Readings
I - Is. 45: 6-8, 21-25
II - Lk. 7: 19-23
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS (Memorial)
In today’s Gospel passage, John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus whether he was the one who is to come or do they still have to wait for someone else. To this question, Jesus did not answer directly but he only told them to go and tell John the Baptist what they had seen and heard: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead raised, the poor have good news brought to them” - a perfect fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah in him (Is. 35: 5, 6). So that from this life of Jesus, as fulfillment of the prophecies, John the Baptist can understand that Jesus was the Messiah for whom the people of Israel for generations waited in hope.
Today the Church remembers St. John of the Cross, a mystic and the doctor of the Church. With great effort, courage and dynamism, he revived and reformed the Carmelite way of life unto the ways of religious living. He had to face suffering and oppositions from his own fellow priests on this accord. He pursued bravely in all his efforts because he wanted the religious communities to witness to the love of Jesus Christ. May this saint help us to become credible witnesses of Christ in our day to day living.
