Wednesday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time
“Great crowds were traveling with Jesus ….”
A life of following Jesus is continually a life of “estimation:” That is, we are continually being placed in a question like, ‘What do I think of Jesus Christ?’ ‘What does he mean to me?’ What is this “life” he offers?’ Etc. This questioning is a call to inner watchfulness—an alertness. This aliveness is at variance with a life of being dulled, or lulled, into sleep or boredom or forgetfulness or distraction. In other words, it is a life of estimation: ‘What do I value?’
What is precious for me?
Unfortunately, in a culture glutted with words, we tend to lose the usefulness in the word like “precious.” This is rather tragic because the more we are insolated by words rather than experience them as pricks to alertness, the more we become dull and not alive.
This estimating—counting the worth of our discipleship—is not a compulsive thing. It is not something which is meant to jerk us around, now in this direction and now in that!
Rather it has something of the quality of that progression we hear in St. Paul in our first reading:
For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world as you hold on to the word of life.
St. Paul says, “works in you both to desire and to work:” This is grace coming to fruition. It shines in the willingness to rejoice in the unfathomable gift that God’s grace is. As this recognition matures, so does our readiness to judge what is trivial and what is worthy of our dignity as members of Christ.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections