27th Week, Tuesday, Oct 10, Saint Francis Borgia
Jonah 3:1-10 / Luke 10:38-42
God calls Jonah again: This time Jonah obeyed.
A Peanuts cartoon shows Charlie Brown in a
dejected state. He is depressed because he failed to come to the rescue of his
sister when the playground bully was taunting her. Linus tries to cheer Charlie
up, saying, “You know what you would do, if you had it happen all over again.”
Charlie says, “Yeah, I’d probably do the same thing.” Many of us feel the same
way about certain things. We think change is impossible.
Today’s reading, however, suggests otherwise. God is a persistent
lover. His mercy is infinitely more generous and his grace is infinitely more
powerful than our sinfulness.
*****
How convinced are we that we can change if we just keep
trusting and trying? “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” Christopher
Morley
***
In Jonah’s experience, God’s word is very powerful if we
bring it to people in the name of God and if they are open to it.
***
It's one thing to know that we have a bad habit, or an
addiction, but yet it is another thing to kick it out or to change our habits.
One simple example is watching TV. We can get into the habit of just sitting in
front of the TV and let time fly, and slowly it becomes an addiction. And short
of throwing away the TV, we might find it real difficult to kick this bad habit
or the addiction of wasting time and watching rubbish. So, what is the key to
change, to conversion, to repentance? Relying simply on will-power might be out
of the question, because we know how often will-power has failed us when it
comes to an addiction. yet the key is also in the will-power. The
will-power must be empowered by the truth; only then can the will-power respond
to the call for conversion and repentance. The people of Nineveh repented
because they heard the truth from Jonah, and they responded.
That is also what Jesus is highlighting in today's gospel.
The one thing needed and which is necessary is to listen - to listen to the
truth and to be open to it. Listening to the truth and being open to it is what
is needed if we are to respond to God's call to conversion and repentance. May
our hearts be opened to that truth.
***
A hospitable family or person makes guests feel at home and
gives them the best available. But if we are truly hospitable, we are also
listening to the guest and to receive from him or her perhaps more than we give
and in a deeper way. We receive the guest as a person. God presents himself in
the Bible as a traveller on a journey. He asks for hospitality as a stranger or
a poor person. Christ also says that in the homeless we welcome him.
***
Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and his passion, when he
dropped in at Mary and Martha's. He needed some rest and comfort. Mary
understood this better. He also understood that there was a clash of
temperaments. Mary may have been better but Martha was good. Better is not the
opposite of good. Some take this story to mean that there are two ways of those
who give their life for Christ. The contemplative and the active. They read too
much into the story. Jesus was not just a contemplative. Hours of prayer and
meditation are the best preparation for our activity. To cut these hours for
work is apt to make work empty, meaningless, outward activity. The teacher or
the preacher who comes from the presence of God to the presence of men gives
knowledge and light. For him, contemplation was the source of all activity. His
preaching and teaching, even his whole life had its origin there. He was a
contemplative in action.
***
Prayer: Our loving God and Father, you have
invited us to stay with you, to listen to the message of Jesus your Son and to
accept from him your peace and love. May we welcome him wholeheartedly and
learn from him to welcome him too in people who appeal to us for forgiveness
and a bit of warmth, for patience and hope and joy. Let them not pass your
servants by. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
***
Saint Francis Borgia
Feast day October 10
Francis Borgia was born into an extremely wealthy and
influential Spanish family and married when he was 19. Two deaths affected his
life deeply. The death of Empress Isabella showed him that earthly possessions
and status are fleeting.
The death of his wife in 1546 convinced him to give up all
of his possessions and join the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. He founded a
Jesuit College and within a few years became a priest. His subsequent tireless
devotion to Jesus Christ and to the Jesuits led many to see him as the
Society’s second founder. He died in 1572 and was made a Saint in 1671.