Daily Meditations

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 7:1-9
Psalm 48:2-3a, 3b-4, 5-6, 7-8
Matthew 11:20-24 A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture: "It would have remained until this day. . . ." (Matthew 11:23)
Jesus reproaches the faithlessness and self-involvement of the world and the times in which He lived. And while it might not seem so, there is a great comfort in these reproaches because we can see that the world has changed very little. The world still looks upon the everyday miracles of Jesus and assumes that they are its own. People look upon their accomplishments and think they will last forever. We have a whole world that has built a Titanic and that glories in its sturdy, unsinkable nature, having forgotten that if there is strength, it is the strength of God. Jesus need not utter the reproaches for us that He did for His time. It is all too easy to see the dreadful and dire consequences of the lives we lead and the society that we inhabit. But should we lose hope? No indeed! The conditions under which we live, and the conditions of ignorant and ungrateful humanity, follow its basest leanings with the most vigorous intellectual defense of returning to our animal natures. But Jesus is redemption, truth and light. Yes, without Him, we are worthy of nothing but reproaches. But with Him, we become the children of God. At the time Jesus uttered His reproaches, is it to be thought that every person in the cities of which He spoke was without hope? Not at all. The cities were without hope as a whole, but the people within—each of them—could be saved and brought home. And as the number accumulated, indeed, the cities themselves stood a chance of being redeemed. We are ignorant of what happened within those towns after the death of Jesus. Jesus is silent on that matter. They were hopeless without Him, but with Him, they too could come into the light. And so it is with us today. Without Him, there is no hope; we can see no miracles; we can love nothing but ourselves and our basest urges. But with Him, everything is transformed, the reproaches become caresses and our sullen hatred becomes openness and love. If we can hear His voice, we too will "remain to this day [eternity]."