Perhaps peace is not,, after all, something you work for, or fight for . . . Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world."
- Thomas Merton
(And that's something!)
|
Eph 4:1-7, 11-13; Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5
Mt 9:9-13
As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
He heard this and said,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
What is it about Matthew’s example that we are called to imitate? The very raising of that question takes me to a conversation I had during lunch recently with a fellow Jesuit, who follows the Vatican online coverage of the daily homilies of Pope Francis. He observed that Francis returns frequently to Caravaggio’s painting of the call of Matthew the tax collector. The painting hangs in a church in Rome, and
pictures Matthew to the left in the semidarkness, his face illuminated by a beam of sunlight. He is at table with a normal-looking group of all ages, some already alerted by Jesus sudden presence, others still focused on the counting of coins. To the right, the figure of Jesus, catching Matthew’s eye and beckoning him to follow him, a call expressed visually by the gesture of Jesus’ finger. Another person is pointing to Matthew, as if to show Jesus the person he is looking for. And Matthew is
pointing to himself, as if to say, “Who? Me?” He seems to sense that this is a call to more than a to a change of job description (from tax collector to preacher). He will soon learn that it is a call to a radical change of life (from being owned by Caesar, to companionship with Jesus). Indeed, Pope Francis uses a Latin motto hatched by the Venerable Bede (halfway in time between Matthew’s actual call and Caravaggio’s picture) to describe the call of Matthew (roughly rendered in English
“calling with abundant mercy”) as the motto for his own papacy. And Francis speaks frequently of contemplating Caravaggio’s painting, with himself in Matthew’s place, targeted by Jesus’ finger inviting him to a continuing conversion, to a joyful surrender to a new way of belonging — really a new creation.
- by Fr. Dennis Hamm
The Son of God Became Human
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Part One, Section Two, Chapter Three
Article 8: I Believe in the Holy Spirit
III. GOD'S SPIRIT AND WORD IN THE TIME OF THE PROMISES
Expectation of the Messiah and his Spirit
716 The People of the "poor"87 - those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God's mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah - are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit's hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ's coming. It is this quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these
poor, the Spirit is making ready "a people prepared for the Lord."88
(Footnote references in the Catechism.)
|
|
