Tuesday, November 15,
2016
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him and he with me.” (Rev
3:20) (the first reading for Tuesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary
Time)
This promise is being made first
to the people of the city of Laodicea who have grown fat and complacent in
their wealth. An angel tells St. John to write a letter to them to warn them of
impending doom. This is how he accuses them (and perhaps accuses us as well):
You say ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything, and yet
do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’ (Rev
3:17)
We might meditate on this verse
and ask ourselves how we might be
wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Do none of these things apply?
If they don’t, perhaps it will be a good idea to take a closer look. I’m a monk
in an affluent monastery, and many praise us here, but that puts me in great
danger. I must continually reflect on my poverty—that is, on my constant and
immediate help from God to rise above my sinfulness and to do whatever it may
be that He wants me to do. I must continually reflect on my blindness—how I
judge things by appearances far too often, how I cannot see what is beneath
even my most exalted motives. I must see
how I am to be pitied, I must admit that although I wear the monastic habit, I
am not yet clothed with the pure white garments that are the dress of those who
have won the final victory over sin.
Some might bristle at being
accused of such things, but I take great comfort in the words of Revelation
that follow: Those whom I love, I reprove
and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. (Rev 3:19)
And immediately after being
reproved in such a way, the Lord offers us a great promise and blessing, the
one I placed at the beginning of this meditation. He is there, knocking at our
door and calling out to us. Can we hear him? Can we hear his knock, or be able
to listen to his voice above all the other voices that are continually calling
out to us? Notice especially that the Christ does not barge in on us: He waits.
We are the ones who have to open the door. We have to make that choice.
As it says in the book of
Deuteronomy: “Choose life, . . . that you
may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to
him.” (Dt 30:19-20)
God bless you!
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