Jesus Calls us to Him

by Fr. Eamon Kelly

Unknown to me, as I travelled to my sister’s house, my sister and her son were having a great argument. He, in his nine years of wisdom, was demanding permission to go to his friend’s house. She, in her Motherly care, was trying to explain that he had been at the friend’s house yesterday and that he could not just go there anytime that he choose but that he would have wait to be invited. The argument had gone on all morning with neither side giving way and maybe neither side could give way. Anyway it was towards this battleground that I innocently drove, unaware of the mayhem that was unfolding in the kitchen.

It was into this minefield that I walked. I opened the back door into the kitchen. Both mother and child turned and stared at me. My sister let a broad smile alight across her face in recognition of the unexpected visit but my nephew seized the moment and said directly and sharply, “Who invited him?” “But he is your uncle” my sisters replied. “But who invited him??” retorted my wee nephew before storming out of the kitchen and down the corridor in a huff to his bedroom.

It was just one of those moments when no one wins and you can see how difficult it is for all sides to see the good argument of the other side. Anyway after a cooling off period, my nephew reappeared at dinnertime and the incident was put away, only to be recalled later in life for a bit of slagging and fun!

Yet I often recall my nephew’s words, especially when I am being unforgiving towards myself. When I find the harshness of doubt arise in me, it is words like “who invited him?” that play around in my head. When I see the sin of my life or when I realise that I have been unfair to another or when I find it hard to be generous, I often hear words like “who invited him?” as I sit down to try to pray. In these moments, the temptation is to run from prayer and give in to the feeling of uselessness and to grant my inability to be constantly Christ-like to stop me from holding my true self up before God.

However, it is Jesus who has invited me to His house. It is Jesus who has given me permission to be part of His family. It is Jesus who has allowed me to pray ‘for the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world’. I do not need to defend His invitation. I do not need to justify His invitation. It is good to be thankful for it and to accept it as often as is needed. Indeed the more that I accept the invitation the more I realise that I am nothing without that invitation while at the very same time I realise that the invitation is always there.