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Gospel Reflection for Friday, April 4, 2025
What’s really striking about this Gospel is Jesus’ ability to control time. According to the Gospels, Jesus must have known that his clash with the Jewish religious authorities had only one possible outcome: his arrest and execution. In today’s Gospel itself, it already appears that the Jewish people were trying to kill him. But that wasn’t going to happen suddenly, but when Jesus saw it was convenient. Jesus controls the timing and takes the steps he wants, when he wants. It’s not a trivial matter. It speaks of great freedom and responsibility over his own life. He has a mission, and he’s going to carry it out step by step, as he wants and determines. He’s not going to let others make decisions for him. We could almost say that, when the moment of the Passion comes, the final moment, Jesus isn’t killed, but he gives himself up.
In the times we live in today, I don’t know if we’re all that much in control of our own lives, our decisions, or if we let others decide for us what we have to do, what our priorities are. We live constantly checking our phones and messages. Everything is urgent. And the last message we receive or the last call we get determines that we leave what we’re doing to start something else. Others are setting our agenda.
Maybe we should think about learning from Jesus and making our own decisions about our lives. When it’s time to work, you have to work. When it’s time to be with family, you have to be with family (not constantly glancing at your phone). When it’s time to pray, you have to pray. And so, we become responsible for our lives and determine how to use our time and set our priorities and urgencies. And what we live, whether it’s work, rest, prayer… live it fully, with total attention. So we don’t become puppets always moved by the hands and urgencies of others. So we can be the masters of our lives.