A name appears on your phone, and before you even answer, a whole version of that person has already appeared in your head. You know what they are like. You know what they are going to say. Sometimes the person has barely begun speaking and we have already finished the conversation for them.

We do this more than we realize. Once we have decided who someone is, it becomes difficult for them to become anything else in our eyes.

Jesus sees this happening in the Gospel. John the Baptist lives austerely, and people call him possessed. Jesus eats and drinks with people, and they call him a glutton and a drunkard. It hardly matters what either man does. The verdict has already been reached.

Paul’s words about love sound different when read beside this Gospel. Love “believes all things, hopes all things.” That does not mean being naïve. It means refusing to imprison another human being inside the worst thing we know about them.

Cornelius and Cyprian had to face exactly this question. After persecution, Christians who had denied their faith wanted to return to the Church. Some wanted the door closed permanently. Cornelius and Cyprian defended a path of repentance and reconciliation. A person’s failure, however serious, did not have to become that person’s final name.

We know how difficult this is. Someone disappoints us, betrays us, or simply becomes difficult, and gradually we stop encountering the person and begin encountering our memory of them.

Love asks something harder: Can I leave enough room for another person to surprise me?

Whose story have I stopped allowing God to rewrite?

#gospelechoes #midweekreflection #gospel #stpaulofthecrossretreatcenter