My dilemma

Readings

For me, the worst thing about a reading like today's Gospel is that it's easy to apply to someone else or everyone else. In reality, it is directed at me and nobody else.

John the Baptist is utterly correct: God can raise up children of Abraham (i.e., people of faith) from among the stones. The question is, can God transform my heart of stone? Stated simply, yes God can.

More precisely, will God, taking a cue from the prophet Ezekiel (36:26), remove my stony heart and replace it with a living, beating heart of flesh? I don't think he'll do that without me surrendering my heart, handing over the stone, no matter how precious it might be to me.

It's a true dilemma. I can surrender or resist; repent or remain as I am now. It seems to me that for an increasing number of professing Christians, repentance isn't necessary and so not terribly urgent. But that is precisely to project the Baptist's challenge onto others. This is a false move, a way of deflecting it, rejecting it. Do I hear what he says? Am I responding to what I hear?

St. John the Baptist, by Jen Norton

I know the right answer is "surrender." After all, it's an easy enough word to say. It's not like I can't make recourse to two surrendered hearts: Mother Mary's Immaculate Heart and Jesus' Sacred Heart. Isn't surrendering an admission of defeat? Does God really want to beat me at my own game? But, as the Baptist warns: Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. But that is to mix metaphors. Most of the time, axes can't cut through stone. In any case, a cut stone is just two stones.

I'd be lying if I said I am always disposed to surrendering my stony heart to God. Sometimes this stone is very precious to me (think Gollum). But surrender I must.

"There are only two kinds of people in the end," noted C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, "those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'"

One more thing I feel I must do is pray the one-word prayer of the primitive Church. This is invoked only once in Scripture, by Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:22. This is a prayer lost, forgotten, replaced with so many other petitions: Maran atha: "Come, Lord."

You see, Jesus isn't just the reason for the season. He isn't the raisin in the cookie. He is, as our reading from Colossians for the Solemnity of Christ the King a few weeks ago, declared, "preeminent". All things were created by and for him. He is the giver and the gift.