In today's Gospel, it seems like Jesus is feeling disappointment, and His distress is great. He wishes the fire is already blazing, but it is not. He hopes to bring peace on earth, but the division is in-fighting within families due to faith in His name. It would have been like Jeremiah, in the first reading, being thrown into the well, sinking into the mud. There seems to be no hope.

Sometimes we feel this way in our faith journey -frustrations, distress, despair, etc. Like the psalmist, we can cry, "Lord, come to my aid!" We hope in the Lord. We trust in God, who can save us. As the psalmist prays, God can draw me "from the deadly pit, from the miry clay." Jeremiah is finally pulled out of the well on the king's order. Indeed, this goes against the wishes of his plotters.

The author of Hebrews also encourages us, "With so many witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us, ... keep running steadily in the race we have started. Let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection." Despite these let-downs, let us persevere in our faith; we strive with hope and focus on the Lord Jesus.

We pray for the courage and strength to continue running in the race "for the sake of the joy which is still in the future." (Heb 12:2). Jesus had endured the cross, disregarding the shamefulness of it. We, too, can persist in it like Jesus.