A WORLD OF WORDS

SATURDAY BEFORE THE FEAST OF THE STO.NIÑO

Heb.4:12-16; Ps.19; Mk.2:13-17

We cannot live without words! This is probably the reason why there is a growing number of Facebook users in the world today. Facebook, like any other social media networks, has given us the venue to express through words what is happening deep inside our minds and hearts. We cannot live without words!

Our readings today speak about two kinds of words: the Word of God and the Word of Man. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that this Word of God is “effective, sharper than any two edged sword, penetrates even between the soul and spirit, and able to discern the thoughts of the heart.”Our Responsorial Psalms adds, “Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.”And the effectiveness of what the letter and psalm proclaim is seen in our Gospel reading today.

Levi, more popularly known as St. Matthew, was sitting at his customs post as he normally did. We can just imagine the grumbling of the people as they paid their taxes and perhaps an occasional slur toward Levi, a traitor, a Jew conniving with the Romans. Levi may have become too accustomed to these; he might have grown numb already. Then all of a sudden, the Word of God tears into his world, “Akoloutheimoi! Follow me!” Two simple words: follow me  - akoloutheimoi, yet they were so sharp and penetrating. The Word of God cut through Levi’s hardened heart and revived his numbed spirit, giving him a new zest for life that the Gospel says he got up and followed Jesus.

Pope Francis is a living example of the power of these words. Pope Francis traces his vocation story to this Gospel episode of the call of Levi, to this encounter between a miserable and despised tax collector and the God of mercy and compassion. God speaks his Word to us not because we are worthy but purely out of his tremendous mercy and compassion.

And this experience of Matthew and of Pope Francis is what he means in his homily yesterday at the Manila Cathedral that we, priests and religious, need to experience daily the “conversion to the newness of the Gospel,” of the Word of God.

The word of man is represented by the words of the scribes and Pharisees in our Gospel, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinner?” Such words express envy, anger, insecurity, and close-mindedness. Sometimes these words can come from us: why him and not me? Or why me, Lord? You know my deepest and darkest sin, yet why have you called me? Yet these moments also become the occasion for Jesus to state very clearly why, why he does eat with tax collectors and sinners: “The healthy do not need a doctor but the sick. I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.” Our first reading also adds, “For it is not as if we had a High Priest who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us; but we have one who has been tempted in every way that we are.”

This is our challenge then. First, to “stay at our customs posts,” that is, wherever God has placed us today. Second, let us allow God to speak his Word to us, to address us in our present realities. Third, let us listen to the Word of God, allowing it to “cut us, to slip through where the soul is divided from spirit or joints from marrow, to our most secret of emotions and thoughts.” In the words of Pope Francis yesterday, “Allow the word of God to shake our complacency, our fear of change, our petty compromises with the ways of this world, our ‘spiritual worldliness.” Let us allow the Word of God to pierce through our hardened hearts so that in the end, like Matthew, who shared his encounter with Jesus through the writing of the Gospel, we too can share our own joyful encounters with the Lord as celibate lovers to everyone. Thus, our presence in the world becomes a present to the world.

For sure tomorrow, Filipinos will be very busy with their Facebook accounts posting words and pictures of either the Sinulog celebration in Cebu, the Youth meeting here in UST, or the Papal Mass at Luneta. However, may we use these momentous events in our country tomorrow as an opportune time to begin anew our commitment to make our human words reflect the Word of God. Amen!

N.B. Photo taken from http://thedeconstruction.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/words1.jpg