15 February 2021
Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
The attitude of the pharisees in today’s Gospel is common. I too have the tendency to look for the extraordinary, forgetting God became man and lived an ordinary life, while showing love for those he mingled with. He did so to show me that holiness is achieved through the routine, the ordinary.
How I realize I do not put this ideal into practice! But then, there is the lesson in the 1st reading that gives me a perspective of the Lord’s providence. Abel’s death was a tragedy, but the birth of Seth was the compensating sign of hope. Do I see hope, after my failures to put into practice the lesson the Lord gives me in today’s Gospel for finding Him in the ordinary? I’ll pray about it.
Prayer enables me to see the prevailing presence and activity of Jesus accompanying me in my assigned work and in my dealings with those about me. It also enables me to see patience, tolerance and a sense of humor are no less beneficial for attaining this goal than is the gift of so-called unitive prayer.