5th THURSDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Gospel (Mark 7:24-30) - THE WORD OF GOD FOR EVERYONE
- NHA CHUA CHA
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
FIRST READING - 1 Kgs 11:4-13
"You have not kept my covenant. I will surely tear the kingdom away from you, for the sake of David your father; I will give your son one tribe."
A reading from the First Book of Kings
4 When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to follow other gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 Solomon followed Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did not follow the Lord unreservedly as David his father had done. 7 Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and to Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain opposite Jerusalem. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 The Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and commanded him not to do this very thing, not to follow other gods. But he did not observe what the Lord commanded. 11 So the Lord said to Solomon: Since this is what you want, and you have not kept my covenant and the statutes which I enjoined on you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. 12 But I will not do this during your lifetime, for the sake of David your father; I will tear it away from your son’s hand. 13 Nor will I tear away the whole kingdom. I will give your son one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY - Mk 7:24-30
"Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps."
✠From the Gospel according to Mark
24 From that place he went off to the district of Tyre.[a] He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. 25 Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.[b] For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 28 She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30 When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
5th THURSDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Gospel (Mark 7:24-30)
THE WORD OF GOD FOR EVERYONE
Dear people of God,
Today's Word of God wants to tell everyone about the mission of Jesus Christ.
He came to His own sheep, but they did not accept Him and drove Him away, so God went to the Gentiles, who are also His children. For God, there is no distinction between Gentiles and Christians; the entire universe belongs to Him, for He created all things.
Today, Jesus Christ met a Gentile woman. The woman who, out of love for her daughter who had been tormented by demons for many years, was enlightened and guided to Jesus Christ by God. And when she asked Jesus Christ to cast out the demon from her daughter, she received a harsh statement from His mouth: "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
But upon hearing this, the woman humbly accepted it with absolute trust in God's mercy.
The humility was shown in her response to Jesus: “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs that children eat.”
Through today's Gospel, God wants to teach us three lessons:
The first lesson is humility: God is the Most High, and His children should not be arrogant or conceited, but must humble themselves, acknowledging themselves as sinners and prostrating themselves before God, asking for His mercy and forgiveness.
The second lesson is faith: Absolute trust in God means He will heal both soul and body.
He will cast out Satan, who causes suffering and illness that no doctor or power can overcome.
The third lesson is love for one another. Today, God reveals His love through the very concrete image of a mother's heart whose child is possessed by demons.
Out of love, she humbled herself, acknowledging her own weakness, insignificance, and lowliness, to implore God's mercy to save her child.
Out of love, God abandoned His glory in heaven, descended to earth, and became human, just like others except for sin, to save humanity through His blood.
Humanity must give thanks to God in all places, at all times, and in all circumstances, joyfully receiving His grace in daily life, especially the grace of purification, of the pruning of the soul to become bright and beautiful as it was in the beginning when God created it.
Today's Gospel shows that the grace for humanity in this age is the grace of faith, healing, and casting out demons.
Jesus Himself cast out demons from afar. And when Jesus ascended to heaven, He bestowed the Holy Spirit upon humankind so that they may continue His mission.
This mission is being carried out at the House of God the Father in Bao Loc, Vietnam: with the influence of the Holy Spirit and through the name of Jesus Christ, God the Father’s Army of Light is given the power to cast out demons from afar without ever deviating from the eternal Word of God.
Especially, they are guided meticulously by the Real and Present Word of God with very clear conditions for casting out demons and gaining healing.
This is precisely the practice of the commandments recorded in the Bible, along with the Real and Present Word of God written under the influence of the Holy Spirit, which strengthens people to fight against Satan, and it is the Real and Present Word of God that makes Satan submit and retreat from those who fear God and are determined to practice His teachings.
Thanks be to God. Amen
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