Tuesday of Week 26 Year 1

In our efforts to preach the Good News, we may come across resistance and opposition. The reaction of a good Christian is not to get angry with those people who oppose and resist us, but to have more patience with them. The task of a disciple of Jesus is not to destroy but to build up. We must temper our tendency to return evil for evil. But being patient to such people is not so easy. This is because some of us are used to quick results, and we expect our ministry to flourish after a certain time. But the reality is, God's ways are not our ways, and sometimes our efforts may not bear fruit as we expect. Then what happens?

In today's Gospel, we see an example of expecting quick results in ministry, where the brothers James and John said to Jesus: “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” This is because the people of the Samaritan village did not receive them well. But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went off to another village. Jesus showed His disciples, and us too, that using force or threats is not the way to preach the Good News. At the end of the day, we are required to do our part, the rest we leave it in the hands of the Lord.