Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

When I was attending a conference for seminary spiritual directors, one of the speakers offered an interesting insight that seemed to resonate with a lot of the spiritual directors who were present. The presenter said that he has not met many priests or religious who were lazy, but he has encountered many who were afraid. Their procrastination, or hesitancy to act was more accurately attributed to their fear, rather than laziness. Of course, this isn’t limited to priests and religious. For all of us, it’s scary to go out of ourselves, to take risks, to open ourselves up to failure, and it’s certainly more comfortable to keep things the same, where everything is well within our control.

Jesus was probably speaking mostly to farm workers and fishermen, who would be able to analyze the weather with very little evidence to go on, but he pointed out that they seemed unable to read the abundant signs of the times regarding the Messiah. For the crowds, some of them might have been simply unaware or too distracted to notice the signs, but based on the Lord’s critique, it’s clear that many of them lacked good will and a right intention—they were stubborn and closed off.

For those of us who recognize and acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Messiah, we still hesitate in noticing God’s presence and listening to His inspirations. Many of us are afraid to respond to the call of Christ, especially the call to a deeper relationship of prayer because we fear what God might make of us if we give ourselves over entirely to His power. We know a deeper live of prayer will require sacrifices, especially of our time and availability, and we avoid the relationship. We encounter the weakness of our will, like St. Paul did: “The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.”

The signs are there, and God’s grace is available, so what’s holding us back? What would it look like if we really gave ourselves over to Christ, without fear and without hesitation?

Reflection by Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB