Targeting

(reflection on  Mt 7:7–12)

One reason why we must always attentively listen to the daily Gospel is because it contains words worth-remembering. And aside from that, the Gospel is a message that is responding to our individual human conditions.

No doubt, today’s Gospel (Mt 7:7–12) is one of my favorite Gospel texts. And often we use this Gospel of Matthew as our reference whenever we encounter daily personal struggles – be it in our studies and office works, spiritual growth; we use this Gospel text as reference whenever we do our ministries, and of course, for the Religious, during apostolate – when we find this text suitable to the conditions of the people in the area.

I remember watching a classic cartoon Peanuts where one of its episodes, Charlie Brown used to practice archery. He would shoot a couple of arrows in his backyard and afterwards would walk over and draw a target around wherever the arrows struck. And Lucy would notice him and ask, “Charlie, why are you doing that?” and Charlie would reply (without an embarrassment), “Well… by this I never miss.”

We can easily spot Charlie’s problem there: there’s a little planning or strategies behind his efforts – and that is, not selecting a specific target.

When I was in college doing my Journalism, I got to know these media practitioners and professors who decided to put up a local radio station in Legazpi. One of their priorities was to select a target audience. And they did three things instantly: first, they select their broadcast area; two, they figured out the segments of population wherein they are not being reached by other networks; three, they used formats to be used for the selected audience. And true enough, DZGB became one of the successful radio stations in Legazpi (until now!).

I don’t know if you have heard about people talking about the Gospel of Mark and Matthew. They said that almost all the teachings found in the Gosple of Mark are covered also by Matthew. And if this is the case, they would say, there’s no need to read both books.

But actually NO. If we are going to see their targets, we will see the difference…

Matthew’s Gospel was targeted for the Hebrew readers while Mark’s Gospel was targeted for the Gentile readers. You see, they may have the same meanings but they wrote for different audiences. And so, the style they used for communicating is different.

Of these stories, I am only left with one question. And Fr. Paulson, in his commentaries of our Claretian Daily Gospel says it right today: Are we really discerning what is truly good for us? It’s worth-pondering, you see? Are we really praying for what is truly good for us, for the church, and her people?  If we don’t know the answers for these questions, then maybe, we are not yet ready to pursue this kind of life (my audience: seminarians). If we don’t know the answers for these questions, maybe we don’t know ourselves yet. If we don’t know the answers for these questions, maybe we don’t know who really God is – or worst, we really don’t know how to love God. But, if we do know the answers for these questions, then perhaps, we are on the right track! Perhaps, we know that we are doing God’s will.

And we are all familiar with this: Doing God’s will entails effort. It requires faith. And faith here means believing that God is real and He is good. That faith is not a belief that God will do what we want. Faith is a belief that God will do what is right for us.

The word “help” occurs several times in today’s readings: The Psalm says, Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me. And in our First Reading (from the book of Esther), the Queen pleaded to the Lord saying, “My Lord, you who stand alone, come to my help; I am alone and have no help but you…” and if we are going to read her entire prayer there, she repeated the word “help” thrice more.

Healing begins when we do something. Healing begins when we reach out. Healing starts when we take step.

My prayer for all of us is that we will always do something that demonstrates faith. For faith without effort is no faith at all. We wish not to be Charlie Brown, who draws a bull’s-eye around whatever, wherever, or whoever he met and then settled for it.

God will always respond to our prayers. He has never rejected a genuine gesture of faith. Never.