear him teach. At the same time, the Pharisees approached to test him. Despite any fatigue from traveling, Jesus made himself available to address both groups. He did not protect himself from the demands of the crowd nor the hard questions of the Pharisees. In other passages, Jesus generously responded when individuals cried out to him (blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46 and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:22, for example). When we recall that Jesus “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life…” (Mark 10:45), we may focus on the big ways he served: the miracles he worked, the content of his teaching, his Passion. However, his model of attentiveness and availability are significant examples of humble, ordinary service. Are we attentive to others who seek our assistance, or do we shrug off their need, expecting that someone else will help them? Perhaps we are more available to those outside our family than we are to our family members. Over the years, Pope Francis has often encouraged parents to “waste time” with their children—to be available to them in unstructured ways. Marriage Encounter addresses the challenge of “married singles”—spouses each so busy with their own lives that they don’t share the intimacy they are meant to experience. Do we give those in our family focused attention? Attention and availability are concrete ways of loving and serving as Jesus did.

    Hardness of Heart: When Matthew described this same scene of Jesus restoring the indissolubility of marriage, the disciples responded, “it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). Original sin disrupted God’s beautiful plan for man and woman, and as a consequence, the original communion between man and woman was ruptured and distorted (CCC 1607). Nevertheless, it is this relationship between spouses that St. Paul holds up as the image of the relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:21-32). We can trust that God will give us the grace we need to live our marriages well. He promised: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

    The Two Shall Become One: In his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, “On Love in the Family,” Pope Francis describes the beauty of a long-lasting marriage: “Just as a good wine begins to ‘breathe’ with time, so too the daily experience of fidelity gives married life richness and ‘body’. ...The love present from the beginning becomes more conscious, settled, and mature as the couple discover each other anew day after day, year after year. …(they) now taste the sweetness of the wine of love, well-aged and stored deep within their hearts” (Amoris Laetitia 231). The world needs to see the beauty of marital love that grows over the years. In a homily for the Synod on the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict said, “Matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world. The union of a man and a woman, their becoming ‘one flesh’ in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis” (October 7, 2012). Marriage matters, not only as an interpersonal reality, not only for the nurturing of children, but for the good of society and the life of the Church.

    Conversing with Christ: Heavenly Father, your plan for marriage is beautiful. How humbling it is to think that you work through human instruments to image the relationship between your Son and his bride, the Church. You trust us to make your faithful, fruitful, free, unconditional love visible in the midst of all the confusion that exists about marriage today. At times, it seems so far beyond our capabilities, but through the grace of the sacrament of Matrimony you make it possible for spouses to grow in love and unity day by day, year by year. You accompany them and provide for their needs just as you did in Cana. I ask you to help me see how I can better support marriage—my own marriage, the marriages of family and friends, the marriages of fellow parishioners, the future marriages of engaged couples, the marriages of hurting couples.

    Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will pray one decade of the rosary, meditating on the wedding feast at Cana, for the strengthening of marriages within my family and friends.