DAILY- HOMILY

January 23, 2014 Thursday 2^nd Week in Ordinary Time

1 Sm 18: 6-9; 19:1-7/ Ps 56: 2-3, 9-10a, 10b-11, 12-13/ Mk 3: 7-12

Reading: 1 Sm 18: 6-9; 19:1-7

When they arrived after David had slain the Philistine, the women came out from the cities of Israel to meet King Saul singing and dancing with timbrels and musical instruments. They were merrily singing this song: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David, his tens of thousands." Saul was very displeased with this song and said, "They have given tens of thousands to David but to me only thousands! By now he has everything but the kingdom!"From then on, Saul became very distrustful of David.         

Saul told his son Jonathan and his servants of his intention to kill David. But Jonathan, who liked David very much, said to David, "My father Saul wants to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning and hide yourself in a secret place. I will go out and keep my father company in the countryside where you are and I will speak to him about you. If I find out something, I will let you know." Jonathan spoke well of David to his father Saul and said, "Let not the king sin against his servant David for he has not sinned against you. On the contrary, what he has done has benefited you. He risked his life in killing the Philistine and Yahweh brought about a great victory for Israel. You yourself saw this and greatly rejoiced. Why then sin against innocent blood and kill David without cause?" Saul heeded Jonathan's plea and swore, "As Yahweh lives, he shall not be put to death." So Jonathan called David and told him all these things. He then brought him to Saul and David was back in Saul's service as before.            

GOSPEL: Mk 3: 7-12

Jesus and his disciples withdrew to the lakeside and a large crowd from Galilee followed him. A great number of people also came from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, Trans­jordan and from the region of Tyre and Si­don, for they had heard of all that he was doing. Because of the crowd, Jesus told his disciples to have a boat ready for him, to prevent the people from crush­ing him. He healed so many that all who had diseases kept pressing towards him to touch him. Even the people who had evil spirits, when­ever they saw him, would fall down before him and cry out, "You are the Son of God." But he warned them sternly not to tell anyone who he was.

Reflection:

The phrase "for God's greater glory" refers to the good works we do as Christians that inspire others to glorify God, the ultimate source of all that is good. We must keep this in mind because it is essential in uniting us in carrying out the will of God as revealed to us by Jesus. When David marched triumphantly back after slaying the giant Goliath, King Saul was so jealous that he contemplated killing David, but this was diffused by Jonathan's timely advice. King Saul felt that he was robbed of his glory in the battle against the Philistines.  Again, we find the same situation happening to the authorities when Jesus' fame and following grew to such great extent and had robbed the glory from those who had been comfortably enjoying the power and prestige of being in authority. They had lost their credibility when Jesus stepped into the picture. This led to their plotting to get rid of Jesus.  Today, we find this kind of behavior all over the world. Groups that are working for peace and justice are being persecuted.  Those who rally against greed, exploitation, or corruption, suffer the same fates.  Even among and within religious groups there is self-centered rivalry.  Instead of rejoicing and celebrating the progress towards uniting in love, we allow the poison of envy to consume and divide us. Consequently, relationships are destroyed. If we profess to believe in God and in love, our actions must reflect our words. 

Prayer Requests

We pray …

… for a deep and profound respect for life, especially for the unborn.

… for all the prayer intentions in the MTQ Dailyprayer Diary.

… for families who are in need of healing

-  Lucenita Sartaguda, Belen Pereras, Joanna Zuniga, Art Zuniga, Elvie Zuniga

… for world peace and reconciliation.

Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our prayers and for those who need our prayers the most.

Have a good day!

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