Jean Valjean, the principal character in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, was imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. As the story begins, he is released—but breaks parole. Starving, he is befriended by the Bishop. In response, Valjean steals the Bishop’s silver. He is caught with the goods—but the bishop gains his release by saying that he gave him the silver as a gift.
Thus begins an epic novel of the battles between good and evil in people and in culture. Valjean struggles to start a new life, live a new life, from the seed of goodness planted by the Bishop within the soil of his soul compromised by poverty, injustice, and life. In a masterful plot, Hugo replicates Valjean’s struggles with the struggles of others caught in prostitution, revolution, and love.
Paul’s Guidance
Valjean’s interaction with the Bishop comes to mind today as I reflect on today’s readings. In the first reading, St. Paul speaks to the Christians in Corinth as “ministers.” The term minister seems to have meant at its beginnings, “one who provides something needed under the authority of another.” It might refer today to clergy, government officials, or the person who brings communion to the carebound.
So, for the purposes of this reflection, I’m going to use “minister” in a broad sense—we are all ministers when we DO SOMETHING for someone BECAUSE it is an expression of our faith.
Paul lists many struggles we all face when we attempt to minister to others: “afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts.” While I have never been imprisoned or in a riot, nor have I been beaten, as I work within my parish, I have left parish meetings or otherwise struggled with “afflictions, hardships, and constraints.” I have labored, kept prayer vigils, and fasted as part of parish life. As hard as it can be for me at times, I can only imagine how hard it is for priests, religious, and paid parish staff.
Today’s selection begins with “Brothers and sisters, as your fellow workers, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
An Acceptable Time for a Challenge?
What does Paul mean by “acceptable time?” My sources say he refers to the need for us to cooperate with grace. God gives us the “good.” We must receive it and cooperate with it through good dispositions and decisive effort. We receive the grace from Christ, for the purpose of joining in his mission to bring all people into God’s Kingdom. But what do we do with it?
Especially what do we do with it when we are met with “afflictions, hardships, and constraints”—or worse?
That’s when today’s Gospel confronts me head on. Still speaking to his disciples as part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard that it is said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”
It’s a bit romantic and inspirational for me to think that in an act of “offer no resistance to one who is evil” I might change that person’s life for good—like the Bishop did in Les Miserables. I like to believe I could muster up the virtue to do that.
But…what about behaving just as generously to the chair of the committee meeting who leaves my suggestion out of the minutes and out of the project? Or the person who has a different idea to anything I might plan? What about the person who radically disagrees about liturgy, finances, or the Pope’s position on X, Y, or Z?
Do I WANT TO turn the other cheek? Honestly, no.
Does today’s Gospel call me to turn the other cheek? Honestly, yes.
Today Is an Acceptable Time
A talk I heard by our pastor recently reminds me that as Catholics we “have been saved, will be saved, and are being saved.” We are being saved when we accept the grace God gives us and cooperate with it in our troublesome circumstances of parish and family. We are being saved when we respond in a Sermon on the Mount way in difficult parish meetings and ministries. Between our baptism and our facing God in death are years when we must cooperate with the grace God gives us.
The Catholic Catechism refers to St. Paul’s words today in paragraph 1041: “The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them “the acceptable time,…the day of salvation. It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God.” (CCC 1041)
Sandpaper
In this sense, all those who rub us the wrong way, question us, or even deliberately hurt us as we live our faith in parish and family—all those can become God’s sandpaper to smooth off our rough edges.
Today’s readings are readings I need to hear and take to heart. My soul has some rough edges. I don’t have any silver to give away and save a soul. But I have plenty of feelings that “go against the grain” and thus plenty of opportunities to turn the other cheek and let God work on me.
Prayer:
Lord, make me a channel of your peace—especially when I don’t want to be. Give me the grace to respond with Sermon on the Mount practical virtue when the events of today or this week scrub against the grain in my sometimes wooden heart. Soften me, Lord, so I appreciate the rub, the challenge. And then give me more grace to respond as you would—not necessarily supporting or agreeing with the other, but giving respect, generous interpretation, and thoughtful dialogue. Lead me, guide me, Lord.
