There’s More to Life!

Luke 5:27-28

After this he went out, and saw a tax collector, named Levi, sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he left everything, and rose and followed him.

Today’s verse reminds us that the adventure of the gospel can reach right into Dilbert’s cubicle and make even him a hero.  It is commonplace to note that tax collectors were loathed in ancient Judea.  What is not so commonplace is to note that they often loathed their own lives: lives imprisoned in an office sitting and counting coins.  St. Matthew (that is, Levi) is, in a sense, the patron of all those who have dismal jobs, who look back on lost childhood and the dreams of adolescence, who go home on the subway or bus everyday, spend the evening nursing a drink and watching the tube, and who periodically look back on a life spent in quiet desperation.  To such people, Matthew holds out a hand and says, “I dropped it all to follow Jesus.  Come with me and be free yourself!  There’s not a reason in the world you can’t!”  Obviously, this doesn’t mean parents skip town and leave the family scrambling to cover the mortgage.  But it does mean that today—-now—-you can choose to let God make your life be about him and not about money or filing or statistics or the Daily Grind.  Jesus came that we might have life abundantly.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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