23 January 2020 - making room

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd,
so that they would not crush him.

Do we give Jesus room to do what he wants to do in us? Often times we are a crowded mass of conflicting desires all pressing in upon him, threatening to crush him. Are we at least willing to have a boat ready for him? Can we grant him an escape route for when his goals aren't those on which we insist? We should indeed pursue Jesus. We should be willing to leave where we are to go where he is going. To do so, we must be willing to leave carnal minds. Our following after him requires a purification of our own intentions.

"But the ship waiting upon the Lord in the sea is the Church, collected from amongst the nations; and He goes into it lest the crowd should throng Him, because flying from the troubled minds of carnal persons, He delights to come to those who despise the glory of this world, and to dwell within them."

- St Bede from the Catena Aurea by Thomas Aquinas

It is good a right to press in on Jesus for our needs.

He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases
were pressing upon him to touch him.

We must allow the process of pursuing him to change us. This is the whole secret of prayer. It isn't ever that we change God's mind, even when he does in fact act through miraculous cures. Rather, this was always his plan. A closer look reveals it is our own hearts that have been changed, having become agents of his love.

Saul's desire for pride and vanity threatened to crush David. But at least for the time being he was willing to be reminded by Jonathan that David had been acting entirely in good faith, for the sake of Saul and his kingdom.

Saul heeded Jonathan’s plea and swore,
“As the LORD lives, he shall not be killed.”
So Jonathan summoned David and repeated the whole conversation to him.
Jonathan then brought David to Saul, and David served him as before.

Like Jonathan, may we be willing to take up our part for the LORD's anointed. When our minds are pressed with carnal desires, for vanity, pride, and the rest, let us be willing to come away from the world, to the place where Jesus is, to the place we can be healed.

For you have rescued me from death,
my feet, too, from stumbling;
that I may walk before God in the light of the living.