A reflection on the daily readings, for the Memorial of St. Lucy, virgin and martyr, by Father Perry.
Tax collectors and prostitutes — what do they have in common?
Well, according to today’s scriptures, they seem to be lacking that choking pride which prevents some from admitting their faults, noting that they are indeed sinners; and finding lurking within their inner spirits some, maybe even hidden, desires to grow more, to be more.
Perhaps, too, some if not most of their “professional pursuits” have been the result of being monetarily poor and perhaps more seriously, emotionally poor.
Perhaps, they have had to depend upon “survival techniques” to make it through life.
Contrast this to the proud and arrogant who think they know it all, and think they have done everything by themselves, and think that, perhaps, they do not need God in their life.
Maybe God is even a kind of an after-thought.
Or as today’s word puts it: “a tyrannical city that hears no voice, accepts no correction, has not trusted in the Lord.”
Advent, and faith in general, teaches us that we need to leave a little space within us for God.
We need to be spiritually poor and in need and desirous of the Holy One of God to be able to “move in”; and as the word also says, “draw near to us.”
Zephaniah describes those people as “humble and lowly” and expresses a belief that God leaves remnants of peoples like that in our midst that can teach us how to be spiritually poor and needy and ready and wanting of the Lord to enter and bless and reveal and love and lift up and satisfy — deeply — that inner longing and hope that is given to those who are ready to receive it.
“Imagine this!” according to our Lord.
Tax collectors and prostitutes heard John the Baptist and that inner place, perhaps unnurtured on the “day of their hearing,” but amazingly ready to really listen and allow his announcement of the kingdom of God, seize their inner soul then believed what they heard, and slowly but surely began to change their minds and their ways and then believe in him!
The Holy One of God who was leading all, especially the remnant, to discover and experience and delight deeply in God’s love come through Jesus the Lord.
Do we have or lack that inner space? Is our inner space welcoming to the Lord and even longing for his presence?
Is there any place within us that is transformable and open to and even ready for newness?
Is this Advent our Advent, and will we, perhaps, join the ranks of the remnant that God can and will use to touch other people’s lives?
Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and heart to love and be loved by you!
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
