A question posed by our readings today is “Are you open to letting Jesus challenge you or do you only look to him for consolation?” Because this question points to an important aspect of repentance, it is relevant to our observance of Lent.
One risk for those of us who seek to practice our faith daily run is the routinization of our practice. On the one hand, when it comes to practicing spiritual discipline, habitus is necessary. In other words, it is important to observe fixed times for prayer and plan days for fasting, to set aside time for spiritual reading, to practice solitude and silence, to pray the Rosary, do the Examen, or pray the Liturgy of the Hours.
The risk we need to recognize is becoming content and self-satisfied with your spiritual routine, which amounts to something like the feeling that you’ve domesticated God. When practiced well, these disciplines should open you to the movements of the Holy Spirit, not close you off to what the Spirit might be trying to say, and what changes is the Spirit prompting you to make. Change in response to the word of God is the definition of repentance.
In the spiritual life, to say that God is infinite, that is, unbounded, means something quite practical. There is always more to God than any of us can perceive at any moment. As Pope Francis taught:
The word of God… comes as “a surprise, since our God is the God of surprises: he comes and always does new things. He is newness. The Gospel is newness. Revelation is newness”1Hence, you must be careful not to build your spiritual life on the foundation of your preconceptions about God. Of course, we all have preconceptions. But over time, your understanding of God should grow and deepen. To grow in the knowledge of God, which is the end toward which the practice of the spiritual disciplines is the means, leads inevitably to loving God more. Just as inevitably, growing in love of God leads to an increased love of neighbor.
It is clear in each of the Gospels that Jesus was not the Messiah most Jews of his day expected, he did not conform to their preconceptions, just as Elisha was not the miracle worker Naaman expected. Because of his pride, Naaman almost refused the cure he graciously received from God by heeding the prophet’s directions, which seemed demeaning to him.
The people of Nazareth, most of whom would’ve been related to Jesus in some way, rejected God’s anointed and even sought to kill him. According to Luke, after marveling at his words indicating he was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy from the portion of the scroll of Isaiah that he had just read to them in the synagogue, the backlash with which our Gospel reading ends seems to have been prompted by someone then asking, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”2 In other words, “We know this guy. How can he be the Messiah?”
Are you willing to let Jesus, through the power of the Spirit, unsettle you and maybe blow up your expectations? Is your soul still thirsty for God, or do you feel like you’ve drunk your fill?
1 Pope Francis. Daily Meditation for 20 January 2014.↩
2 Luke 4:22.↩
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