AND HE GOT UP AND FOLLOWED HIM

Eph 4,1-7.11-13; Ps 18; Mt 9,9-13
21 SEPTEMBER
A single gesture of Jesus is enough to tip over history, turning it upside down just as the farmer does with the earth. Saint Paul uses the overturning made by the light of Christ Jesus in his life, to read according to pure truth all the great work of God’s mercy. If God had mercy on him, there is no sinner on earth that cannot believe and hope in the love of his Father.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my true child in faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I repeat the request I made of you when I was on my way to Macedonia, that you stay in Ephesus to instruct certain people not to teach false doctrines or to concern themselves with myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the plan of God that is to be received by faith. The aim of this instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, wanting to be teachers of the law, but without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance. We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry. I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life. To the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honour and glory forever and ever. Amen. I entrust this charge to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophetic words once spoken about you. Through them may you fight a good fight by having faith and a good conscience. Some, by rejecting conscience, have made a shipwreck of their faith, among them Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme (1Tm 1,1-20).

Publicans and sinners, seeing what had happened with Matthew, think with the same thought of Paul, which is the thought of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus has called him, a sinner like them, they too he might welcome. But they do not wait for Jesus to pass by and call them. It is they who present themselves to Jesus to let them be called by Him.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

The mission of the disciple of Jesus is not only made of sermons addressed to the people from the height of a pulpit or a modern ambo. Instead, it consists in the concrete manifestation of God’s mercy towards sinners. But not a static mercy that leaves the sinner planted in his sin, but of dynamic mercy, capable of eradicating the sinner from his sin to make him a true disciple of Jesus. Today we are all for static mercy. Dynamic mercy is declared impossible. This means that he who offers mercy also lives in static mercy.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints transform the disciples of Jesus into dynamic mercy.