Saturday of Week 17 – Jer 26:11-16,24; Matthew 14:1-12

“I understand that you are trying to get me released. But I beg you not to do this. Yesterday they killed fifty people. If I am not here, who will help them to get through these sufferings? They would go on their way to eternity with all their sins and in the depths of unbelief, which would take them to hell. But now they go to death with their heads held aloft, leaving all their sins behind them. […] I thank God for His goodness to me. Apart from heaven, this is the one place where I wish to remain” – this is a fragment of a smuggled message to family by being thrown through the barbed wires of the concentration camp of Majdanek, written by Blessed Emilian Kowcz (Omelyan Kovch), a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest.

Evil can be faced in a variety of ways: fighting, protesting, or wringing of hands. You can also do it like John the Baptist, Fr. Emilian and many other witnesses.

Lord God, I don’t always manage to accept Your will. It sometimes happens that I get angry when I encounter opposition and suffering. Let me pass beyond these experiences with dignity and faith.