Monday of Week 28 in Ordinary Time
Rm 1:1-7
Lk 11:29-32
“This is a wicked generation; it is asking for a sign…”
Don’t you just hate it when someone asks you for some advice on a situation, yet they continue to
persist in the same way, until someone else – or two – comes along with the same advice and
suddenly their ears are open and they pay heed? Isn’t it just worse when they come back to you and
share how that advice had changed their lives or made so much sense? It seems this person forgot
that you gave the same advice from the start. I am sure this is a common experience for many, and it
is definitely more irritating when it happens with someone close such as a family member or a good
friend.
This happens to me; and I have done the same to the people who try to help me. Actually, for some
of us, we do need to hear the same message, probably twice or thrice, before it sinks in and we take
note.
However, the readings of today reveal an important ingredient — wisdom. It is not enough for us to
ask for a sign, to ask for the way to be shown us. After all, Paul tells us in the first reading, the signs,
the Good News had been promised by God long before through the prophets in the scriptures. The
people who lived in the time of these prophets had heard the prophecies loud and clear – Jonah,
Moses, Elijah – but not everyone heeded their clarion call. Well, they were mere men anyway.
But here comes Jesus. Jesus, Paul proclaims, is the Son of God, the Christ our Lord. Paul is reminding
the Romans that Jesus Christ is the sign for this generation. ‘For just as Jonah became a sign to the
Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation… and there is something greater than
Solomon here… and there is something greater than Jonah here.’ (Lk 11:31-32) These were the very
words of Christ himself as he preached amongst the Jews and Pagans that he walked amongst.
As I pondered this scene, I wonder if I had been one of those around him back then, would I have truly
listened with wisdom and discernment, or merely heard and forgot. Would I have walked on from
that crowd and joined another gathering to listen to yet another wise man preach, aimlessly asking
for teachings and signposts like a mindless addiction for cure-alls? Or do I choose to open my heart
to the Living Word of God to seek His wisdom and love, for a deep conversion within?
(Today’s OXYGEN by Debbie Loo)
Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to sit still and let Your Word in the scriptures sink into my being like food from heaven for my weary soul.
Thanksgiving: We thank you Lord, for the gift of a morning or night-time silence when we can reflect
on our days and Your presence.
OXYGEN 
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