Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
(Galatians 4:22-24.26-27.31-5:1;
Luke 11:29-32)
The point
of today’s gospel may be complicated by the memory of Elias’ sign that the Lord
is the God of gods. He called down fire
from heaven that consumed the offering of a bull after the prophets of Baal
failed to do so. People may wonder why
Jesus calls his generation “evil” because it seeks such a sign.
One reason
is that signs are never conclusive for faith.
Given one sign one day, some invariably want another sign tomorrow to
keep on believing. This is not
faith. Faith trusts in the word of
another even when evidence points in another direction. For the hearers of Jesus, faith is the
turning over of heart and mind to God on his word that God is near. He shows more wisdom than Solomon and more
power of speech than Jonah.
We may be
as reluctant as the crowd in today’s gospel to surrender to the Lord. It is troublesome to give to the poor until
it hurts and scary to have three, four, or five children. But faith often requires sacrifices such as
these.
