SITTING AT THE CUSTOMS POST

Am 8,4-6.9-12; Ps 118; Mt 9,9-13
6 JULY
Jesus was not sent to a region of Saints to choose among them people to send them to preach the Gospel in the land of pagan and sinful people. He is sent in the midst of a people with unclean lips and heart and it is from this people that he will have to choose the men that tomorrow will continue his mission of salvation and redemption. Levi is not in the temple like Isaiah. He is at the tax desk. He exercises the profession of tax collector on behalf of the pagans. He is a public sinner. It is as if he were exercising the ministry of sin. For everyone he is a man with an impure heart.

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” they cried one to the other. “All the earth is filled with his glory!” At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke. Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!” (Is 6,1-8).

Levi does not see the Lord sitting on a very high throne. But he listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit, that through the Word of Jesus, more than burning coal, enters his heart and in a single moment purifies, renews, regenerates and illuminates it. Isaiah offers himself. Levi is moved, attracted, dragged away from the tax stand by the Holy Spirit and led to Lord Jesus. We can say that at the tax desk the same prodigy occurred that took place in Elisabeth’s heart just as she heard Maria’s greeting.

During those days Mary set out and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Lc 1,39-45).

But the Pharisee understands nothing of the works of the Spirit of the Lord. He speaks from his bad and evil heart, closed in his “holiness” of sin that makes him unable to perceive the things of the Spirit God. The other sinners instead see the prodigies of the Spirit and believe that they can be performed by Jesus even in them and they approach him with great joy. There can also be salvation for them as for Levi.

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.”

Before the encounter with the Holy Spirit occurs, the heart is always of stone. After the Spirit of the Lord is met, it becomes of flesh. In it, the Spirit can write the will of God. Levi leaves the tax desk and follows Jesus, because by now he knows what God has written in his heart. This divine rule applies to every disciple of Jesus. Whoever wants hearts to change must be filled with the Holy Spirit, like Jesus.

Most Pure Virgin, Angels and Saints ensure that our word is filled with the Holy Spirit.