First Reading: Wisdom. 2: 1a,12-22;
Ps. 34;
Gospel: John 7:1-2,10,25-30.
 
It is amazing how high and low our reasoning can reach. Each person knows what’s good and
bad. Rightly, when we do good, we feel happy and vice versa. However, evilness and envy, are
created when one is self-reliant and full of oneself. As a result of this, what matter how,
competition comes against those who do good, blinding their eyes and hearts with wicked
thoughts. God, goodness and people of good acts, become enemies and wish to destroy them.
The book of Wisdom says: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous person, because he is
inconvenient to us” (Cf. Wis.2:12). Why all these! Because their way is crooked and are unable
to see and discern the secret purpose of God who will eventually reward the righteous and
innocent ones.
Jesus in the Gospel is doing his ministry. The Jewish leaders were expecting Jesus to come for
the feast of the booth or Feast of Tabernacle, a major Jewish festival (Cf. Lv. 23:33-43; Dt.
16:16) so that they may have an opportunity to kill him. Nonetheless Jesus goes to the festival
not publicly but in secret. Some of the people who saw him there were amazed because he was
teaching openly. They even doubted whether if He is the Messiah. Others however, said: “We
know where this man is from, but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is
from” (cf. Jn 7:25-26). At this point, Jesus tells them plainly that He was sent by His Father. The
Jewish leaders pretended not hear and failed to understand and accept Him as the Messiah.
They tried to arrest him, but “no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet
come” (cf. Jn 7:30).
Conclusion: They could not accept the scandal of Jesus, the scandal of their God who had
stripped Himself of His Divine riches to become one with  poor, their God who chose to be born
of the poor and take on incredible poverty and insignificance, their God who in His divine love
could not take anything for Himself, but live a life complete of self-giving.
Covid -19, remind us of who God is. He has shut down the world like a small village and there is
nothing that power or money can do. He will reopen it when His time is right. How powerless
man is. We live on borrowed time. Let us prayer that the Lord, help us to hear Your word and to
have faith in Him who sent You, so that we might possess eternal life. Amen
Stay safe and well.
Fr. Mussie