A Reflection for Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion that he may live. (Ez 33:11)
The phrase “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings” is one I have always agreed with quite passively, nodding along and taking it at face value as I have gone about my life. Today’s readings, while not the origins of the phrase, have made me reconsider the saying.
There is a difficult, hopeful vision for the Catholic Church in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He outlines a shape of church leadership that does not bend to the whims of human trickery, “Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow into him who is the head, Christ,” and he does not relent from using the endless analogy of the anatomical church. This demand of our shared body is a tall order. It is a tremendous task that Paul puts in front of us and the Ephesians: to be ever charitable in our endeavors to grow the faith. Paul’s ask, however, is not foreign to the America offices.
It was adopted as the motto in our heraldry in 1959, issued for the press’s 50th anniversary. It hangs in Latin on stained glass and framed covers of past issues on our walls: veritatem fascientes in caritate. It is a gift to be reminded why one comes to work in the morning, why one bothers trying when idleness is an option. Paul, thankfully, calls us from inactivity today as well.
Today’s Alleluia, taken from Ezekiel, contains a variation on this theme of the work of the church: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion that he may live.” It would be too easy for the death of wicked men to be a good thing. It is the painful work of conversion, atonement and reconciliation that brings about joyful life.
It is not the idle option that pleases God for the prophet Ezekiel, nor is it in Jesus’ parable of the barren fig tree. Today’s orchard scene in Luke’s Gospel offers us a final lesson in trying. The tree may bear fruit, but the owner of the orchard can only come to know this if the gardener cultivates and fertilizes it. If not, then it may be cut down. One cannot expect to share in the wonders of communion without actually partaking in the work it takes to know one’s faith. Just as Paul calls for an active living of the truth in love, and as Ezekiel praises the work of conversion, Christ here demands action. There are no idle hands in the work of the kingdom.
In the varied depths of any weekday’s apathy—whether it’s the numbness of being frozen in front of a growing to-do list or the ease of opting to not care about, say, an upcoming general election—I can turn to today’s word, so that I might choose to wake up and act. There is work to be done, though we might forget it: to choose life, to give ourselves to every breath and to always grow towards Christ.
