that Guy

Jeremiah 7:23-28; Ps 95 If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts; Luke 11:14-23

Today is the feast of St. Guy of Pomposa.
No he is not the one pictured above from the food network. Same name but different Guy, you get it....

Today is my first encounter with St. Guy. He lived during the 11th century in Italy. From early on he was moved to give away everything and embrace the life of a hermit for three years before entering the abbey at Pomposa.

His wisdom and holiness became the talk of the town and people from all over flocked. That Guy was Good and Holy.

I love that Guy. What a Guy! Pun intended.

Of course in Italian his name is probably Guido, which means leader. Yet, with a name like Guido you would think he belonged to the Mafia. In some sense, he belongs to God's Mafia, also known as the Church Triumphant or otherwise the Communion of Saints. St. Guy pray for us.

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The words of Jeremiah strike to the heart today, "They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me...They have not obeyed me nor paid heed; they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers...This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God, or take correction. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech."

Wow! SOunds the people of Jeremiah's time were in need of a holy Chiropractor to un-stiffen their necks, to un-harden their hearts, to loosen their joints so that they may once again seek to Lord.

The phrase that takes the ticket for our day and age is, "this is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the lord, its God, or take correction."

Isn't that true for all of us. We love to think we are right, all the time. We love to think that others are wrong. We love to presume that we could never be wrong. But we are wrong.

We can be wrong in our ways, in our thinking, in our acting. It is exactly this reality that makes the presence of God so essential for healthy living. We live in age that says that everything is dependent upon my personal opinion or whim. We have created a world view that seeks to eliminated the objective truth God seeks to reveal in Christ through his Church.

Our necks are stiffen and our hearts are harden when it comes to admitting that perhaps we can be wrong and that truth is not equal with our personal opinions.

It is true we must have a personal relationship with God, with Christ. But we do so because Jesus is a person, Our relationship must be mediated by his truth, his presence, his teachings not rooted or based in what I might think is good for me.

This is the error we face.

Like in the gospel, we must be willingly to allow Jesus, the one who waves the finger of God, to remove our armor, the wills we have built. We must let his truth penetrate in order to guide.

We must be willing to be corrected often.

Otherwise, we will be too hard.