OXYGEN

26 Nov – Wednesday in the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

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Revelation 15:1-4

What I, John, saw in heaven was a great and wonderful sign: seven angels were bringing the seven plagues that are the last of all, because they exhaust the anger of God. It seemed to see a glass lake suffused with fire, and standing by the lake of glass, those who had fought against the beast and won, and against his statue and the number which is his name. They all had harps from God, and they were singing the hymn of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb:

‘How great and wonderful are all your works,
Lord God Almighty;
just and true are all your ways,
King of nations.
Who would not revere and praise your name, O Lord?
You alone are holy,
and all the pagans will come and adore you
for the many acts of justice you have shown.’
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Luke 21:12-19

Jesus said: Men will seize you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name – and that will be your opportunity to bear witness. Keep this carefully in mind: you are not to prepare your defence, because I myself shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relations and friends; and some of you will be put to death. You will be hated by all men on account of my name, but not a hair of your head will be lost. Your endurance will win you your lives.’

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Keep this carefully in mind: you are not to prepare your defence

Part of being a contributor for OXYGEN is preparing the write-ups for the saints whose feast days we celebrate throughout the year. We take turns to do this, but every time that I prepare the write-ups, it never ceases to amaze me that many of the saints who were martyred for their faith were religious men and women, or priests, rather than lay people. Why is this so?

Two days ago, we had the gospel reading of the widow who gave her entire savings to God and Jesus praised the woman for it, because she practiced a true spirit of poverty – that of depending completely on God to provide for her day-to-day needs. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus continues on that theme, telling His disciples not to prepare their defence but to trust God that He will give them “an eloquence and a wisdom” to overcome their opponents.

Indeed many of the saints who were martyred for their faith were able to display this kind of courage. We remember many of them for their famous last words, many of them very witty and some even humorous. How does a person, at the very end of his or her life, entrust everything to God? Many of us cannot imagine ourselves in the shoes of these saints who died for their faith.

Well, my friends, this kind of faith-filled end-of-life scenario doesn’t just happen by itself overnight. Rather, if we are to depend on God at the end of our lives, we must have already lived a life of complete dependence on God, so much so that when it comes to the end of our lives, we do what should already come so naturally and instinctively to us – entrusting ourselves in God’s providence.

The reason why many religious men and women are able to do this at the end of their lives is because they have spent their entire lives living in the spirit of poverty that Jesus asks of all of us. Their vow of poverty indicates that they have vowed, not to live a life with no money and possessions, but more importantly, to live a life of complete dependence on the Lord’s providence.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Daniel Tay)
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Prayer: Let us pray, my friends, that you and I will be able to entrust ourselves into our Lord’s providence in every little thing that we do, in every little decision that we make, in our daily lives, so that at the end of our lives, we may do what comes instinctively and naturally what we have spent our entire lives doing. Amen.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks to the Lord for the fine example of religious men and women around us who are living lives of complete dependence on God’s providence.

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Upcoming Readings:
Thu 27 Nov – Revelation 18:1-2. 21.23; Luke 21:20-28
Fri 28 Nov – Revelation 20:1-4. 11 – 21:2; Luke 21:29-33
Sat 29 Nov – Revelation 22:1-7; Luke 21:34-36
Sun 30 Nov – Isaiah 63:16b-17; 64:2-7; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37; First Sunday of Advent