Part of the Gospel this weekend relates the son of the owner of a vineyard whop, when asked by his father to go and work in the vineyard blatantly says “No”, but….”afterwards thought better of it”…
How often have we found ourselves doing that ? – frequently, I hope. The grace to climb down and realise that I have got something wrong, sometimes, badly wrong, is a great grace to receive from God, and we should welcome it when we become aware of it. I say “aware of it” because sometimes there is still a residual unwillingness to follow God’s will and we can lose the chance to embrace his mercy.
Growth involves change, as St John Henry Newman tells us in His Essay on the development of Christian doctrine: ‘to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often’.
At the moment the Government and Public Health England are asking us, yet again, to change, so it’s not just in our spiritual life that this is called for.
Let’s make an effort this week to be willing to change both in our spiritual and public lives, so that we might seek the perfection that God holds for us in heaven.
God bless,
Fr Peter