A WORD FROM FR. CHRIS
Some of us, if not many have received care from a nurse in a health care center or elsewhere to treat our wounds or given a shot to alleviate our pain or blood drawn from us for a laboratory test. These things hurt but the giver does it very gently using some kind, gentle words. “Yea, this is fine, there we go” etc. This is called compassion.
To offer compassion is one of the reasons Jesus became man. He knows our weakness and frailty. At the beginning of His public ministry, therefore He said,” The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to announce the year when the Lord will save his people.” (Luke 4:18)
These very word were echoed by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading that the Messiah would come “to save His people when the eyes of the blind would be opened, the ears of the deaf would be cleared, the lame would leap like a stag and the desert areas would be springs of water.” Jesus was also on the side of the poor and needy hence His numerous teachings in favor of the poor and needy as can be seen in the criterion of the last judgement. “I was hungry you gave me food, thirsty you gave me water, naked you clothed me …” (Matthew 25 31-40) St. James also warned that we need not create standards between the rich and the poor otherwise we would be making ourselves judges of evil.
Jesus is our way, the truth and life. May His teachings sink into our hearts.
Fr. Chris
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