January 13: 1st Week, Tuesday,: Saint Hilary
1 Sam 1:9-20 / Mark 1:21-28
Hannah asks God for a child; she gave birth to Samuel.
Twelve-year-old Irmgard Wood lived in Stuttgart, Germany, during World War II. One morning her mother and sisters saw an American plane catch fire and fall from the sky. Instinctively, they prayed for the pilot, even though he was an American. Years later, the Woods migrated to America. Irmgard’s mother got a job in a hospital in the San Fernando Valley in California. One day a patient detected her German accent and asked her where she lived in Germany. “Stuttgart,” she said. The patient replied, “I almost got killed in Stuttgart during World War II. One morning my plane caught fire and fell from the sky. Somebody must have been praying for me.”
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How much faith do we have in prayer? Do we pray for our enemies? “More things are wrought through prayer than this world dreams of.” Alfred Lord Tennyson
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There are many reasons why people come to church. Besides coming to church for Mass, people come to church in times of need. In a time of desperation and desolation, they come to church so as find some direction and consolation and an answer to their prayers. For them, the church is the visible and tangible presence of God and it is where they take refuge in the midst of their troubles.
In the 1st reading, Hannah in her distress went before the Lord, and Eli the priest was observing her and wondering about her intention.
In the gospel, a man possessed by an unclean spirit, began making a scene in the synagogue, with that unclean spirit making a confrontation with Jesus. But as Jesus expelled the unclean spirit out of the possessed man, the people were astonished and they started asking each other what it all meant. But we should know what all that means. Whether it was Hannah in her bitterness of soul or the possessed man struggling with the evil spirit within, they have come before the Lord seeking for help.
The church is like a field hospital where people come to seek God and to be healed of the wounds of the heart and to be delivered from whatever evil that is affecting them.
May we offer these people some understanding and consolation and help so that they will truly experience Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and find peace and healing in the House of God.
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Saint Hilary
Feast day January 13
Hilary was born to pagan parents of Poitiers, France, in 315. After training in the classics and philosophy, Hilary married. He and his wife had one daughter, Afra. All who knew Hilary said he was a friendly, charitable, gentle man. Hilary’s studies led him to read Scripture. He became convinced that there was only one God, whose Son became man and died and rose to save all people. This led him to be baptized along with his wife and daughter.
The people of Poitiers chose Hilary to be their bishop in 353. He spoke out against Arianism, a heresy that denied the divinity of Christ. When Emperor Constantius II wanted him to sign a paper condemning Saint Athanasius, the great defender of the faith, he refused. The emperor was furious and exiled Hilary to Phrygia. In exile, he preached, wrote, and suffered, and even asked to debate the Arian bishops. Fearing Hilary’s arguments, Arian’s followers begged the emperor to send Hilary home. The emperor, believing Hilary was also undermining his authority, recalled him. Hilary’s writings show that he could be fierce in defending the faith, but in dealing with the bishops who had given in to the Arian heresy, he was charitable. He showed them their errors and helped them to defend their faith. Though the emperor called Hilary “disturber of the peace,” Saints Jerome and Augustine praised him as “teacher of the churches.”
