GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE: 22ND JUNE 2016
TUESDAY OF THE 12TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
(MEMORIAL OF SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA, RELIGIOUS)
1ST READING: 2Kings 19:9-11, 14-21, 31-36
PSALM: Psalm 48:2-4, 10-11
GOSPEL: Matthew 7:6, 12-14
THEME: SAVED BY PRAYER
Her co-worker threatened to eliminate her by any means possible. She did not understand the threat and took it for granted until suddenly she started experiencing partial paralysis. Whenever she recovered and went to the workplace, the illness resurfaced. She sought medical attention and was told that she had started developing a serious problem with her spine. The reality of a full-blown paralysis stared at her. It was at this moment that she started feeling the weight of the threat. Not wanting her life to be cut short, she lifted up her voice in persistent prayer and called upon God for deliverance. God answered her and she was miraculously healed of a life-threatening ailment. I met her sometime this year, four years after that event, and she said “God is faithful. The problem with my spine does not exist anymore.”
Assyria had become a super-power destroying nations at will. King Hezekiah of Judah received a letter from Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. In that letter, the king boasted of the many nations he had conquered and threatened to crush the nation of Judah as well. King Hezekiah, a man of prayer and faith, took the letter and went to the house of God. He prayed fervently for divine intervention. God heard his prayer and answered him. In our First Reading, we are told, “That very night the angel of the LORD set out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; when morning dawned, they were all dead bodies. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh” (2Kings 19:35-36).
When someone declares his/her intention, either implicitly or explicitly, to destroy you, do not take it for granted because evil exists. However, like darkness, evil thrives in the absence of light. Prayer brings light into situations and crushes evil.
Do you feel threatened in anyway? Humble yourself and take it to the Lord in prayer. The Lord hears the cry of the humble. God will intervene and rescue you speedily.
“They surrounded me like bees; they blazed like a fire of thorns; in the name of the LORD I crushed them! I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me. The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (Ps.18:12-14).
Fr. Andrews Obeng, SVD
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)