Jesus was not a hypnotist

We celebrated the Feast of St. Matthew on this past Saturday.  The gospel reading was of course, that wonderful story where Matthew is sitting at the Customs Post and Jesus walks up and says, "Follow me."  I'm always intrigued by the 'call' stories in Holy Scripture.  They seem to take place so quickly.  Jesus looks at you, says a few words to you and boom…the next thing you know you are wandering around the country preaching the coming of the kingdom.  Nowhere is the word 'discernment' mentioned anywhere.  There are no Come and See weekends for these people, no psychological testing, no interviews with a vocation director to see if they are 'fit'…they just go.  

Now I realize that in reality perhaps some of these encounters with Jesus were not actually the first time they ever saw or heard of Jesus.  Our evangelists were making the point that following Jesus is primary to anything else so dropping everything to follow him is a worthy image to portray.

Pope Francis gave a homily on Saturday that talks about the gaze of Jesus in relation to the Call.

When Jesus looked at Matthew, “that gaze overtook him completely, it changed his life,” said the Pope to the congregation at Casa Santa Marta on Sept. 21.

“The gaze of Jesus always makes us worthy, gives us dignity.  It is a generous look.”

He explained that the an encounter with Jesus “gives the courage to follow Him.”

“Jesus’ gaze always lifts us up,” continued Pope Francis. “It is a look that always lifts us up, and never leaves you in your place, never lets us down, never humiliates. It invites you to get up – a look that brings you to grow, to move forward, that encourages you.”

The gaze of Jesus is incredibly powerful, said the Pope, but it is not “magical.”

“Jesus was not a specialist in hypnosis,” he quipped.

Rather, Christ’s gaze is one that “makes you feel that he loves you.”

Jesus does not hypnotize us to get us to answer a call to religious life.  But sometimes we have a hard time believing that his gaze is one of love when he calls us.   We can think that a call means suffering and hardship and something we wouldn't choose to do.  But God does not purposely call us to misery. 

Another image our chaplain used in his homily on Saturday was that of "Christ passing by."  Jesus passes by us even if we are a 'sinner' sitting at a customs post.   Who knows he may be passing by right now...are you going to ignore him or take a chance?