Peace be with you my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. The readings today present us with two seemingly very different scenes: a rather troubling episode from the book of Genesis, and a lesson from Jesus about fasting and spiritual renewal. But at the heart of both lies a deeper question—how do we understand what is truly pleasing to God? What does God see when we act, when we question, when we presume to judge His ways?
Let us first consider the first reading. It tells the story of how Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, deceived his father Isaac in order to receive the blessing meant for his brother Esau. By any ordinary human standard, what happens here is dishonest. Jacob lies repeatedly. He wears a disguise. He manipulates his father’s blindness. He secures the blessing under false pretenses.
And yet—this deception ends up playing a vital role in the unfolding of salvation history. Jacob, not Esau, becomes the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. It is from Jacob's line, renamed Israel, that the Messiah will come. So how do we reconcile this?
The truth is, Scripture doesn’t hide the flaws of its heroes. It doesn’t sanitize their journeys. Jacob's actions were wrong—he lied to his father. But the story doesn’t praise the deceit; it shows how God, in His mysterious providence, can still work through the brokenness and imperfection of human choices to fulfill His divine plan. God's purposes are not thwarted by our failures; at times, they even unfold through them. This is not a license for dishonesty, but a revelation of God's mercy and sovereignty.
In years past, when candidates to religious vocations showed signs of apprehension to even the idea of marriage, or if they were judged by their superiors to have embraced religious life under the inspiration of some not so altruistic motivations, like an escape from an oppressive household, or the need to feel useful and wanted and significant, they would be sent home as unfit for priestly life. But today, just as Jacob’s deception was turned into something holy by God, so too can a candidate who understands his true, less benevolent motivations for embracing religious life, be led to a fruit-bearing life of consecration to the Lord’s service.
Jacob’s path was not without consequence. His life would be marked by struggle, tension, and wrestling—with men and with God. And yet, through it all, God shaped him. Jacob would become a man of deep faith, not by beginning perfect, but by being drawn by grace through weakness and deceit into transformation.
In the Gospel, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus with a question that sounds reasonable, even pious: Why don’t your disciples fast like we do? But behind the question is a subtle pride, a tone of judgment. Our Lord responds with imagery that reveals the limits of their understanding: You don’t fast at a wedding feast. Why? Because fasting is for times of mourning and absence, but He is the Bridegroom, and as long as He is present, it is a time of joy.
The Pharisees—and even John’s disciples—struggled with that. Like many of us, they thought they already knew how God should act, how holiness should look, and how others should conform. But Jesus reminds us that the ways of God are not bound to our assumptions. His ways are higher than ours – way higher than ours. Let us pray for hearts that are open—open like Jacob’s became, open like the disciples who followed Jesus, and chose to trust, rather than to resist God’s grace, even when feeling completely and utterly unworthy. God will lead us, even in our misery, because he loves us. Amen +
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