to my sayings incline your ear;
Let them not slip from your sight,
keep them within your heart. (Proverbs 4:20-21 NABRE)
People can change. We struggle with that sometimes, but it is clear that we are not unable to choose differently, to think in new ways, and to act accordingly. We are always free to choose, in every circumstance, good or bad.
Someone who always seems to make destructive choices may still change and begin to follow a new path of righteousness. By the same token, we should guard our hearts in each moment against choices that lead us away from goodness and toward wickedness.
Parents cannot help themselves but to teach their values to their children. Solomon did it many thousands of years ago. I do it here. In fact, one of the most beautiful gifts our children give us (without anyone realizing it most of the time), is the way they compel us parents to guide and protect them. Think about it! In their innocent and unspoken witness, our children allow us to experience something of what God must feel for us who are his own children, his own creation. What wouldn't he do for us? There is nothing he wouldn't do for us.
Grasp onto that. And for those without children, look at the people in your life with whom you are bound by relationship. We form ties that bind us together. We become family in a real sense, with all the gifts and responsibilities implied by such connectedness. Let's hope for one another. Let's believe in one another's ability to change. Let's remember that God is with us as we risk change, as we make difficult or unpopular decisions, and as we live out the life which follows.
Today, I will pray with great confidence for those of us in need of change, that we recognize our chance to change ourselves, even in little ways, in every decision we make throughout this day.
Saint Nicholas Tavelic and Companions, fourteenth-century Franciscan martyrs, pray for us.
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