SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL, RELIGIOUS (OPTIONAL MEMORIAL)

Then I passed by and saw you. 

The images Ezekiel uses in today’s first reading are pretty shocking. Jerusalem like an abandoned baby lying in a pool of blood at the side of the road? The holy city acting like a harlot with any passerby? You don’t have to be a preteen kid to think, “Gross!”

But God is not put off by the “grossness” he describes in today’s first reading. We can be sure of that based on how he responded to his people. He saw their desolation and promised to bring life to them; he saw their idolatry and promised to gather them back to himself.

That’s how the Lord sees us too. He knows all the ways we feel rejected or lonely like that abandoned baby. He also knows each time we have turned from him to things that deceive us and leave us empty like the harlot. And he is ready, as he was with Israel, to “spread the corner of [his] cloak” over us (Ezekiel 16:8). That’s another way of saying that he is proposing to “marry” us! He is ready to renew his “everlasting covenant” with us, to forgive us and take us back every time we return to him (16:60).

God can see beyond our sin better than we can ourselves. Our failures and neediness don’t surprise him; they call forth his compassion and mercy. We’re the ones who rarely want to see and admit to the ways we’re not all that we know we can be. We’re the ones who don’t want to confess those times when we don’t live up to our external façade of goodness—whatever our secret sin may be. But as we see ourselves the way God sees us, we can have more confidence in the mercy he’s ready to lavish on us.

So don’t be afraid to take an honest look at yourself. Don’t be afraid to see some ugliness, or some “grossness,” there. Because God isn’t put off by any of that. He is always ready to come alongside you, heal you, and restore you. Let him spread the cloak of his mercy over you today.

“Lord God, help me know that I am seen and loved by you. Let that knowledge lead me back to your loving embrace.”

Ezekiel 16:1-15,60, 63
(Psalm) Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 19:3-12