FAMILIARITY WITH JESUS

We can’t choose our family and relatives but we can choose our friends. It is of no wonder then that though we naturally love and value our family and blood relatives, we may be more confident to bare our hearts and souls with choicest friends.

Lazarus, Martha and Mary were Jesus’ dearest friends. It was in the privacy of their home in Bethany that Jesus many times chose to rest and be simply His natural human self, away from the heat and scrutiny of His critics and from the expectant clamor of the crowd. In our particular Gospel lesson today, we also see how Jesus was very much at home with emotions in Martha’s and Mary’s presence that He wept. In like manner, Martha and Mary were also very much at home in reflecting with Jesus their sentiments on His delay in coming to visit them, a delay that caused the death of Lazarus.

Friendship with Jesus did not save Martha and Mary from the pains, the losses and the harsh realities of earthly existence. This, I believe, is what Jesus wanted Martha and Mary to realize with His intentional delay in coming to the aid of the siblings. Friendship with God does not mean exemption from bad news. Abraham who walked with God, Moses who talked with God face-to-face, and David who had a heart after God’s heart had one common human experience: they all died.

Friendship with Jesus, like our friendship with our best of friends, however brings along a wonderful benefit: it gives us the confidence to just open wide to Him our thoughts, our emotions, our sentiments just as we have them now. We do not have to always edit ourselves; we do not have to filter our expressions so that we come across always as sublime and in control. We can just let go, and let God. Now, is this not enough to make us feel relaxed and relieved?

Of course, should Jesus decide to act in our favor, that is an add-on and much appreciated grace.Fr. Domie Guzman, SSP

Reflection Question:
Are you at home praying to Jesus with what you really have deep inside you — your thoughts, your sentiments and feelings in a given moment? What effect has this experience of familiarity with Jesus brought to you?

Thank You, Lord, that You have called us friends. Thank You for accepting us as we are. Let me be a true friend to You, too.