The History of the People of God - 4. The Moments of Fall

WORD 2day: Thursday, First week in Ordinary time

January 11, 2024 - 1 Samuel 3:1-10; Mark 1: 29-39

An essential part of any people's history is their moments of fall and failure, their limitations and defeat; people of God are no exceptions to it. There is truly nothing wrong in a fall, an occasional failure as long as the person (or the community of persons) realises it as such; recognises the causes of it; and finds ways and means of growing out of it. This is the spirituality of the people of God. 

The danger is when a person is fallen and does not realise that he or she is fallen; when a society has so many flaws but does not recognise them as flaws but has grown so callous of it. That danger is more treacherous when it is a community of faith, and the community does it in the name of the Lord! It would be a folly of highest degree if a community does all that it wants and says to itself - we are a people of God and God will always be with us whatever we may do! It is true that the Lord will be with us - not as someone who justifies what we do and supports us in our sinfulness, but as someone who would convict us and correct us towards a more authentic living. This is what we see in the first reading today, an example of a fall and the lesson from it. 

What is the corrective? The Gospel presents us the right attitude, the corrective to the problem presented. It lies in the formula we hear: "if you wish to...". Surrendering our lives and life-choices to the Holy will of God, striving to discern the mind of God and resolving to live according to the promptings of the Lord - that alone can purify us, cleanse us, cure us, heal us, make us whole. 

The Lord is ever ready and willing to redeem us, because of God's love, but it depends on us to recognise our need to be helped, our need to be cured and turn to the Lord saying, "if you wish to, you can cure me!"