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Today's Gospel
The Promise of Persecution
3 min
Gospel
Lk 21:12-19
But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death; you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.
Readings are from Dynamic Catholic’s New Testament Bible: RSV Catholic Edition
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Transcript
The Promise of Persecution
So Jesus is making a lot of promises today, and none of them, very few of them, actually sound very pleasant. You know He is promising that we will be persecuted. He's promising that we will suffer. He's promising that we will be betrayed. He says there will be betrayal. Who's it going to come from? Your enemies, brothers, sisters, kinsmen, friends? Most of us, I've said it before, if we live long enough in this world, we experience some type of betrayal, and often brutal betrayal. What makes it possible? Well, what makes it possible is we trust people. And very often, we trust them unconditionally. And then they betray that trust. And recovering from that kind of betrayal is one of the dark nights of the soul for many, many people. And Jesus is promising us this.
And so if he promises us this, we know there's a way through this because he doesn't promise us anything that there isn't a way through. And so maybe a good time to think about today, times in your life when you've been betrayed, people in your life who have betrayed you, and to pray for those people. Maybe you're still working on forgiving those people. That's a process. But to pray for those people. Wherever they are, maybe far out of your life now, maybe still in your life, but to pray for them, because that is the radical nature of the gospel.
Every single day we read the gospel, it is radical, it is relevant, and that's the radical call of the Gospel today. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.
