It’s no easy task to read out loud, much less make an interesting homily out of, the genealogy of Jesus. Yet Father Randy Gonzales managed to do both at today’s pre-dawn Simbang Gabi Mass at my parish.
Father Randy talked about the saints and sinners who were in the lineage, and how each of them were important to God and to us all, for what they did or didn’t do. Even the greatest had flaws, he noted; Jacob cheated his brother out of his birthright, and the philandering David sent his lover’s husband to what he knew would be death.
“God’s humble enough to work with what He has,” Father Randy said. “… He chooses us as individuals to do his work in the world.”
What a message! I suspect we all at times feel incompetent in our relationship with God, with our families and friends, with our work colleagues, and with the larger world community. I sometimes jokingly blame it on my astrological sign, Gemini, that I can be confident and on top of the world one day, and beating myself up for being an idiot and dense the next. It’s not that I suffer from mania or depression; rather, one of my crosses is an insistence on personal perfection.
I know intellectually that I’ll never achieve personal perfection, no matter how hard I try, but that doesn’t stop me from setting the bar crazy high. What I need to remember is that God knows he’s not going to get it from me… and accepts it… and, as Father Randy said, uses what He can. It’s a comforting message that I’ll try to remember.
