A DUBIOUS CHARACTER

PRAYER MOMENT  

Saturday 18 January 2014

 A DUBIOUS CHARACTER

Pause. Be present before the Lord. Imagine the place and the people: a house for collecting taxes.

Reading. He saw Levi sitting by the customs house and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. (Mark 2:13-17)  

Reflection. We are amazed by the abruptness of Matthew’s call and the way he gets up immediately and follows Jesus. Pope Francis made the scene his motto and applied it to himself: “He had compassion (on Matthew) and chose him.” Francis sees himself as receiving the great mercy of God in his own call to become a priest. In the readings for today and tomorrow we see how God chooses what is weak and makes them strong. Paul wrote about this in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12. God can work with people who either are physically, intellectually or even morally weak, or those who make themselves weak by their striving to live humbly.

 

Prayer. Lord, we know that you worked through the “weak” uneducated twelve you chose in Galilee. Teach us to see our own weaknesses, not as obstacles but as ways in which you can work through us. Amen.