Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
“Not so, there must be a king over us.”
In each Eucharist, the divine call comes intimately to us. It is always a call to the blessedness of trusting in God as our Father! Yet we struggle because we do not want a king to rule over us! We want some intermediary between our conscience and God’s call which seeks our allegiance.
Many years ago, Eric Fromm wrote a book called “Escape from Freedom.” In it, he gave his explanation for the rise of the Nazi Germany. People wanted a king; they wanted someone to take from them the burden of freedom. St. John Henry Newman speaks of that self who would be “king and judge; and that the Creator may rather be dealt with and approached through a second party, instead of His being that true and better self, of which self itself should be but an instrument and minister…”
The Biblical commentator Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis explains our desire for escape: “we have mysteriously accepted from any number of sources, or perhaps have also had foisted upon us, images of success, strange identities, psychological burdens, and lifetime goals that are killing us with exhaustion and frustration.”
The true Christian will find himself in these words of St. John Henry Newman: “’Thou, God, seest me.’ He feels that God is too near him to allow of argument, self-defense, excuse, or objection.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections