Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” (Matthew 12:38)
Since the Sermon on the Mount, Our Lord has healed a leper, the centurion’s sick servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, a paralytic, and a woman suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years; he has raised a dead girl back to life, exorcised those possessed by demons, given sight to the blind, enabled the mute to speak, and given similar power and authority to the twelve apostles. And after all of these miracles, the scribes and Pharisees still want “to see a sign”... It seems that the scribes and Pharisees are not really looking for a sign, otherwise they would have already seen it.
How do we receive the signs which the Lord gives us? Today we also hear about the crossing of the Red Sea. Immediately after this act of salvation, the Israelites sing the Lord’s praises in the hymn of Exodus 15 (today’s responsorial psalm). Yet, a short time later, they begin to complain against Moses and the Lord, and even say that it would be better to be back in Egypt where they had been enslaved!
We desire to see the signs the Lord sends us, and we are right to rejoice when we do see them. But let us do more. Let us ask the Lord for the gift of memory; in difficult and confusing times let us ask for the grace to remember that the Lord who made His Presence so clear in those previous signs still remains with us, still cares for us, still guides and corrects us, and still enables us to share His love with our neighbor.