Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Bẩy Tuần 15 TN.

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Bẩy Tuần 15 TN. Matthew 12:14-21

Trong đoạn Tin Mừng hôm nay, chúng ta thấy cách những người Biệt Phái vì tấm lòng đầy “nhiệt thành”của họ, mà họ đã trói buộc những người Do Thái trong sự "áp bức" gánh nặng bởi những luật lệ của họ đã làm ra, Nhưng giờ đây, với sự hiện của Chúa Giêsu, họ cảm thấy Chúa Giêsu như là cơn đe dọa cho những sự nghiệp và quyền thế của họ, cho những giáo điều mà họ đã làm ra để chèn ép những người nghèo cùng khổ.. Vì thế, họ quyết định tìm cách để tiêu diệt Chúa Giêsu, một cái gai trong mắt của họ.

            Khi phải đối mặt với những mối đe dọa cho sự sống, Chúa Giêsu vẫn lặng lẽ tiếp tục sứ vụ rao giảng Tin Mừng và chữa lành cho những người tin và tìm đến Ngài. Thay vì phải dùng đến bạo lực hay phe nhóm để đối đầu với những người Biệt Phái, hay là phải gào thét lên với cơn thịnh nộ để tìm cách trả thù họ, thì Chúa Giêsu đã lặng lẽ ra đi để tránh những đám biệt phái gây chuyện này, nhưng Ngài vẫn âm thầm làm những "công việc" Mà Chúa Cha đã sai Ngài đến. 

            Chúa Giêsu đã cho chúng ta thấy rằng nhiệm vụ của Ngài không dựa trên sức mạnh hay bạo lực,  nhưng trên sự yêu thương, hiền dịu và khiêm tốn. Sự khiêm tốn và hiền lành của Chúa ở đây không phải là do sự sợ hãi,và  hèn nhát,  nhưng đó là những đức tính đã được thực hành trong sứ vụ thiêng liêng của Ngài để những gì đã viết truớc trong Kinh Thánh được thể hiện.

            Thông thường, trong cuộc sống hiện tại của chúng ta, chúng ta cũng đang phải phấn đấu với những thử thách, tình huống mà chúng ta cảm thấy như đang bị đe dọa, và bị áp bức bởi các quan chức công quyền hay những người khác có chức, có quyền hơn. Vậy, chúng ta phải làm thế nào để có thể đáp ứng được với những sự áp bức bất công này?.

            Xin Chúa giúp cho chúng ta có đức khiêm tốn, lòng can đảm, và sự kiên nhẫn, để trở lên giống như Chúa và biết cách đối xử với những bất công trong sự ôn hoà..

 

Reflection Saturday 15th Ordinary Time

In the Gospel passage, we learn how the Pharisees, through their over zealous ness, had kept the ordinary people in 'oppression' by burdening them with hundreds of commandments. Now they feel threatened by Jesus whom they feel is acting as a law unto himself. So, they decide to kill him.

            In the face of the threat upon his life, Jesus quietly continues his work of healing people and avoids publicity. Instead of resorting to violence against the Pharisees or by “crying out” with vengeful wrath or harsh judgments, Jesus goes about doing his ‘work’. Jesus shows us that his mission is not based on might or violence but on meekness and humility. HIs modesty and gentleness comes not from fear or weakness but from his divine mandate to fulfill the Scriptures. Often, in our lives we too face situations where we feel threatened or oppressed by others. How do we respond to them

 

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time 2023

The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known. Matthew 12:14–16

This passage goes on to say that Jesus withdrew to a more deserted place to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah the Prophet (Isaiah 42:1–4). That prophecy is the first of what is referred to as “The Songs of the Suffering Servant.” In these songs or poems of Isaiah, the Messiah is presented to us as one who would be sent on a mission from God, would suffer injustice for the sake of others, would be rejected, and ultimately be vindicated and exalted. The mission of the Suffering Servant was to bring justice and salvation to all, including to the Gentiles.

At that time, the idea of a messianic king was still prominent in the minds of many. They anticipated the coming of a messiah who would be a political leader and would lead the people of Israel out of oppression, making them a free, prosperous and powerful nation. But Jesus acts in the opposite manner. Instead of raising up an army to combat the evil intentions of the Pharisees and to overthrow the Romans, Jesus withdrew from them and invited people to come to Him for healing and to receive His teachings.

Jesus perfectly fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah by becoming the Suffering Servant. And because His messianic role was much different than what many people had anticipated, Saint Matthew points us to the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah as a way of clearly showing that Jesus truly was the promised Messiah. He was just not the form of messiah that many expected. He was One Who was humble and gentle of heart. He was One Who would redeem people by the Blood of His Cross. And He was One Who would extend salvation to all people, not only the people of Israel.

One lesson this teaches us is that even today we can have false expectations of God. It is easy for us to set forth our own idea of what God should do and what true justice demands. But we also read in Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8–9).

Just as it must have been difficult for the people of Israel to come to accept the promised Messiah as a servant Who suffers and Who redeems all people through that suffering, so it is often difficult for us to accept our Lord as He is. It is difficult to shed our own ideas of what we want God to do and this is especially difficult when He calls us to share in His own suffering and servanthood. To serve, suffer, sacrifice our lives, and the like can be difficult to accept. But this is the way of our Lord—it is the way of the Suffering Servant of God.

Reflect, today, upon your own expectations of God. Do you have a long list of things that you think God should do? Do you pray for that list of your ideas, thinking that if you only ask enough, God will grant your requests? If your requests flow from His perfect will, then praying for them in faith will bring them about. But if they flow more from you and your own ideas of what God should do, then all the prayers in the world will not bring them to be. If this is your struggle, then try to start anew by turning your eyes to the Servant Who Suffers for the salvation of all. Reflect upon the fact that God’s thoughts and ways are most often very far above your own thoughts and ways. Try to humble yourself before the Suffering Servant and abandon all ideas that do not flow from His Heart.

My Suffering Servant, I thank You for Your suffering and death and for the redemption that flows from Your sacrifice of love. Help me to shed all false expectations that I have of You, dear Lord, so that I will be guided by You and Your mission of salvation alone. Jesus, I trust in You.

 

Saturday 15th Ordinary Time 2024

Opening Prayer: Lord God, you knew that many would reject the message and work of your Son. You also knew they would plot his death. But you were able to draw forth the greatest good from the greatest evil. You did not break the reed or quench the wick but brought righteousness to the world through your Son.

Encountering the Word of God

Denunciation of Injustices: The First Reading is taken from the Book of the Prophet Micah. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah and ministered in Judah from the reign of King Jotham (740-736 B.C.) until the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem in 701 B.C. He experienced and saw the devastating power of the Assyrian Empire and drew on that experience to describe future judgment. Throughout his book, Micah uses the fate of the northern kingdom of Israel and Samaria as a warning about the judgment that awaits Jerusalem and Judah unless they change their sinful ways. “On the domestic scene, Micah indicts the leadership classes – the rulers, prophets, priests, and judges (for example, 3:9-12) – and inveighs against a wide array of sinful behavior: idolatry (1:7; 5:13-14); the coveting of fields and houses (2:2); the repossession of the homes of women and the taking away of their children (2:9); the exploitation of people (3:1-2); the perversion of justice and equality (3:9; 7:3); the shedding of innocent blood (3:10); bribery and corrupt judicial decisions (3:11); sorcery and soothsaying (5:12); the fixing of scales for cheating (6:11); lies and violence (6:12)” (Leclerc, Introduction to the Prophets, 189). “In the tradition of Amos, Micah was appalled by the corruption that was rampant in the city. […] The wealthy amassed vast real-estate holdings by taking possession of the inherited properties of the poor in lieu of debt payments (2:1-5). The numbers of homeless people, especially single women with children, increased as the rich seized land, houses, and the pledges of the poor (2:8-10). Farmers could not get fair prices for their goods because of the crooked dealings in the city markets (6:10-12). The civil authorities oppressed the poor (3:1-4); magistrates accepted bribes (7:3); even the court prophets and Temple priests were so tied into the system of social favors that they seemed to languish in a stupor and spoke no truth (2:6-7,11;3:11)” (Duggan, The Consuming Fire, 273).

2. Micah as a Prophet: Micah understood that as a prophet of the Lord, he was filled with the power and with the spirit of the Lord, with justice and might, so that he can declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin (Micah 3:8). He begins his book with a judgment against Israel and Judah, namely, against Samaria and Jerusalem (1:2-2:11). The fate of Samaria is a warning for Jerusalem. Our first reading is taken from that judgment, where Micah decries the unjust seizure of land and homes: “[Those who plan iniquity] covet fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them. They cheat an owner of his house, a man of his inheritance” (Micah 2:2). Micah goes beyond his contemporary Isaiah in two ways. First, by using the word “covet,” from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21), he shows how the seizure of fields and houses is a violation of the covenant between God and the people. Second, Micah identifies the land as the inheritance of the oppressed. “Taking possession of the inheritance of another was the crime of Ahab whose his wife, Jezebel, had concocted a devious plan to take the inheritance of Naboth (1 Kings 21:1-16)” (Leclerc, Introduction to the Prophets, 192).

3. The Plot Against the Suffering Servant: The first reading and the Gospel both see groups of men plotting against the poor and conspiring against the innocent. Micah says, “Woe to those who plan iniquity,” while Matthew writes, “The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.” Matthew identifies Jesus with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah: Jesus is the Servant chosen by God. Jesus is the Son in whom the Father delights. Jesus is anointed by the Spirit of God at the Jordan. Through the Apostles, who continue Jesus’ mission, Jesus the Servant will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. Jesus is a light to the nations and extends God’s covenant to the Gentiles (see Mitch and Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 167). Jesus accomplishes the Father’s will without fanfare: he fled to Egypt as a child, lived a simple life in Nazareth, called simple and illiterate fishermen to be his disciples, ministered in Galilee, entered Jerusalem on a donkey, was arrested in the garden, and was crucified with criminals. Jesus accomplished his mission through patience, meekness, and humility, not through frenetic activism, aggressive confrontation, and pride. Jesus knew that his hour had not yet come and he chose to withdraw from a confrontation with his enemies. The Pharisees have rejected both his divine power, manifested in his healings and exorcisms, and his divine authority, manifested in his teaching. The Gentiles, though, will hope in his name: this line “hints at the theme of outsiders accepting Christ’s kingdom even though many in Israel, such as the Pharisees, reject it” (see Mitch and Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 167).

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I hope in your name. I trust in you and your promises and know that you will grant me eternal life. Lead me always and help me to practice justice and mercy in all that I do.

Living the Word of God: Are there any social injustices I can work to overcome in my community? How is God asking me to use my time, talent, and treasure to instill the Christian values of dignity, solidarity, and community in the world around me?

 

Saturday 15th Ordinary Time 2023

Introductory Prayer: Lord, you are the source of all life because you are life itself. Your resurrection gives me the hope of being raised from the dead to rejoice with you in heaven forever. I need to reflect more often on the good you have done for us and on your promises to those who put their trust in you. Thank you, Jesus, for taking up your life again and leading the way home to heaven. I love you, and I want to follow after you with all my heart. I want to cooperate more fully with you in bringing many others there with me.

Petition: Lord, grant me a faith that is alive, operative and fruitful.

1. Blinded by Love, Mary Stayed Weeping: St. John observes that “they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:9). Because the reality of the Resurrection had not yet entered into the mind, and much less the heart, of Mary, she stayed weeping outside Christ’s tomb. Take this moment to contemplate this moving scene which shows Mary’s deep love for Our Lord. Even angels could not persuade her with their questioning: “Why are you weeping?” Admire her love; imitate her love; want what she wanted – to be with her Lord, always! May our love for Our Lord give us the same fortitude in love that Mary showed at the tomb.

2. They Had Taken Her Love Away: Poor Mary! The sorrows of her life were so mean and pitiful. One sad day, desperation led her into a life of prostitution. With her dignity gone, her empty soul seemed suited only to be a haven for roaming devils (cf. Luke 8:3; Mark 16:9). The world, the flesh and the devil saw her only with contempt and selfish opportunity. But Our Lord had seen her differently and loved her differently. However, The love he had restored to her life was now trampled upon as she contemplated his empty tomb. See her heart, already heavy with grief and horror at seeing her Lord mistreated, beaten, and crucified. All these thoughts welled up in her mind and caused her to conclude, “They have taken my Lord.” Feel the depths of her helplessness as she finished her thought: “And I don´t know where they laid him.”

3. “Why Are You Weeping?” Mary’s love was at the right time, in the right place, and for the right person. Her tears were for her Lord. Jesus, moved by Mary’s love, would not let her remain in such a state. Now Christ asks her, “Why are you weeping?” In effect, Jesus is saying, “The sins of your past will no longer have power over you. Nor will those cruel men, or the devil. I am here, the Resurrection, the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Sin, evil men, the devil, and death might stake their claim on you, but they cannot have you, for you are mine! I have bought you with the price of my own blood; I have laid down my life for you, my friend!” Our Lord sums up this great truth with but a simple, tender utterance of her name: “Mary”. Yes, Jesus knows us personally and loves us in a personal way. We must come to our senses and believe in the truth of the Resurrection. We must believe in Jesus.

Conversation with Christ: Lord, you lead me to life everlasting. Let me draw ever closer to you, trusting always in your ways and never fearing the cross. May I love you from the little cross of my life, whatever its form or character.

Resolution: I will seek out a friend I may have alienated by my bad example or lack of self-control, and I will strive to be reconciled through a generous act of charity and understanding.