And many others who provided for them out of their resources

20 SEPTEMBER (Lk 8,1-3)

Our body needs the things of this earth to live, work, operate and carry out the mission that God has entrusted us. Getting the necessary sometimes is difficult. David experiences how difficult the way of asking is. Often, there is no answer.

But Nabal’s wife Abigail was informed of this by one of the servants, who said: “David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but he flew at them screaming. Yet these men were very good to us. We were done no injury, neither did we miss anything all the while we were living among them during our stay in the open country. For us they were like a rampart night and day the whole time we were pasturing the sheep near them. Now, see what you can do, for you must realize that otherwise evil is in store for our master and for his whole family. He is so mean that no one can talk to him.” Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of pressed raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on asses. She then said to her servants, “Go on ahead; I will follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

As she came down through a mountain defile riding on an ass, David and his men were also coming down from the opposite direction. When she met them, David had just been saying: “Indeed, it was in vain that I guarded all this man’s possessions in the desert, so that he missed nothing. He has repaid good with evil. May God do thus and so to David, if by morning I leave a single male alive among all those who belong to him.” As soon as Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the ass and, falling prostrate on the ground before David, did him homage. As she fell at his feet she said: “My lord, let the blame be mine. Please let your handmaid speak to you, and listen to the words of your handmaid. Let not my lord pay attention to that worthless man Nabal, for he is just like his name. Fool is his name, and he acts the fool. I, your handmaid, did not see the young men whom my lord sent. Now, therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as you live, it is the Lord who has kept you from shedding blood and from avenging yourself personally. May your enemies and those who seek to harm my lord become as Nabal! Accept this present, then, which your maidservant has brought for my lord, and let it be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the transgression of your handmaid, for the Lord shall certainly establish a lasting dynasty for my lord, because your lordship is fighting the battles of the Lord, and there is no evil to be found in you your whole life long. If anyone rises to pursue you and to seek your life, may the life of my lord be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God; but may he hurl out the lives of your enemies as from the hollow of a sling. And when the Lord carries out for my lord the promise of success he has made concerning you, and appoints you as commander over Israel, you shall not have this as a qualm or burden on your conscience, my lord, for having shed innocent blood or for having avenged yourself personally. When the Lord confers this benefit on your lordship, remember your handmaid.” David said to Abigail: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today. Blessed be your good judgment and blessed be you yourself, who this day have prevented me from shedding blood and from avenging myself personally. Otherwise, as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from harming you, if you had not come so promptly to meet me, by dawn Nabal would not have had a single man or boy left alive.” David then took from her what she had brought him and said to her: “Go up to your home in peace! See, I have granted your request as a personal favor” (1Sam 25,14-35).

Jesus is all inserted in the love of the Father, entirely delivered to him. The Father takes care of him in everything. He does not have to ask. Things are offered to him. The Father arouses the desire to do good to Jesus in the heart of some wealthy women and they place themselves totally at the service of their Master. The Father keeps watch over Jesus.

Afterward he journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.

God is always the providence of his missionaries. However, these have to do one thing: taking care of the mission full time. They work for the Father and the Father works for them. If they do not work for the Father, not even the Father will work for them.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us real workers of God.