Tuesday, XV Week of Ordinary Time
(Matthew 11)
When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after his long exile in the United States, he warmly greeted everyone he met. Some people were scandalized that he could treat as friends former members of the Communist Party which was responsible for the gulags. But the ever wise author corrected his critics. “The line between good and evil,” he said, “is not drawn between nations or parties, but through every human heart.”
As this anecdote about Solzhenitsyn indicates, no group is so completely good that it is not tainted with bias. Furthermore, no individual is so guiltless that she may think herself without need to reform. In the gospel Jesus condemns self-satisfied people who think of themselves as good enough so that they need not bother changing their ways. Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum are Jewish towns where Jesus has preached repentance as preparation for the Kingdom of God. He has even worked signs in these places demonstrating that indeed the Kingdom is at hand. But the people have not changed their ways. Instead, they likely think keeping a kosher kitchen is enough to assure God’s favor. They may also see their seeming not so as bad as their neighbors as sufficient grounds for receiving God.
We Catholic Christians must not make the same mistakes. We must not fall back on our baptisms or even that we come to daily Mass to resist Jesus’ call to conversion. Yes, grace has put us on our way to God. But there are still obstacles in our way. We must recognize our will to have things our own way, our snubbing our noses as others, and the rest of our failings. Then, we need to ask God’s mercy and accept His grace to change.
