“I WILL BE WITH YOU… DO NOT FEAR, YOU SHALL NOT DIE” (Judges 6:16, 23)

⏰Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time 2 (22 Aug. 2023 – Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

📖Judges 6:11-24; Ps 85:9, 11-12, 13-14 (R.v.9b); Matt 19:23-30

🎤”I WILL BE WITH YOU… DO NOT FEAR, YOU SHALL NOT DIE” (Judges 6:16, 23)

Beloved in Christ, in the Queenship of Mary, we celebrate her privileged connection with Jesus who is the King of Kings. Such honour is not an invention of man but a setting by God whose angel delivered the message to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God” (Luke 1:30). Again, in all these, we celebrate God who is so generous (Matt 20:1-16) to share himself with man through Jesus.

That same God will not give you a task that you cannot handle nor allow you to go through a situation that would leave you helpless. This is because he is bigger than all our situations, and embracing him will usher in the needed solution for all our seeming difficulties.

Moreover, God does not commission us for an assignment without equipping us. Consider the example of Gideon who was chosen by God to lead the Israelites and deliver them from the hands of the Midianites. Considering that he is incapable of doing that, he objected but God reassured him, “I will be with you” (Judges 6:16). Going a little further to Judges 7, we shall see how the presence of God granted them victory.

Are you being weighed down with the task of following Jesus? Do you find the demands of Christian faith so enormous to attend to? You cannot really do it alone because you have no power of your own. The journey may seem impossible to complete but Jesus tells us today that “with God nothing is impossible” (Matt 19:26).

With that in mind, I implore you to pray always for divine assistance in all that you do because the presence of God makes a difference. And may God thus empower you to reach the great heights you desire and pray for. Amen.

Have a great and fulfilled day ahead. Peace be with you.