6 July 2021
Optional Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti, virgin and martyr
The description in today’s Gospel of the miracle Jesus worked on the man who could not speak is brief. But it is loaded with a challenge. Do I ever bring people who know nothing about prayer, nothing about Christ to him in my prayer? Our society today is loaded with “demoniacs”, physical and spiritual. So?
Just as in yesterday’s Gospel, when Jesus was described as being in the midst of the flowing crowd, and “his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned”, so it is today. Do I have the same vision when I see so many “sheep without a shepherd” in the woke world of critical race where God has placed me?
Using another metaphor, Jesus moaned: “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few”. So, do something about it! Develop the habit of praying daily to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for troubled and abandoned people and remind him they are no different from those he mingled with during his public ministry. There are just more of them.