In the Gospel today, Jesus challenges the way that we see things in the world. He mentions how many people want a value system of revenge and vengeance, of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. However, Jesus tells us that there is another way of seeing things. I think of men like St Francis of Assisi and St Ignatius of Loyola who were very much caught up in the ways of their secular world in their youth and their young adulthood. Their values would have been similar to the values of the knights and revenge, an eye for an eye They radically changed their lives through their conversions. They in turn were able to change the Church.
I mention to you the prison ministry that I engage in each week. You can imagine that ministering to the inmates in state and federal prisons helps me to look at the world in a different way, to look at my priesthood in a different way, to look at the Mass in a different way as well. Before I came to St Jude in Pearl as a priest in 2017, I had been a priest for 9 years and had not really engaged much with the Carmelite nuns. Now, since I have gotten to know them well and since I have celebrated Mass with them many times, and now since I am a part of the secular Carmelite order, I see things in a different way as well. We need to be open to God’s grace in our lives. We need to be open to the many ways God can open our eyes. We need to be open to change our perspective on our journey of faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment