By Frank Savadera, SJ
There’s
a prayer which priests and religious say always every morning. This
prayer includes an account of what we have just read in our first reading
today: Where ... at Meribah and Massah (which means "testing" and "quarelling"), you challenged me and provoked me ... and I swear in my
anger ... you shall not enter into my rest. We follow this up with:
Glory be to the Father ....
Who
doesn’t grumble? I do? I grumble a lot about all sorts of
things! And we have a lot of phrases now
... to express how it is like to grumble!
NAKAKAINIS ... NAKAKAYAMOT ... NAKAKA ... MALAS naman oi. If we do not watch ourselves ... we can end
up simply GRUMBLING and ruining our day ... our whole day for the many things
that would ... expectedly disturb and trouble us.
In
their thirst for water ... the people of God while in the desert grumbled. They say: Moses, why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Our lives were far far way better there than in here. WHAT HAPPENS TO US WHEN WE GRUMBLE?
We
grumble perhaps because we are MISSING God’s point ... His point
and reason why He placed us where we are right now. The
Israelites were in the desert ... missing precisely the point why they were
there in the first place.
Sometimes
I ask myself ... If I had not been a priest ... perhaps I had been a very
shrewd and even perhaps ruthless businessman or an insensitive husband to my
wife or an absentee father to my children.
But I am a priest ... and this is not an easy vocation ... and I can get
caught up simply grumbling??? I can
actually miss the point ... God’s point of putting me here and not anywhere
else.
The
Israelites were precisely missing God’s point.
They grumble and forget that in the first place ... they were living as SLAVES.
They had been FREED ... they had been saved ... and they GRUMBLE?
Friends,
what prevents me from grumbling is the thought and prayer that if NOW is quite
difficult to bear ... imagine how things could have been worst for me and for
those I love ... if I am not here. Our
FIRST PRAYER: DELIVER US LORD FROM OUR
COMPULSIONS TO GRUMBLE about the LIFE YOU HAD GRACED US TO LIVE.
Secondly,
the Israelites grumbled because THEY THIRST.
Have you ever experienced thirsting ... as in literally THRISTING for
water??? I did ... when I hiked alone in
the mountains of Benguet last year. I
ran out of water. It was like ... your
tongue was already sticking out of your mouth ... and I had 5 hours more to
go. And I found myself by the roadside
praying ... praying very hard ... that a horse or a motorbike may pass by ... here
in this remote and forgotten place ... that I may hitch and be spared from the next 5
hour walk. It was getting dark and I was almost sure ... that I was close to passing out ... if help didn’t come.
Imagine ... in this remote and isolated place ... after my prayer ... a
motorcycle passed by. I hitched. The most amazing thing was ... the one
driving was the CHIEF of a village ... and his must be one of five motorbikes
in his barangay ... and he passed by ... and I hitched. WHAT A RELIEF INDEED.
Moses in our reading performed a great
miracle. He was asked by Yahweh to
strike the ROCK and water flowed. But
what interests me ... in the account is this ... Yahweh asked Moses to stand
amidst his people ... and as promised, Yahweh stood there IN FRONT OF HIM. Wow!
Imagine the small miracles that happen in our lives ... each time
whenever we are saved from a difficult situation ... we wish to remember that
God is there always standing in front of us.
And
this is why we have every reason to HOPE.
Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us that “through Christ, we have gained access by
faith to the grace in which we stand ... and we boast in hope of the glory of
God. And HOPE does not disappoint ....
because the love of God had been poured out into our hearts. Isn’t it TRUE that there is such a thing as
HOPE??? A difficult situation will
always come to pass and this is what our Lord in the Gospel convinces us ...
THERE IS AN ETERNAL WELL of LIVING WATER
from which we can DRINK and whoever
drinks from this well ... whoever drinks this water shall never be thirty
again.
Jesus
of course speaks of Himself. We who
thirst ... we who encounter our usual troubles ... and instances when we
grumble are asked to have more HOPE ... by clinging on always on Jesus ... his
word ... that promise us ETERNAL LIFE.
“Everyone
who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water
I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“My
food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
and to finish his work.
“We
no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
