Daily Gospel Reflection
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July 12, 2019
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.
Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.”
“Whoever endures to the end will be saved.” In a recent evaluation at work, my supervisor gave me low scores for some of the things I think I do best. At the time, I was stunned and said nothing. Afterward, I felt unfairly treated, and I wondered if I should ask her to correct the evaluation. I take pride in the daily acts of love and support I do for everyone in my building. Clearly, it was time to check my ego: I had missed the opportunity to love one person in particular—my supervisor. This was the pruning that I required to be sure that every day, I was loving each person in my workplace without expecting to be loved in return.
Jesus does not advise his disciples to analyze the psychology or inner logic of those who persecute them. When Jesus tells us to endure to the end, Jesus is telling us to love. Specifically, he asks us to love one another with his measure of endurance. He loved us to the point of feeling abandoned by his Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This kind of endurance requires daily training.
In every encounter, keep loving; and if your love is not returned, look for a new way to keep loving. Knowing that Jesus loves me with all my imperfections helped to remind me to love my boss and to see her with new eyes. When I succeed in finding a way to keep loving, I often find that I am, in fact, loved in return because love has a way of building up love. It ensures that it won’t be me speaking but the Spirit of the Father speaking through me.
Prayer
God our strength, give us the courage to live our faith in a world of lies, betrayal, and hurt. Help us to seek your justice. Show your mercy and grant us your peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
When Jesus was carrying his cross on the way to his death on Golgotha, a woman named Veronica wiped his face with her veil. An image of Jesus’ face is said to have remained on the cloth.
The story of Veronica and her veil is one of the most famous Christian legends. In the early Church, many people were motivated to find and honor relics of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The veil with Jesus’ face was called a vera icon—a true icon, or true image—to distinguish it from other relics, and this is perhaps where Veronica’s name comes from. Stories about this woman arose to fill in the gaps—some have her as the wife of a Roman officer who was moved with compassion to comfort Jesus; others have her as Jesus’ friend, Martha; or the wife of Zaccheus; or the woman who was healed from her bleeding when she touched Jesus’ cloak.
That a woman filled with compassion wiped the face of Jesus on his way to his death could very well have happened, but we know very little else for certain. St. Veronica is depicted in several places on campus, most often as a figure in the stations of the cross, as in this sixth station from the Basilica. She is the patron saint of photography.
The veil venerated as the original is in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C., founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, gave a gift to Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., when he left France to establish a university on the American frontier in northern Indiana: a depiction of the face of Jesus from Veronica’s veil. This image was venerated by the Holy Cross community that lived in the Log Chapel during the first years of Notre Dame, and now stands in the Basilica.
St. Veronica, you were the compassionate woman who comforted Jesus on his way to his death—pray for us!