10 minutes wih Jesus are group of Catholic priests who share friendship with Jesus, plus keenness to help young people of all ages to learn the art of loving Jesus and speaking to Him. You can find them in WhatsApp, Spotify, Ivoox, Telegram, Goggle Podcasts and Apple Podcast. Every saturday, we are going to share one meditation by 10 minutes with Jesus. Enjoy it.
My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me, I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time of Prayer fruitful; my Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.
Two martyrs
Today the church celebrates two martyrs, or gives you the option of two martyrs, Saint Lawrence Ruiz, a first Philipino Saint, who was born in Manila in the 17th century, and who worked for the Dominicans, crafting official documents; and he ended up with other priests in Japan, and there was a terrible persecution against the Christians, and he he refused to apostatize, and remained faithful to God, and died to preserve his integrity.
Saint Wenceslau
And then there is Saint Wenceslau, a 10th century king from Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, who was killed by his own brother, while he prayed in the Royal Chapel. Now, one could go into great detail into the lives of these men, and in their, you know, look into their virtues, and their wisdom, their charity, and how they really were ready to sacrifice their lives in defense of their faith. And each one indeed, has his own story, and we too, we have our story.
You know, years from now, those who remember you, will recall some of the things you might have said, a moment of wisdom, or a moment of encouragement that you had for others, when maybe your marriage was going through a tough time, or conversation was tough, you may have felt a breach of anger, but you came to forgive, and you came to begin again, and as we look over our life now, as we do our prayer, well, there are good memories, and there may be bitter ones. Moments in which you perhaps turned away from grace, but other moments where you humbly embraced God’s call.
Numerous occasions of conversio
But there are always moments in numerous occasions of conversion, of turning back humbly to the Lord, humbly turning back to you Lord, that’s what we want, to look at today, because we hear about a person being converted, and we maybe hear about the convergent story, but really, that’s just the beginning of an ongoing process, a process ultimately of transformation, because it can’t just stop, but the actual conversion has to keep going to a transformation, right?. So here today, there’s an incident in the Gospel, about that ongoing process of transformation in the lives of the apostles.
Saint Luke
Today we get that incident from the Gospel of Saint Luke, which tells us of a rather embarrassing moment, it’s like way embarrassing, when the apostles were actually arguing among themselves, who was the greatest, who had the highest rating, who was up in the polls, and who was down, as though they thought Jesus could not overhear them, or at least couldn’t know that they were talking about these things, or what they were up to.
I can imagine Peter, probably he was the loudest you know, garishly saying that he would never betray Jesus, and that he would give up his life, and we know that when he did say that later on too, I mean, he just betrayed him moments later, and I suspect that the tone of everybody, not just Peter but everybody, it was like an annoying tone.
People and family
There’s lots of bickering, kind of pettiness, that can easily happen when people with very strong family bonds get heated, it’s like a discord music that is off-key, and painful to anyone with a delicate ear, that’s a shrill sound, that kind of makes you want to cover your ears, the shrill sound of arguments.
But when our Lord hears this he’s not angered, he’s not irritated, he hears the heightened rash tone among them, but he takes advantage of this moment, it’s an opportunity to teach them really about about simplicity, but more specifically, about really knowing how to listen to others about being ready to encounter the other, at whatever level that they are, at and not insisting on transmitting our information, or just arguing right, we may not agree with others, but we really have to communicate, we really have to listen patiently.
And so our Lord presents this little child, a simple endearing cute little non-threatening little child, and we can picture it now, Lord I picture it now this trusting little child, a little toddler presented by his own mother, trustingly maybe with a smile, a shy smile, and yet, aware that maybe he was suddenly the center of attention. And it’s a beautiful image, that now the apostles start arguing, they look at this little child and they realize maybe they have to be a little bit more simple, and stop arguing so much.
The Brothers Karamazov
You know I was reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a beautiful classic novel where the main figure there, Fyodor Karamazov, has a third son, and his name is Alyosha, whom Dostoevsky describes, I mean, very endearingly. This little boy, everybody loved him, from his youngest childhood, Alyosha remembered his mother’s face, all his life, even though he was only four, when she died, and he could not, of course, he could not stay with his father, he was just neglected him, and his father was just a total drunkard, and so he ended up staying with a patron, a benefactor, uh whose name was Jefim.
And it’s quite wonderful to read this account, how the little Alyosha gained the hearts of all the family, and they looked at him really as he was their own child right, and he was described, Alyosha was described as as bright and good tempered, and he never tried to show off among his school fellows, perhaps because of this he was just never afraid of anyone, yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his fearlessness, and and seemed to be unaware, that he was that he was bold and he was courageous, and yet he never resented an insult.
Arguments
But he heard arguments among his classmates, interests like the apostles, he heard all these arguments, but especially he heard harsh words on the schoolyard, this is what Dostoevsky describes, that he had these sensitive ears to these harsh words, and I find this description quite amusing, because he could just couldn’t bear these conversations, or these these harsh words that were foisted upon him by his schoolmates.
And this is what Dostoevsky says, he says “seeing that Alyosha put his fingers in his ears when they talked about” he quote that, that is well the unnamable subject, “they used sometimes to crowd around, and pull his hands away, and shout nastiness into his ears, while he struggled, he slipped to the floor and tried to hide himself, without uttering one word of abuse, enduring their insults in silence, but at last they left him alone, and gave up their taunting.”
Who is the greatest?
No doubt, if our Lord is presenting a child to the apostles, who were arguing about who was the greatest, it was of course to subdue their pride, their sense of arrogance, their comparisons, and all those arguments were filled with pride, and a kind of defensiveness that would have hurt the ears of any child, especially somebody like Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, right and you know just as any argument, any child is pained at hearing the arguments of his own parents, of couples.
But we know in this story Alyosha goes on to live in a monastery, and he tries to emulate his mentor, Father Zosima, and it’s a really beautiful account of how this man, he grows up to be of course, a man, and he refused to condemn anyone, and he had this great ability to love, and he was just a, you know, great goodness. Now, he’s not perfect, he had his doubts at times, but he is deeply inspiring above all because he was forgiving, but above, also because he was so able to communicate with others, and this ability to communicate right?
Pope Francis
Pope Francis has given so much importance to this, which he describes through this image of the ability to enter into an encounter that he wants us to enter, into this encounter with others, this was the first line of his first encyclical, The Joy Of The Gospel, fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus, that we encounter Jesus, and then we encounter him in Jesus, in others. And indeed Saint Jose Maria, he had two books on homilies and they were called Friends Of God and Christ is Passing By, and those two titles of those homilies really embody what we have to be, we have to be friends of God, to everyone, but we also have to be like Christ who is passing by for others, in our manner, in our ability, to listen our capacity, to have empathy, to adapt our language, to learn, to create confidence.
The Theology Of Encounte
Because everybody loves to feel loved and listened to, without any moralism or judgmentalism, so we have to be Christ for others, but we have to see Christ in others, and this is a great task that lies ahead of us, so that we can really enter into this. What Pope Francis called The Theology Of Encounter, not the harsh arguments, or bitter arguments that the apostles had, but to listen to others, to connect with them, and we see this often in the numerous get-togethers that Saint Josemaria used to have, that’s how he loved to communicate with us, just hanging out, being with others, communicating, talking about things, maybe that are not that important, but you’re just there, empathizing, listening, “Oh did that happen?
Oh that’s interesting, that’s wonderful,” we listen, and that’s why the Lord brings this child who had this task of listening to those around him and and as a result it would have given him also this talent to speak, let’s see where I can listen more in the family, at home, your relationships with your friendships, truly listen the dialogue that is so necessary to empathize with others, and all our friendships, all our relationships will become much more fruitful.
It´s the end
I thank you my God for the good resolution, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect; my Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.
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