Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
The scene in today’s Gospel: Jesus takes his close friends, his apostles, aside. He wants to confide in them, strengthen their friendship. Because of his miracles, he has become a popular figure with the crowds. They want to make him king; soon they’ll want to crucify him.
There is something sad about the scene, not only because Jesus describes his coming Passion, but more importantly because his chosen friends seem impervious to the intimacy he desires to create with them. Later they will abandon him.
It is a scene that calls for contemplation. In prayer, Jesus speaks to me intimately. I tell myself I respond in a similar manner. But do I? When a cross comes into my life is my reaction that of the apostles or that of the crowds?
I can’t understand why crosses come to me when I have been so faithful in prayer and action. If Jesus is a true friend he lets me down. Right? Well, perhaps I should try to see all that comes into my life is better evaluated in the light of all of what Jesus teaches me intimately in the whole Gospel.
Resolve: I shall pray today for the contemporary crowds in our world and also for the men and women Jesus has chosen to be his apostles, that they be faithful in living and spreading his Gospel.