26th
Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 1, 2017
I
–By turning from wickedness, a wicked person shall preserve his life.
R
–Remember your mercies, O Lord.
II
– Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.
A
– My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.
G –He
changed his mind and went. Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the
kingdom of heaven before you.
+ Our gospel message today has to do with right choice – sooner
or later. For some people it is easier to see clear to a
good and proper course of action. Most likely this has to do with successful
conscience formation early on; this, added to a disposition that more easily
allows for the removal of any serious blocks to right and good thinking and
acting.
Jesus tells us that two
brothers in the same family, however, can be at different levels in this
conscience formation process – for any number of reasons, the primary one being
that each brother is an individual person and is free to learn to make his own
choices, at his own pace. The point Jesus makes is that doing what their father wanted was what counted, and even though he
“changed his mind” the first son did what
pleased his father, because he did what his father wanted. The one who did
not do what his father wanted lost the favor of the father. It’s all in the
“doing!”
Jesus, in telling this story,
actually was being very kind to the Pharisees with whom he was usually always
quarreling: he is offering them here an opportunity to look at themselves honestly and to change their minds about their own hypocrisy – and to turn to
Jesus, so to do God the Father’s will for them, who wishes to shepherd them as
well: to offer them mercy and a place a refuge forever.
St Paul tells the Philippians
that putting on the humble attitude of
Christ – which for us means sometimes a change of thought or course of
action – will get us very far in winning
the Father’s favor. When we have the
mind of Christ, we will also possess
his joy and our lives will be much more manageable than ever, and who would
not want that?
And
so, the choice is ours – do we want to be more pharisaical or more obedient to the will of our Father in
heaven who only wants our complete joy and happiness as our present and last
end? Oh, and remember, you can always change your mind!
My
sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know
them, and they follow me.
No comments:
Post a Comment