Seven Founders of the Order of Servites, Religious

Readings from Saturday

Title

Why Should We be Holy?

Outline

Lent is, of course, a time of reflection

We reflect on our growth in virtue

We reflect on our growth in love

We reflect on our acts of mercy, both corporal and theological

What better time to memorialize the founder of one of the other four original medicant orders in the Catholic Church.

Think of these acts of mercy and virtue

“If you take away from the midst of you the yoke,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

While the “pointing finger” and improper speech” may be either within or without a community, the other acts are acts of mercy

The fact is that one reaps benefits because one is acting like Jesus, acting like God, becoming divinized.

Isaiah may see temporal benefits, but with Jesus we see eternal benefits, those of becoming now what we will be that will last through eternity. That of loving Jesus by acting like Jesus and so growing in love.

The Servites did this on a contemplative and penitential basis.

Think of repentance and its results

The Servites had an honorable profession as did Francis of Assisi’s father, for they were cloth merchants who gave up that profession, first to pray and then to serve the poor.

We see that in our gospel. Levi is collecting taxes, and while many Jews may have abhorred him, there is no indication that he was especially evil other than that he collected customs duties. But he hears a call from Jesus, “Follow me.” So he leaves his profession to follow Jesus, for intimacy with Jesus.

But if you are around Jesus you soon want others to share this, so he throws a banquet in honor of Jesus and invites his friends, the only friends he had: “tax collectors and others.” Now the Pharisees did not get this as an act of love for Jesus and for others. “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Ah, says Jesus, it is because they have a need and know their need: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

The Pharisees had need of Jesus to, but did not know their need, considered themselves righteous, and so are not called. These others knew of their needs and knew they were not righteous, so they are invited, for they are ready to hear the call to repentance.

Jesus knows that Levi’s act is an act of love and that he loves his friends as Jesus also did, so surely he granted them repentance.

Two points, then, to close:

First, all of our corporal and spiritual acts of mercy, whether done in Lent or at other times, are acts of love, love for God by being like God and showing love to others. It is all quite simple, but also quite difficult in that we may do them, not out of love for Jesus but out of conformity or to gain status in our religious community.

Second, we leave all to be with Jesus when we hear his call. We spend time with Jesus. We repent of our past. That is all well and good and that is where some orders may stop, such as the Poor Clares.

But most of us are called to spend time with Jesus but also to let his love in us overflow to others so we reach out evangelistically. It may not be as comfortable to reach out to those who know their need to Jesus and introduce them to the master, letting him speak to their hearts. It may generate some criticism. But normally we must have both sides of the coin, the being with and loving Jesus and the being with and loving the neighbor and bringing them to Jesus. (Contemplative orders, of course, do this through prayer.)

So in our Lenten journey let us remember that Lent is about being with Jesus and the journey inward of repentance and the reaching out to others in acts of love and mercy and ultimately bringing them to Jesus. This is the time to grow in both the inward and outward journey.