Daily Reflection: Thursday, January 13
Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Let us fetch the ark of the Lord from Shiloh
that it may go into battle among us
and save us from the grasp of our enemies. (Please read 1Sam, ch 4)
Israel believed that the presence of God was with the Ark of the Covenant and so, it seems, did the Philistines. The Philistines knew the reputation of Israel’s God who brought Israel out of Egypt. They knew the power of Israel’s God, but they did not really know Him. Israel, it seems, did not really know him, either. They acted as if the true God was like any of the gods of the nations, imagining that God could be manipulated with the Ark to give them victory in battle.
We want our faith in God to be more simple and pure than Israel’s was in 1 Samuel 4. Our faith can be a reflection of God himself.
John Frambes, ofm