Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
In the gospel today Jesus tells the story of two sons. Each is given a task to do by his father. One of them initially says “no” to his father but later changes his mind and does what his father has commanded him to do. The other immediately agrees to do what his father asks, but he does not end up doing it. Only the first is to be commended for what he did. Jesus applies this to the people of his time. The Pharisees are the ones who initially said “yes” to God but do not follow through. He names “tax collectors and prostitutes” as examples of those who initially said no to God but changed their minds. They became receptive to the promptings of the Spirit, perhaps because they recognized that they needed to be saved. In this they demonstrate humility and an openness to God’s grace in their lives.
The scriptures are filled with examples of those who, after first going on a path that was not truly centered on God, eventually developed a right relationship with God. Think of Abraham and Sarah and the things they did in their attempt to have an heir, at King David’s moral failings and his anguish and repentance as reflected in the Psalms, at St Paul’s persecution of early followers of Jesus and his conversion from Saul to Paul, and at St Peter, who after denying Jesus went on to spread the gospel as an apostle and to die a martyr’s death. We have other, similar examples from Christian history, people such as St Augustine and Ignatius Loyola who underwent dramatic conversions and were led to submit their lives to God in a radical. Perhaps we know of others like this from our own lives as well.
Jesus gives us second chance, a time to rethink and change our lives– even if we have said “no” to him before. Based on the story Jesus tells, I am sometimes tempted to think that such conversion has to be a dramatic thing. Certainly for the tax collectors and prostitutes that he mentions it must have been dramatic. Yet conversion often happens on a much smaller scale. Perhaps there are specific areas of our lives where we have said “no” to God. These are areas over which we have asserted our control and not placed ourselves in God’s hands. For Christians, each day presents an opportunity to renew our commitment to God and to seek to become more obedient to him in all areas of our lives. This opportunity is particularly apparent during specific church seasons such as Lent and Advent that have traditionally been viewed as penitential in nature. In Advent we are given a second chance in both big and small matters, a chance to rededicate our lives to God and to work on refining our commitment to live according to God’s will. Let us pray today for the grace to do this today so that it can be said of us that we are truly entering into the Kingdom of God.
- Joel Schickel