REFLECTIONS TODAY

Spiritual masters often repeat that humility is the mother of all virtues. It is only when we recognize our true diminutive stature before God that we realize our dependence on him. When we perceive ourselves as we are, as human beings made out of dust, we come to terms of our own finiteness and mortal limitations. When we become dependent on God, our life is transformed into a life of grace, as we accept the fact that without God, we can do nothing. 
This life of grace, in turn, flowers as a life of service to neighbors, for we acknowledge that we are but mere teeny-weeny dots in the vastness of God’s created universe, and that we only have each other to care for ourselves. 

Today’s saint attests to the validity of sanctity through a life of childlike humility. St. Thérèse of Lisieux teaches us that it is precisely in our smallness that God is able to embrace us more closely. Am I able to live out my faith with a childlike humility?

First Reading • Jb 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23 [or Is 66:10-14c] 
 

Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. Job spoke out and said: Perish the day on which I was born, the night when they said, “The child is a boy!” Why did I not perish at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? Or why was I not buried away like an untimely birth, like babes that have never seen the light? Wherefore did the knees receive me? or why did I suck at the breasts?

For then I should have lain down and been tranquil; had I slept, I should then have been at rest with kings and counselors of the earth who built where now there are ruins or with princes who had gold and filled their houses with silver. 

There the wicked cease from troubling, there the weary are at rest. Why is light given to the toilers, and life to the bitter in spirit? They wait for death and it comes not; they search for it rather than for hidden treasures, rejoice in it exultingly, and are glad when they reach the grave: Those whose path is hidden from them, and whom God has hemmed in!

Gospel • Matthew 18:1-4  [or Lk 9:51-56] 
 

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

Source: “366 Days with the Lord 2024,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.