Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
When I was a young monk, I would sometimes judge harshly some of the monks who were my senior. They seemed not to try as hard with prayer and discipline as I expected. Why did they come to the monastery? Such thoughts could not only make me disrespectful to certain individuals, but they also make me feel as if certain laxness in my own living of the monastic life were justified.
As I got older and developed the self-awareness to find myself at times not meeting the measure to which I measured, I had a new insight. It was this: What if those whom I considered wayward were actually fulfilling God’s will in proportion to how He had made that man? Perhaps this was in fact that life in which he would achieve holiness. And, if I consider myself one of the strong monks, am I really competing for greater spiritual gifts? I ought to be slow to judge.
Jesus shocks His audience to say that merely being one of the Chosen People does not equate to salvation. Many who experienced miracles in Galilee and Judah did not ultimately become His disciples. Throughout Salvation History it was surprisingly those outside of Israel who most responded to God’s word. Jesus says if He had lived in the days of Abraham, the notorious city of Sodom, destroyed by fire from heaven for its grave sin, would have endured to the present to shame His contemporizes. We must be self-critical, compassionate to others, and ready to be surprised by God.
Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections