Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Often, cradle Catholics, usually women, will come to me and admit that they do not feel that sinful. The sentiment is sincere, and it is not that they do not sin, but rather that they feel somehow their conversion was minimal. Having never overcome some grave sin or falling away, can they experience the heights of God’s love? Can they experience the intimate embrace of the Father as the Prodigal Son received or Levi did being welcomed to table with Jesus and subsequently as an apostle?

Luckily the saints provide us with a guide. There are of course saints like Augustine who lived a worldly youth only to have a dynamic conversion. There are so many others, however, who had never strayed but who achieved the heights of divine unity; Saints Therese of Lisieux, John Vianney, and Elizabeth of Hungary come to mind.

What each of those like Therese and John Vianney did, however, was to not settle for “good enough” holiness. They asked God to reveal their shadow sides to be exposed and expunged. They had to curb their wills and not allow little entitlements. They accused themselves of sins many of us would consider trivial. All of us in a sense are Levi, all of us the Prodigal child. Still, frankly, some of our individual stories are either like Augustine or Elizabeth.

Of course, the Queen of Saints is the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we say was preserved not merely from personal but also original sin, by the prevenient grace of Christ. If Our Lady could be Jesus’ closest disciple and the human most fully conformed to God’s will, then why should we despair? We don’t need to make a hundred bad decisions in order to be loved by God. Instead, we learn to love God more than we believe we are capable by the aid of grace.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB