In today's first reading, Ephesians 4: 32-5:8, St. Paul admonishes us "to be kind to one another compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. Be imitators of God, Paul says to us, "as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God..." Tonight, after praying my experience of being disappointed, frustrated and angry, I realized how much I need help to assume attitudes of humility and submission to the will of God as being revealed in the circumstances of my life. What was I actually doing? Trying to control circumstances and have them go my way, not the way of another person. I was assuming a position of domination, not submission, as Jesus did in His sufferings, death and resurrection.
When I came to reflecting on today's Gospel, Luke 13: 10-17, I realized that I was the crippled woman that Jesus healed--crippled, bent over as she was. From what? my need to be in control or to have others submit to my wishes and not me to theirs! I spelled out the situation to the Lord, baring my soul to the Lord and asking for help. And help was given me as it was to the woman who, "for eighteen eyes had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect." When I asked Jesus to set me free, He said to me: "...[Y]ou are set free by my sacrificial love. When you fall into a trap that Satan sets for you, I will always set you free when you recognize the trap, acknowledge it, and ask to be set free. I am always there with you ready to help!"
From time to time, we all fall into traps that Satan sets for us. Share with Jesus a trap into which you may have fallen and ask to be freed! Jesus will respond as compassionately as He responded to the woman in today's Gospel!
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