Receiving God's Perspective

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Here in cold Philadelphia, the hope of SPRING is in the air. Pitchers and Catchers report in less than a month, and Spring Training will soon begin! Just as we can find hope in baseball and we continue to find hope in the priesthood as the Year of the Priest marches onward, and what a beautiful year it has been as we have reflected on the simple yet powerful life of St. John Vianney, patron saint of all priests!

Today's readings offer a similar hope for vocations as we hear of the Call of Jeremiah, the Call of St. Paul to Love and the profession of Jesus Himself, as the fulfillment of all that has been. Great hope indeed, which carries with it, a few powerful lessons.

Lesson #1) Get God's perspective. Automatically in life we have our own perspective. This is natural, how we see things and our perspective can be quite good, accurate and truthful. But our perspective is always finite, always limited. Whether we are sitting in the front row behind home-plate or up in the nosebleed seats, our perspective is never the full or complete. And we are reminded of that today, in the Call of Jeremiah.

We hear of Jeremiah's call in the Old Testament, but notice well that we do not hear from Jeremiah, it's all about the Lord and his plan, his view, his thoughts of Jeremiah. Isn't that interesting?? Isn't that wonderful?? To hear how God sees and thinks of Jeremiah!!! Well the Lord sees and thinks about us as well. And what a gift it is to hear that from the Lord. To get his perspective on our lives, on our call, on our families and situations, etc. Very Interesting. Good News.

We hear of God's perspective also in the Gospel today, as Jesus claims to be the fulfillment of all that has been. And the people are excited as they hear from the Lord, but almost immediately, they fall back onto their own perspective and by the end of the Gospel, they are ready to kill Jesus. They become full of self doubt, full of their limited perspective.

Of course, the same thing can happen to us. We can fall back on our own way of thinking and really quite quickly we can lose hope. Our remedy is not just accepting God's perspective but accepting the Lord himself, who as St. Paul reminds us today, is LOVE. Love is the person of Jesus, and is both the source and the foundation of our vocation. To trust in the Love of God for us, to embrace his perspective and to receive his love, as Jeremiah did, as our Lord did. To trust in God's love for us, this is both our vocation and our salvation. Such Good News!

The challenge is to receive his perspective, his love and then to mature in it as St. Paul did. He who used to think like a child, speak like a child, act like a child, grew mature in love. And so too must we.

So today, let us ask the Lord to give us the grace to receive his perspective on our lives, let's ask the Lord what he sees and thinks, and let us mature in that vision, in that way of life, in the way of love. In this way, we will discover our vocation.