Jesus offers us the supernatural gift of the living water of His forgiveness
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
We celebrate two great Marian feast this week: the Immaculate Conception (observed on Dec. 9 this year) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12).
In conjunction with the two feasts, I’d like to ask two questions: 1) How can we receive Jesus more deeply into our lives? 2) How can we proclaim Jesus more deeply to others?
With respect to receiving Jesus more deeply, I propose that Jesus wants to turn our deserts into gardens. Our deserts are the places where we’ve turned away from God, the source of living water, and turned in on ourselves. We each have our own ways of doing that, but the effects are universal: Some dimension of our life becomes arid, lifeless for ourselves and others.
In contrast to modern culture, Jesus doesn’t declare that our desert already is a garden. Instead, He wants to transform the desert into a garden by watering it with His forgiveness. To receive that water, however, we have to be repentant.
Note carefully: Jesus never declared that purity was a prerequisite for His coming to us and inviting us to follow Him. His incarnation, His ministry and all of salvation history testify that He came to sinners. But He did, and still does, declare that purity is required for us to remain with Him forever. His incarnation, His ministry and salvation history testify to that as well. We don’t have to be pure to keep walking on the path of discipleship, but purity is where the path is going.
I think, if we grasp and hold firmly to both of those points about purity, we can receive Jesus more deeply into our lives.
How do we proclaim Jesus more deeply to others? I think it’s a variation of the same theme. Let me paraphrase this Friday’s Gospel reading: “We gave the invitation to everyone, including those not yet pure, and they said, ‘Look, they compromise with sin by giving the invitation to sinners.’ We invited people to purity in all its fullness, and they said ‘Look, they ask the impossible — no one can really be pure.’ But the wisdom of Church teaching is vindicated by doing both because Jesus — who is wisdom incarnate — did both.”
The impurity of someone’s life should never cause us to withhold Jesus’ invitation. But we also need to be clear about the purity He invites us — all of us — into. I think, if we grasp and hold firmly to both of these points, we can proclaim Jesus more deeply to others.
Ancient Israel wasn’t capable of following God by its own strength, but only by a supernatural gift. Mary wasn’t capable of conceiving the Son of God by her own strength, but only by a supernatural gift. St. Juan Diego wasn’t capable of making roses bloom in winter, or imprinting the image of Our Lady on his tilma by his own strength; all of these came by a supernatural gift.
The same pattern holds for us: We’re not capable of turning our deserts into gardens by our own strength. If we’re open to it, though, Jesus offers us the supernatural gift that makes it possible. And when He turns our deserts into gardens, we can more easily and convincingly tell others that Jesus wants to — and can — do the same for them.
