Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Each of today’s Scripture readings speaks in a different way to the urgency of the Lord’s call. The prophet Hosea beckons Israel to repentance, saying, It is time to seek the Lord. The Psalmist tells us, Look to the Lord in his strength; seek to serve him constantly. And in the Gospel, Jesus sends out his apostles with the proclamation that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This proclamation is good news for us, since it means that the Lord’s invitation—his call to repentance, to praise, to labor in the vineyard—continues to come to us, regardless of how poorly we may have responded in the past. If we have stumbled, if we have been slow to answer, if we have been hard of heart, God renews his invitation of grace here and now. We can start afresh.
But the proclamation that the Kingdom is at hand is also a challenge and a warning not to grow complacent. Because no matter how well we have responded to God’s call in the past, it is addressed to us anew today, and in a way that will require us to grow, to be drawn beyond ourselves, in love, into a deeper participation in Christ’s paschal mystery.
Today, let us listen for this call of the Lord that resounds in the present moment. And let us ask for the grace to respond wholeheartedly, in hope and fidelity, to his invitation of life and love.