We were hoping

A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Find today’s readings here.

The disciples of John the Baptist must have been devastated when they got news of his execution. “They came and took away the corpse and buried him,” Matthew tells us at the close of today’s Gospel (Mt 14:12). Imagine knowing your beloved teacher had been beheaded and his head grotesquely displayed for sport, and then collecting his headless body for burial. Imagine the depth of your feelings at his death: grief, horror, despair. Maybe all you had experienced with him seemed pointless. It was all for nothing. 

To my mind, this Gospel reading mirrors Luke’s story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were leaving town in sorrow after the cruel death of Jesus. “We were hoping he would be the one,” they lamented to their traveling companion (Lk 24:21). Their physical loss left them at an emotional loss. Again, it must have seemed all for nothing.

We can relate. We’ve all had those moments, when our high expectations for what lies ahead are dashed by some unforeseen disappointment or painful turn of events or outright tragedy. Our confidence is rattled, if not shattered. We are plunged into mourning for what might have been. Our faith wobbles. Whatever we were hoping for seems foolish in retrospect, as if it were all for nothing. We feel forgotten, forsaken at the bottom of a well. 

But just as the travelers on the road to Emmaus are given back their hope when the stranger accompanying them turns out to be Jesus, we hear today that the disciples of John the Baptist knew where to turn: “[T]hey went and told Jesus,” writes Matthew. They remembered that their teacher had directed them to follow Jesus and accept him as the awaited Savior. Likewise, when our faith is at its lowest ebb, we know who stands with us and who restores us: Jesus.

Trusting in Jesus is simple, but sometimes it’s the hardest thing we ever do. Faced with Herod’s brutality, John’s disciples waver. Faced with the crucifixion of their Messiah, the Emmaus pilgrims waver. Faced with the heartbreaks and catastrophes of our lives, we waver. We lose hope. We look around but see only the devastation, and it takes a spiritual nudge, or sometimes a shove, for us to see Jesus there with us as well. Perhaps today we can remind ourselves to pray for the nudge. Or the shove. Or the unrecognized stranger who turns out to be the one for whom we are hoping.