THE WORD OF GOD SAVES US

SAINT LUCY, VIRGIN, MARTYR

Isa 48:17-19; Ps 1:1-4,6; Mt 11:16-19

The Word of God and our Salvation

The salvation God offers to man is always through his word adapted to his conditions and situation.  Before the fall of Adam and Eve, the Lord God made them able to grasp his word and follow the demands of his precepts. God gave them the ability to understand the meaning of his precepts illuminated by the light of his words and the ability to understand everything that came to be through the creative power of the word of God. Thus, God speaks through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah about the opportunity man missed by his disobedience. “If only you had been alert to my commandments, your happiness would have been like a river, your integrity like the wave of the sea. Your children would have been numbered like the sand, your descendants as many as its grains. Never would your name have been cut off or blotted out before me.” God consistently gives his word to man for his flourishing; the form it takes depends on our conditions and situation at the time of our visitation.

Hence, God does not blot out our names in his presence, but our names cease to exist through our inadvertence. When we fail to be present to God as our salvation, we gradually diminish in being. The word of God furnishes his presence, which makes for the well-being of our nature. Leaving the divine presence is like leaving the presence of light and proceeding into darkness for our physical eyes. Our inadvertence to God’s word leaves us ignorant of what is good for our nature. The words of the prophet imply this. “Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I, the Lord, your God, teach you what is good for you, I lead you in the way that you must go.” The original commandment given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden has this implication. They were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for the decision on what is good for human nature is the prerogative of God. He created us in love and for himself; he is our life and light. Eve’s attendance and relaxation with the serpent was her undoing and that of her offspring. “Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinners nor sits in the company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders his laws day and night.” Subsequently, the loving providence of God modifies his word and presence to suit our sinful condition and weakened nature to make it possible for us to live in his presence.

The modification of the presentation of his sacred word or presence to suit our human conditions and situation is also explained by our Lord in the Gospel when he referred to the difference between himself and John the Baptist. “For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He is possessed.’ The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom has been proved right by her actions.” To discern the will of God and his presence with us, we must examine our conscience and purify our motives to know whether we sincerely desire our salvation or passing pleasures. We behave like spoilt children when we let ourselves be motivated only by selfish desires and passing pleasures. The Lord referred to such behaviour as children in the marketplace, pulled here and there by the lure of fanciful things displayed in the market. The life of Saint Lucy bid us contemplate what is of true value and eternal. Though not much is known with certainty about her, we know she was martyred in Syracuse during the persecution of Diocletian in the fourth century. She preferred the company and love of Jesus Christ to worldly fame and glory. Our wounded nature requires that we maintain the steady company of Jesus Christ, who illuminates our whole nature and enables us to share the life of God. He assumed our nature and became like us, that he may afford us his company.  

Let us pray: May the glorious intercession of the Virgin and Martyr Saint Lucy give us new heart, we pray, O Lord, so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday in this present age and so behold things eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.