16 January 2019
Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Nikita was an American television series based on the adaptation of the 1990 French film La Femme Nikita. The series focused on Nikita, a deeply troubled teenager who was on death row. She was given a second chance and asked to serve in a secret U.S. government-funded organization. In one of the flashback scenes, Nikita said that she always wanted to run away. However, her mentor, a woman named Carla, said that Nikita felt this way because she was told all of her life that she was not worthy. Nevertheless, Carla assured Nikita that she is much stronger, like a wild flower that grows in the dessert, the most horrible place on earth. The wild flowers in the desert usually save their strength and wait for the rains to come. Only with the rain do they reach for the sun and bloom.
In the Gospel today, we hear that Jesus gets his strength from prayer. Mark mentions the prayer of Jesus at the beginning of his mission and during his preaching and other activities. All of these suggest that prayer is an integral part of Jesus’s ministries, in which he always seeks the source of his strength through the prayer to His Father. The Gospel says that Jesus prays at dawn, which signifies that he observes the daily morning prayer, which was part of Jewish piety. Mark also depicts Jesus’s prayer in the evening (Mark 6:46) and of course in the Garden of Gethsemane (at night). While Jesus criticizes the long prayers of scribes, he urges his disciples to pray without ceasing. The Gospel reading today is an invitation for us to see the works of Jesus from the perspective of prayer. If Jesus guides his works through prayer, then all of his miracles, signs and statements must also be seen through the perspective of His prayer.