Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Hai Tuần 28 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Hai Tuần 28 Thường Niên
Qua bài Tin Mừng chúng ta Chúa Giêsu đã từ chối những đòi hỏi người Do Thái yêu cầu đó là làm các phép lạ hay đưa ra những dấu lạ đương thời cho thấy để họ tin. Nhưng Ngài đã chỉ cho họ biết về những dấu lạ riêng của Ngài qua hình ảnh ôngGiona và những lời cảnh báo của Giona!
Ma quỷ cũng có đòi hỏi những việc như thế, trong khi ngài ăn chay và bị cám dỗ, Chúng đã thử lòng Ngài và xúi ngài ném mình xuống từ đỉnh cao của đền thờ (Lc. 9-11). Chúa Giêsu đã khiêm tốn và hạ mình, Ngài đã không thực hiện những đìều lạ và kỳ diệu để phô trương quyền năng và sức mạnh của Ngài.
Hôm nay, chúng ta đã chứng kiến cảnh đám đông người đã vội vàng xô lấn nhau để tới phiên mình "chữa bệnh" và họ mong muốn rằng sẽ nhìn thấy phép lạ chữa lành của Chúa được xảy ra ngay trước mắt họ!
Phần chúng ta hôm nay, Chúng ta hãy tự hỏi chính mình coi, Sự cải hoá cá nhân của chúng ta có phải là một nhiệm vụ cấp bách đối với chúng ta? Dấu hiệu của Giô-na có ý nghĩa gì đối với chúng ta, và chúng ta phải làm thế nào để đáp ứng với những lời Chúa Giêsu cảnh cáo chúng ta hôm nay.
Lạy Chúa, Chúa đã Chết đi và đi vào trong lòng đất ba Ngày như ông Giôna đã sống trong bụng cá voi ba ngày, Và chính Chúa đã sống lại hiển vinh để cứu rỗi và cho chúng con có được cuộc sống mới trong Chúa. Xin Chúa Hướng Hẫn và Thánh Hoá chúng con, để chúng con được sống đời với Chúa trên nước Thiên Đàng.
 
Reflection Monday 28 Ordinary Time
When we are very busy, yes, even obsessed with ourselves, we are unable to see goodness in others, (outside ourselves). God is surely present and active in our life, our world. It takes courage to burst out of our own selves to behold his presence and plan in and through others. Yet there are many signs of his presence and love; but if we are not open for him in others, we will suffocate in our own selves. The presence and call of God are very real in our life, history and the world. The Ninevites were outside Israel, yet they listened to Jonah’s preaching, and responded to God’s call to repentance: from the king to the last animal!
Jesus refuses his contemporaries their request for a sign, other than his own person and message he proclaimed, and the person of Jonah and his preaching! The devil too had such a demand in asking Jesus to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Lk. 9-11). Jesus refuses to make any show of such feats of power. Today, we witness crowds who rush to “healing” sessions, eager to see miracles of healing happening before their very eyes!  Is personal conversion an urgent task for us? What does the ‘sign of Jonah’ mean to me, and how do I respond to Jesus
 
Monday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Luke 11:29–30
Do you ever find yourself looking for signs from God? Often when we go through life, navigating through the ups and downs we all experience, we can easily find ourselves looking for signs from God about what we should do about this or that. And though God certainly communicates to us at times through special graces that are signs from Heaven, the passage above gives clarity to what sign we must be most attentive to.
The simple message in this Gospel passage from our Lord is that we must discover the meaning of the most profound sign ever given and use that as the foundation of all our decisions in life. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were not only the source of eternal life, they are also the clearest sign we need as we make all of our decisions in life.
A sign is some action that reveals a deep and hidden mystery. One mystery that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection reveals is that if we are to share in the new life won for us by His Cross, then we must follow the example He set by living a life of selfless sacrifice, laying down our lives for others, so that they will discover and embrace the new life of Christ’s Resurrection. Practically speaking, if you find yourself looking for answers in life, seeking signs from God about what you should do at times, then turn your eyes to the life of Christ and ponder ways in which you can more fully imitate His life in every daily practical decision you make. This is true whether you are discerning some important decision in life or some small practical decision. 
It is common to engage in such a discernment by looking at ourselves in a more selfish way. It’s difficult to move away from this line of thinking, but if we are to use the “sign” of the Son of Man, then we will discern our life decisions very differently. When we use the life, death and resurrection of our Lord as the source of our discernment and decision making in life, then we will end up making decisions that imitate His selfless sacrifice of love. So if you are faced with a decision, you will not ponder what is easier or what you prefer; rather, you will ponder what is more selfless and best for others. What is it that best imitates the sacrificial love of Jesus?
Reflect, today, upon any decision you are trying to make. Then reflect upon how you are going about this decision. Do you use the witness Jesus gave to us as the foundation of your discernment? Do you reflect upon how you can lay your life down as a sacrificial gift for others? Do you look at love from the point of view of the Cross of our Lord and strive to imitate His glorious and selfless dedication to the salvation of those whom He loves? Seek to imitate our Lord, using the witness of His actions as the foundation of all of your discernment and decisions in life, and you will have discovered the only true sign you need to navigate the challenges of life.
My perfect Lord, every decision You made in life was made out of love and was in accord with the perfect will of the Father. Give me the grace I need to make every decision in life in imitation of Your perfect example. May my life imitate You as You laid down Your life for others. I choose You and Your glorious sacrificial life as the sign by which I am directed in life. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Monday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time 2025
Opening Prayer: Lord God, do not let me follow the way of foolishness that leads to death and separation from you. Do not let me be a hypocrite. I pray that I may grow in true holiness through the gift of your grace and truly serve my brothers and sisters in need.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Give Alms and Everything Will Be Clean: Jesus’ teaching about almsgiving in the Gospel is rooted in the Old Testament. The Book of Tobit teaches: “almsgiving saves one from death and expiates every sin” (Tobit 12:9). This is echoed in the Book of Sirach, which says: “alms atone for sins” (Sirach 3:29). Jesus was dining at a Pharisee’s home and needed to correct the Pharisee’s understanding of being pure and clean. Almsgiving cleanses inner defilement and accomplishes what ritual washings cannot (see Martin, Bringing the Gospel of Luke to Life, 333). This was an important teaching because the Pharisees were so influential in Jesus’ day. The religious program of the Pharisees was actually at odds with Jesus’s inauguration of the New Covenant. The Pharisees thought that they could be faithful to God by separating themselves from all Gentile impurity and defilement. They thought that this would lead to God intervening and saving them from Roman oppression. “They looked to the Temple and priests of Jerusalem, considering the elaborate purity requirements for priests (Leviticus 21-22) a fitting model for Jewish purity in the homes of laypeople. All Israelites, the Pharisees reasoned, should maintain this high level of priestlike holiness in their personal lives” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 1792). The Pharisee in today’s Gospel was shocked that Jesus didn’t follow the prescribed washings. He showed that he was oblivious to the real holiness, innocent purity, and high priesthood of Jesus. And Jesus takes the opportunity to correct the Pharisee and teach that it is not through ceremonial washings that one becomes pure and holy, but through giving oneself to others in charity.
2. The Gospel according to Paul: In the First Reading, Paul proclaims that he was not embarrassed to spread the Gospel. He wants the whole world – Jews and Gentiles – to come to know the saving message of Jesus Christ. “At the heart of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the gospel, the good news of salvation that was ‘promised beforehand’ (Romans 1:2). The people of Israel have longed to hear this good news. For Paul, the gospel is the culmination of God’s promises to Abraham and David: God has fulfilled these promises through Jesus” (Swafford and Cavins, Romans: The Gospel of Salvation, 9). Unlike what Martin Luther thought, the Jewish people did not believe in works-righteousness, i.e., that their obedience to the Law of Moses earned them the right to salvation. Instead, Judaism “firmly believed that the election of the Jews was an unmerited blessing from God (see Deuteronomy 9:4-7). Obedience to the law was the free response to God’s invitation to holiness. The initiative for salvation came squarely from the side of God, not the Jews themselves. By saying that the Jews have already been under the obedience of faith, Paul shows that the key for the Jews’ membership in the covenant was the faith in God expressed through obedience to his law. Jesus Christ perfectly embodied this obedience of faith and thus fulfilled the law. It is by faith in him that both Jews and Gentiles now receive the unmerited gift of justification” (Dauphinais and Levering, Holy People, Holy Land, 195).
3. One Way of Salvation: The way to righteousness and salvation – the obedience of faith in Jesus Christ – is the same for both Jews and Gentiles. There are not two separate paths of salvation, one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles, but only one path. We are made righteous “through faith for faith.” We are initially brought into a right relationship with God through faith. This is an unmerited gift. Even our act of faith and trust in God begins in God, who moves our hearts to faith. And our initial faith is called to grow and develop over time. Our Christian faith needs to flourish in love. Paul envisions that the Christian life begins in faith and advances by faith. This is not a completely new teaching, but one rooted and hidden, so to speak, in the Old Testament. And here, Paul cites the prophet Habakkuk, who taught: “The one who is righteous by faith will live” (Habakkuk 2:4). What Paul will argue next is that both Gentiles and Jews are in the same situation of sin. The Gentiles were able to discern God’s existence through creation and were obliged to follow the natural law written on their heart. But instead of worshipping the Creator of all things, they worshipped false gods and creatures. Instead of living a moral life, they fell into impurity and lust: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator” (Romans 1:25).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, guide my life of faith. Nourish it with your Spirit and make it grow and flourish. I want to imitate you in all that I do, say, and think. I desire to share in your life more fully.
 
Monday 28^th Ordinary Time 2024
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you for making me your child and gracing me with true freedom. Teach me to use my freedom properly to grow in love and holiness. Do not let me fall into my old ways of sin, but remember always how good it is to dwell in your house.
Encountering the Word of God
1. The Sign of Jonah: In the Gospel, Jesus refers to the story of Jonah and invites us to contemplate the parallels between Jonah’s story and his. Jonah was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. Three days later, he was vomited ashore by the fish and was restored to life by God. The Book of Jonah implies that Jonah did not remain alive for three days and nights in the fish. Jonah died and went to the realm of the dead. His prayer reads: “I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried” (Jonah 2:2). “Thus, when the fish vomits Jonah out onto the land, it is vomiting up his corpse.” The first word to Jonah on the shore is “arise.” “This is the same Semitic word that Jesus uses when he raises Jairus’s daughter from the dead. … In other words, the story of Jonah is the story of his death and resurrection” (Pitre, The Case for Jesus, 188). After his death in the sea and restoration to life, Jonah preached in the great city of Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian empire, which was one of Israel’s fiercest pagan enemies. The Ninevites, Jesus recalls, repented at the preaching of Jonah. And so, the real miracle in the book of Jonah, even more than his restoration to life, is the repentance of the Gentiles (Pitre, The Case for Jesus, 188).
2. The Sign of the Conversion of the Gentiles: We can now contemplate how the story of Jonah is recapitulated and surpassed by the story of Jesus. Jesus was cast into the earth after dying on the cross for us. He was swallowed into the “heart of the earth” for three days. On the third day, he rose from the dead and sent his apostles to preach the Kingdom of God to the ends of the earth. Peter and Paul both preached in Rome, the capital of the Roman empire. In due time, the Gentiles of the Roman Empire embraced the Good News, repented from the former ways, and became followers of Christ. “It is not just [Jesus’] resurrection from the dead that will be a reason for believing in him. It is also the inexplicable conversion of the pagan nations of the world – the Gentiles. As Jesus says: the pagans ‘repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here’ (Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:32). In Jonah’s case, only one Gentile city repents, and that only for a time. In Jesus’s case, countless Gentile nations, cities, even empires would go on to repent, cast away their idols, and turn to the God of Israel” (Pitre, The Case for Jesus, 189).
3. Paul’s Allegory about the Old and New Covenants: In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul interprets the story of Hagar and Sarah allegorically. He says that the two women, each giving Abraham a son, represent two different covenants. Hagar, a slave woman, represents the Old Covenant mediated by Moses on Mt. Sinai and practiced in the earthly Jerusalem. Sarah, a freeborn woman, represents the New Covenant mediated by Jesus on Mt. Zion and symbolized by the heavenly Jerusalem. Paul uses the allegory to argue that the Galatians, who have embraced salvation and justification through faith in Jesus in the New Covenant, should not add the burdensome requirements of the Old Covenant to the New and submit themselves to them. The Judaizers, who are promoting this addition of Old Covenant ceremonies, dietary restrictions, and social norms to the New, are trying to turn the Galatians away from the Gospel preached by Paul and inviting them to embrace once again the yoke of slavery. Paul’s Gospel, by contrast, proclaims that we are children of God born into the freedom and blessedness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you fulfilled the story of Jonah in a truly marvelous way. Jonah was restored to earthly life. You were resurrected, body and soul, to heavenly glory. Jonah’s preaching made one city repent. You have merited forgiveness and have brought repentance to the entire world!