Reading and meditation on the Word of God, Saturday of the 11th week in ordinary time
June 19, 2021
Reading is delivered by Gita Nurani Maria and meditation delivered by Markus Eko Bonorianto, from Saint John Bosco Church in Jakarta, Indonesia
The reading is taken from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples:
“No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.
If God so clothes the grass of the field,
which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,
will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’
or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’
All these things the pagans seek.
Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
The Word of the Lord.
Our meditation today has the theme: Tomorrow There’s Still God. There was a five-year-old boy trying his best to move a large box in order to have more space for his game. He pushed as hard as he could but the box didn’t move an inch. He used a stick to lift it from bottom and then pushed it away, to no avail. Then he was crying in anger. He was getting annoyed because his father who saw him just laughed at him.
“Why are you just laughing?” He asked angrily. His father replied: “Because you don’t ask me help to move that box. The child smiled and was happy to play again after his father moved that box. After playing, his father put the box back to its original place. Then the boy said to his father, “Tomorrow I will again find it difficult to play because the box is still in that place.” His father replied: “Tomorrow I will be here, don’t worry, my son.”
The Lord gives us assurance that we do not need to worry about tomorrow. The Lord exists and controls our lives. To those who always worry and over thinking about the life tomorrow and after, stop having such feeling and thought. The assurance of the Lord is the truth of our faith, a solid ground of the way of Jesus Christ that we step on, and the heavenly treasures that we rely upon.
People’s worry about tomorrow and after because they are justified by certain reason. Jesus points out to us, that such worry is caused by man’s dependence more on mammon. Money, possession, position, power, social status, popularity are the mammons of this world. We humans are naturally after them. They never make our life calm and peaceful. Therefore, such worry is caused more by the imagination or feeling that these richness of the world will no longer sufficient or even lost.
However, the Lord Jesus wants us to leave behind our worries and anxieties. Our bodily needs are under His control, just like the plants and birds that He always sustains them. In other words, tomorrow and after tomorrow there’s still God. He had created us. He has been nurturing and bringing us up to this moment, and so He will also lead our life tomorrow and the days after tomorrow. God does not have intention to neglect and abandon us. God certainly doesn’t want us to be out of His work of salvation.
If we truly don’t have to worry or to be anxious about our life tomorrow and after, what we must pay our attention to and strive for is to multiply the possession of heavenly treasures. The salvation of our souls now and in the future after death must be our priority. We must be worried and anxious whether our souls will be saved or not.
Let’s pray. In the name of the Father… Our heavenly Father, bless us and grant that we may continue to follow Your way in our journey of faith. Our Father who art in heaven… In the name of the Father…