Reading and meditation on the Word of God, Wednesday of the 18th week in ordinary time, August 4, 2021; memorial of Saint John Maria Vianney, priest

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"O woman, great is your faith! Reading and meditation on the Word of God, Wednesday of the 18th week in ordinary time, August 4, 2021. Reading is delivered by Bellatrex and meditation is delivered by Hermanus Malo Dona from Saint Peter's School in Jakarta, Indonesia. Numbers 13: 1-2a.25 - 14: 1.26-29.34-35; Rs psalm 106: 6-7a.13-14.21-22.23; Matthew 15: 21-28."

NO WORRY TO SHOUT TO GOD

The theme for our meditation today is: No Worry to Shout to God. Someone once told his friends in their local community about his routine coming to the church in the morning around nine and ten. The atmosphere of the church is always empty of visitors at this time. He regularly comes to the church when there are some personal or family problems that burden heavily on his life. From the entrance, he shouts: Oh my Lord, here I come. Help me....

 

Once he entered and knelt before the tebernacle, looked at it and began to pray. He cried while praying. Every now and then he would shout: Lord, listen to me, help me.... The parish priest heard someone shouting from inside the church, but he was only watching from distance. On his way out, the man met the Pastor at the front door. They talked. He explained the purpose of his regular visits to the church, and asked permission to shout to God. The Pastor agreed that it was quiet in the church at that time, so: No worry to shout to God.

 

God is always the destination of our complaints and cries, whether it be in the form of cries in the heart or in a normal or loud voice. If we imagine, there are so many people in this world with their own problems, asking or shouting for help, how can God hear all of them and answer them one by one? The true answer must be only from God Himself.

 

But the fact that we are always complaining, calling and shouting on His name, or crying and pleading to Him, is a form of our unavoidable dependence. The Israelites wept and shouted during their wanderings in the wilderness. The book of Numbers tells how the people who inhabited the land of Canaan had such a frightening appearance, which made the Israelites crying over their own  fate and shouting to God for help.

 

Through an insisting cry for help, the non-Jewish woman finally found the help of Jesus Christ: namely that her faith in Jesus had helped healing her son from the possession of an evil spirit. Indeed, shouting for help to God is important and urgent. We also do that to one another. Natural disasters, fires, accidents, illness, hunger are the examples of urgent needs around us, in addition to many other similar problems. As children of God, we should not hold back and be passive in asking for help or giving help to those who are in real need.

 

Let's pray. In the name of the Father... O merciful God, fill our hearts and minds with the grace of generosity so that we may heed all forms of cries and shouts for every help. Strengthen us always with Your blessings for this generosity. Glory to the Father... In the name of the Father...