As I am writing this reflection, I was thinking about yesterday, which was March 17, St Patrick’s day, when a lot of places in the Jackson metro area closed early in anticipation of the storm that was coming through our area. Fortunately, it was not as bad as expected, although some areas were hard hit. As I think about all we have been through this past year, as we marked the anniversary of the shut-in with the pandemic, I guess we should still not take anything for granted.
In John’s Gospel this Sunday, we hear the Greek converts to Judaism come to Philip, telling him that they want to see the Lord. I wonder: what expectations do they have? Do they just want to see him physically, just to make sure here is a real person? Do they want to attack him and condemn his message like so many of the scribes and Pharisees? Or do they really want to get to know him, to understand him, to learn from him, to be open to his message?
Sometimes when we want to see Jesus and when we seek him out on our journey of faith, I wonder if is the authentic Jesus we are seeking, or is it the image of Jesus we want to see. Probably by now on our journey of faith, as practicing Catholics, we have a defined image of Jesus and a defined image of what he should be like in our lives. Perhaps that expected image of him is limiting what we hear Jesus say to us. Perhaps it is closing us off from the ways he can transform us and renew us.
Even as a priest, I have my own image of how I am called to live out the priesthood. However, I need to be open to the new and surprising ways Jesus can come to me and call out to me. We all need to be open to God’s will, not our own will.
Jesus responded to the message from the Greeks by speaking about a grain of wheat that must die in order to produce fruit, how we have to be willing to lose our lives in order to save them. The Greeks probably would not have understood that Jesus was talking about his upcoming passion, journey to the cross, and resurrection, a radical transformation that Jesus knew was coming for him.
Jesus will continue to call out to us in new and unexpected ways. Are we listening?
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