This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
In the first reading, we find the kind of subtle paradox that we may miss at first, and that may make us do a double-take. In the same paragraph: “He is near”; and, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways,” says the Lord.
So which is it? Is He near, or is He traversing ways that are as high above us as the heavens are above the earth?
Theologians call this the mystery of God’s immanence (im-manence, remaining within) and transcendence–the fact that He is within us or, poetically, just a breath away; and yet, his mode of being, His nature, is infinitely exalted above human nature.
In redeeming us, Jesus could have simply restored our nature to its former capability for friendship with God, as we see in Genesis. But He has taken redemption a mind-blowing step further: He allows us to share in this infinitely superior divine nature, just as He shares in our finite human nature. He bridges the divide, and gives us an opportunity to participate in the divine, in a manner not seen even before Adam’s fall. This is what it means when the priest quietly says, when mixing the wine with a drop of water at Mass, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.”
This is what awaits us, if we can–per Jesus’ invitation to the rich young man, and to us as well–detach ourselves from everything created, from all worry, and from all ambition, in the pursuit of holiness. This participation in the divine nature is the pearl of great price of which Jesus speaks, the pearl we attain when God and His Kingdom fully reign in us (cf. Mt. 13:45-46).
But knowing that we are not fully there yet, that we are still traveling on the journey toward this objective (though partially enjoying it already through the grace of God within), we may ask ourselves: In what sense are God’s ways above our ways?
Today’s Gospel passage answers that question clearly for us. God is not only willing to forgive. He is also willing to “compensate” those He forgives, albeit at the eleventh hour, with the same rewards given to those who have persevered faithfully always. Not only that, He goes out tirelessly and seeks out the new laborers. This is crucial. He doesn’t wait for them to come looking for a job. He seeks them out.
These days, the willingness to embrace and fully reward the sinner may not strike us as much as it would have ears of ages past, because often today’s Christian has no sense of the resounding cosmic gravity of sin, of offending Him who created each of us as well as the universe itself. Yet, God is willing to embrace the idle, late-coming sinner and forget his cataclysmic offenses in a matter of a moment, in the blink of an eye, and reward him boundlessly even for those last moments in the vineyard.
Perhaps what more clearly and readily see as something foreign to us, as something far above us, is the tirelessness with which He seeks out the idle sinner, not content to wait for him to discover and react to his own misery.
Because God respects human freedom, though, which becomes a limit He imposes upon Himself, He “needs” us to pray and sacrifice for others in order to bring them the grace He wishes for them. And we do well to trust in the power of this prayer. As Jesus said to St. Faustina: “A prayer for the conversion of sinners never goes unanswered.”
Based on Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel, if we tirelessly pursue the conversion of sinners with our prayer and sacrifice, not content to passively await their awakening, our ways start to look like God’s ways, which are so far above us. And, our hearts and behavior start to reflect the divine nature in which we already participate through grace her on earth.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Imagine you are looking back on your life after death, contemplating its eternal value. Contemplate in your heart a multitude of persons from all nations and walks of life who could have joined you in heaven, with a bit more prayer and offering of your sufferings for them. Ask Jesus to inflame in you the fire that burns in His Sacred Heart for the eternal happiness of souls.
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