Monday, 33rd week in Ordinary Time
November 19, 2018: Revelations 1:1-4, 2:1-5; Luke 18: 35-43
The Lord loves us whether or not we deserve it. But the Lord is not merely mercy but justice too! Beginning today we listen to the Lord of justice as we begin the week running up to the feast of Christ the King.
Today the Word presents to us a Lord who is demanding and perfect... who feels all God's children are good but some are not good enough! The question to me is, to which category I belong? I should be able to see and to understand if I am good enough or not!
When we begin something new, we always do it with so much of good will and an abundance of spirit ... just imagine the day of your first communion, for some confirmation, for some others the day of their religious consecration or for others the day of their wedding! But in a short while the energy drains, the spirit goes faint and a mere good will becomes drastically insufficient. The reason: we are not attentive enough to note the initial changes that happen. We remain so insensitive to what is happening within us that we are caught unawares at a much crucial time. That is why the prayer today: "Lord grant that we may see again!" (Cf. Lk 18:41).
Staying in touch with the Lord keeps us in touch with ourselves, to constantly check our pride, insensitivities, arrogance, unforgiving attitude, judgmental tendencies, loose talks and compromises against true love: these are the blindnesses that set in gradually but drastically! We become so blind that we do not even realise what sad levels we reach. And it is the Lord, who alone can restore the original spirit within us by enabling us to see... empowering us to realise and restart... making us "see again!"
We are reaching the end of this liturgical year... and it is time now that each of us make it our prayer: Lord, that I may see again... that is a special seeing, a seeing from God's point of view, a seeing with the scale of the just God, seeing with all my brothers and sisters in perspective, seeing from the perspective of God, the fullness of all goodness!