By Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D.
Over the next five months, we will reflect on the steps needed to meet the challenge Jesus presents us, beginning with a period of discernment.
Jesus wasn’t interested in justifying people’s self-righteousness, but wanted to wake them up to God’s vision for them. As the Gospel writers attest, what Jesus teaches and how He lives is God’s intervention in history. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul stresses how God’s communication with reality goes beyond laws written on stone tablets. The Spirit of God, he reminds the community, writes on “hearts of flesh,” calling us to live out God’s desires in history (2 Cor 3:2-6).
As a community of faith, we have many examples of individuals who suddenly connected their sense of a loving God with the urgency of making that love visible in the world. Most often, this clarity emerged from an everyday encounter. Saints like Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, as well as ordinary people like our grandmothers, experienced moments that awakened and transformed their faith because they cared deeply about something or someone in their midst. Even Our Lady of Guadalupe shows how she was moved to intervene in history by the suffering of the Mexican people.
We also see this in Jesus as He has experiences that clarify His vocation. Like us, Jesus was free and had choices to make. For instance, when Jesus is baptized, it is as a disciple of John, who explicitly links love of God with acts of repentance. The Baptist’s disciples are called to share the necessities of life with the poor and to be honest in all their dealings. After this, Jesus heads out to the desert to face head-on what is lighting a fire in His heart. The temptations Jesus faces in the desert revolve around comfort, wealth, power. He could have chosen these, as many religious leaders of the time had, turning a blind eye to the suffering caused by the Romans while enriching themselves. But Jesus forcefully rejects the glamor presented to Him and goes home to discern what this means. It is there, in the midst of His people, that the depth of who He is comes to the surface.
The young people I teach are often on the precipice of such a moment, when they are facing hard choices and when only an openness to God’s voice within them will set them on the right path. Young people need to feel Jesus’ humanity accompanying them through their own fragility. I often ask them to imagine Jesus sitting in Nazareth asking Himself, “Why am I being called out of quiet anonymity into the difficult life of a prophet?” As He prays with His community in the synagogue, He is asked to read the scroll. Remarkably, He hears the prophet Isaiah speaking directly to Him (Luke 4:16-22). In Isaiah’s haunting words, Jesus finds the answer to His “why” in the suffering that surrounds Him: In the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed. Seeing the truth of their brokenness will motivate Him every day to get up, try again, and continue to discern where He is needed. Jesus knows that God is love, and His answer to “Why should I do this?” comes from the love that burns in Him for the most vulnerable.
In a time when political polarization can make caring for the vulnerable seem partisan, we are called to remember that this call comes from the Gospel. Discernment, like Jesus’ own reflection in the desert and synagogue, is the foundation of all meaningful action. As Jesus continued to discern His calling, so too are we invited to make discernment a continual practice. This first step invites us to pause and notice. Reflect on the suffering, injustice and vulnerability that exist both near and far in today’s world, and pay attention to what begins to burn in your own heart.
Theologian Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D., is a professor at Loyola Marymount University.
