The Tax Collector, Matthew

"He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mt 9:12-13) 

When the leaders of the Jewish community challenged Jesus about eating with tax collectors, his answer was clear and straightforward. While acknowledging that tax collectors were sick, he reminded his listeners that sick people need help. Implied, of course, is that if we deny our own sinfulness we are like the fellow who sees the splinter in everyone else's eye but ignores the beam in his own. If the Pharisees did not want to admit their own faults, they would have no need of God's help. Our first spiritual task is always to acknowledge our own faults, ask for God's mercy and accept it with joy when it comes. 

In biblical times, tax collectors were hated. Not only were most of them Jews who worked for the Roman occupiers, they often charged more than necessary if they thought they could get away with it. More often than not, therefore, they would prey on the poor and the illiterate who were unable to calculate their own taxes. Men who took advantage of the poor were despised by Jesus, but if they showed a willingness to let go of their evil ways, Jesus, the merciful physician, would heal them.

St Matthew, whose feast we celebrate today, was a tax collector, but Jesus saw something in him, even as he sat at his tax collector's table, that made Jesus choose him as an apostle. St Bede the Venerable, a doctor of the church who wrote in the 8th century, suggests that Jesus saw something in Matthew that others missed because he looked at him with merciful eyes. The same can be true for us as long as we don't hide. Because our pride often gets in the way of admitting our wrongs, we choose not to be transparent and humble before God and so cheat ourselves of God's mercy. 

Today, imagine yourself sitting quietly at your own "tax collectors table," and pray for the grace not to be so concerned with your own security that you miss the Lord's invitation to let go and follow him.

St. Monica

“We were alone, conferring very intimately. Forgetting what lay in the past, and stretching out to what was ahead.” Confessions (Book 9, Chapter 10, vs. 23)

St Augustine’s Confessions always read to me like they were written last week or last year. Somehow his style and insight is always new, fresh and lively.  The passage we read today in the Office of Readings is both consoling and challenging.  Alone with his mother Monica, who knew she was near death; both Augustine and Monica exhibit a powerful Christian attitude. They want to put the past aside in order to focus on the future and its possibilities.  

And there was much in the past about which Monica and Augustine had to let go. Though raised as a Christian, Augustine got caught up with the Manicheans, a dualistic sect whose emphasis on wisdom rather than authority as a path to truth attracted him. At the same time, and by his own account, because he was so determined to impress his friends with his sexual exploits, Augustine did not exhibit much wisdom. He lived with a woman for thirteen years, who sadly is never named, and fathered a son with her.  

It was the thirteen years of her son's turning away from the practice of faith and his hedonistic lifestyle that gave Monica such heartache and caused her to pray so desperately for him. While it is to Augustine’s credit that he acknowledges the power of his mother’s prayers, it is Monica herself that we want to celebrate today.  Monica’s compassion and yearning for God do not allow her to blame her son, to berate him for his infidelity to the church, or to attack him for the hurt he caused her. Rather, she forgives and lets go of the past in order that both of them can go forward, she praising God in heaven, Augustine to fame as a bishop and renowned preacher.

What a witness Monica is for us today.  If there is anyone who, as our twelve step friends remind us, is "living in your head rent free," let go and pray for the strength to move forward with your own life.  Jesus refused to focus on his abandonment by his disciples, and begs his father with his last breath to forgive those who have tortured and killed him.  Monica, as Augustine so beautifully acknowledges in his Confessions, does the same thing.  She speaks intimately with her son, not about the past, but about what was ahead.  We would do well to follow her example.

Forgiveness -- Feast of St Clare

Although the Franciscan lectionary offers different readings for the feast of St Clare, I want to comment on the readings most of you will encounter either at mass or in your personal study.

Today, we remember Joshua and his Jewish sisters and brothers as they enter the promised land.  Once again God stops the flow of water, this time in the Jordan river, so that the community of believers can cross safely not only into a new land, but a new life.  Having wandered for forty years, they are finally "home". The joy they shared must have been overwhelming.

But I wonder how the friends of Moses felt? Were they angry, confused, hurt?  After all, it was Moses who led them out of Egypt, but he would die before entering the promised land.  Somehow it all seems unfair. In Numbers 20, Moses is upset with God. He and his people, having wandered in the desert for forty years,  are thirsty again. God hears Moses' cry and tells him to speak to the rock when he and the people are thirsty, but Moses strikes the rock twice.  Is Moses being punished for striking the rock rather than speaking to it as God told him?  Or is his fault deeper than this? Prophets like Moses are charged to speak and do exactly what God commands. No more and no less.  Moses fails God and his people by acting out of his anger and dismay.  Though Moses' punishment seems harsh, the text can be the occasion for a good question or two.

Do we lash out at one another or speak behind others backs when we are hurt or confused? Or do we pray for the grace to seek God's path for us and a just solution through open and honest conversation?  Can we share our feelings and opinions without blaming others? Are we committed to ask God for clear direction in life and then to act upon that guidance? 
 
Perhaps today we might ask for the grace to let go of some hurt, some resentment we might be carrying against a friend, a family member or even an enemy, especially if it is getting in the way of listening to God. Offering others forgiveness frees them and us.