Gospel (Mt 11:16-19)

“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Commentary

In this Gospel passage Jesus reproaches those who always found something to criticize in whatever he did. They accused John of “neither eating nor drinking” and Jesus of being a “glutton and a drunkard.” Jesus says that it is the wisdom of his “deeds” that proves the truth of his mission.

Sometimes we too can be like those contemporaries of our Lord. If our heart lacks the deep determination to fulfill God’s will, the lights we receive in prayer and the advice we get from others to help us do what God wants will never be enough.

In contrast, when we truly want God’s will to be fulfilled in our lives, how easily resolutions arise in our prayer to uproot what isn’t going well and that we know offends God. Our eagerness to grow in generosity and love for God is strengthened, with the light needed to give ourselves completely to doing God’s will.