Monday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
The most valuable thing we possess is our faith, which has been handed down from generation to generation. Today’s readings highlight the violence and bloodshed that God’s faithful people have had to undergo in order to maintain and transmit the message of love and truth. Jesus, speaking in parables, tells of those who came before him witnessing to the faith with their lives and goes on to foreshadow his own death.
To this day, evil is rampant in the world. Members of the Church, the body of Christ, are threatened, persecuted, even killed because of the faith they profess. While we may never find ourselves in a situation where our lives are threatened because of our faith, we may find ourselves in situations in which our faith is threatened by sin and temptation. The first reading outlines a way to prevent this. We must make every effort to supplement our “faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.”