A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious
Find today’s readings here.
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? (Matthew 6:27)
Worry is one of my most consistent companions.
It’s not that I enjoy worrying; I don’t think anybody does. But especially amid the dangers and stresses of modern life, worrying seems almost wise. To me, worrying is often about being prepared—for any outcome, for any disappointment, for any catastrophe. Even as I sit down to write a reflection about today’s Gospel reading, which cautions against chronic worrying, I admit that I can’t (or won’t) let go of my worrying habit. Who would I be without it? What might befall me?
In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus puts worry—and the objects of our worry—into perspective. The crux of it is this: You can’t serve God and also serve something else.
He encourages his listeners not to become bogged down in anxieties about, as he lists them, food and drink and bodies and clothing. He anticipates my objection—yes, you need all these things, and God knows you do, Jesus says. But what will worrying about them accomplish?
Poetically, and quite beautifully, Christ points to living things in nature who, like humans, have needs, but who don’t live in a state of worry like we do. For example:
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.
Is the meeting of our needs dependent on our worry? Is a beautiful life something I can make possible by bending it to my will? Jesus is reaching out to me in this reading and telling me no.
But I admit that praying through this reading is still a bit of a tussle between me and God. One line, one question from him, sums it all up:
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
The truth is that I, and I think many of us, worry because a small part of us believes that the answer to this question is yes. We believe that it’s our preparation, our plotting, our overthinking that stops us from being hurt or even meeting a tragic end. We believe that we are in control—that our swerves are responsible for our survival.
Christ asks us today to consider the intersections between faith, trust and surrender in our lives. Can we be present enough to live our lives without trying to control the future? Can we put ourselves in God’s hands enough to breathe easily? Can we edge our obsessions out of the very center of our lives in order to make room for God there?
Praying with this reading, the most challenging and personal question I hear God asking me: Is there a better, holier, more beautiful life waiting for you on the other side of worry?
Now I’m off to try to find out.
