The category that most often describes us is probably that of “impossible to please.” In today's Gospel reading we have an explicit statement of this from Jesus:
“To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’”
It’s difficult to save those who refuse to get involved. It’s as if a drowning person were to refuse to cooperate and reach out to the rescuers who are trying to grab him and pull him to safety.
The laziness, indifference, and lack of passion that we so often nurture in our daily lives causes us to miss the experience of God's grace.
Jesus is a fire that ignites, burns, illuminates and heats our lives, so the first sign of a faith experience is the arousal of passionate enthusiasm. If Christianity doesn’t help people become passionate again about their vocation, about what they do, about the opportunities given them, then that Christianity is so ineffective that it doesn’t even bring salvation.
Many times we blame our lack of involvement in our faith on the way we receive the Gospel, but Jesus seems to refute this scapegoating:
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”
Those who do not want to get involved always have a good excuse to justify their inaction, and criticism for its own sake is proof of that.
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Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
