Blessed by the Lord, my Rock

In today's first reading, 1 Sam 17: 32-33, 37, 40-51, David goes to Saul, proposing that he go and fight Goliath.  Saul is initially appalled. "You can't do that. You are merely a youth; Goliath "has been a warrior since his youth."  In other words, Saul belittles David, puts him down, and discourages him strongly!  David does not back down. "The Lord, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear,  will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine."

If you and I, in the face of opposition from others, are relying only upon ourselves, arrogantly believing in our strength and have not gone to the Lord, knowing that only in God will we be successful in overcoming "Goliath" situations that we encounter, we are likely to crumble both under others' disbelief in us and in handling difficulties beyond our native strength.  It is in God, with God and through God that we are strong and no other way!  In it is humility, not pride, that we are armed with grace!

Jesus, whose aim here on earth was "to do not [His] own will, but the will of him who sent [Him]", tells us in John's Gospel that He "can do nothing by myself" (John 5:30). Relying on His Father, one with His Father, Jesus confidently went about His Father's work. In today's Gospel, Mark 3: 1-6, Jesus enters the synagogue and is met by scheming Pharisees, who look upon Jesus with the same contempt that Goliath looked upon David.  Strong in the Father, Jesus calls up the man with a withered hand and, in the front of those plotting to kill him, heals the man of his disability.

How strong is your faith? my faith?  What happens to me/you when we face opposition, when people treat us with contempt? Do we continue to carry out the command we know is coming to us from the Father, from God, the Rock of our Salvation?  If we believe that that Rock will destroy any "Goliath" that threatens us, we shall be unafraid to do what God is calling us to do!

God: Our Shield and Our Help

As we reflect upon today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 33, we might create a prayer out of that psalm as follows:

Upright is Your word, O Lord, 
and all your works are trustworthy!
You love justice and right;
Your kindness, O Lord, fills the earth.
Your eyes, O Lord, are upon those who reverence you--
(may each of us honor, adore, praise, glorify, and thank You all of our days).
Your eyes, O Lord, are upon those who hope for Your kindness--we not only hope for your kindness, we depend upon it, Lord--to deliver us from death--the death of sin or selfish ambitions that bring harm to ourselves and others.
We need You, O Lord, to preserve us in spite of famine--the famine that is draining us of selfless giving of ourselves to help others in need, of welcoming strangers, of using diplomacy, wisdom and and patience in the pursuit of the common good,of disciplining ourselves from greedy ambitions and the need to prove military strength and "be the greatest" of all nations militarily. May we, O Lord, heed your words to Peter in Gethsemane when he used the sword and you said to him: "Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Mt. 2:52). The psalm continues:
Our souls, O Lord, wait for You.
You are our help and our shield.
Your kindness, O Lord, be upon us, 
upon all who put their hope in you, not in any president or politician, not in any world leader, not in money or wealth, not in pleasures, not in power or control. No, Lord, in You alone!  May we put You, Lord, our God, back into the center of our lives, our politics, our families, our relationships, our churches. Only then, will we bear fruit that will last: LOVE, the love you showed us on the cross.