The Rising Action
Reflections on turning from the Lord, returning, and repentance based on today's readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062726.cfm
Today’s reading shows the Lord making explicit how He views the entire dynamic of the Old Testament. That dynamic can be expressed as the Lord calling an impenitent people to repentance.
He tells us how He is constantly trying to show the people what a great good they have turned away from, precisely so they can receive it again. But the people do not understand.
He is quite literally asking today, “What more could I do to make them understand?”
This question is, of course, mostly rhetorical, as we now know what it is that He is going to do. For a people who continually struggle to understand the invisible God, He will become visible.
It is by His coming in person, the way He lived His life, and the way He died for us that we are given a window into understanding the way of repentance and the urgency of its call.
We see the beauty of one who recognizes this in the Gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” We say these words at every Mass because they are words of profound healing and represent the disposition necessary for one to approach the Lord.
They are not intended to make us obsess over our unworthiness, but rather to praise the Lord, who gives us so much more than we deserve. This is the heart of repentance, and it is why an impenitent heart can never truly know the Lord.
It is also why an obsession with sin does not lead us there either. We must recognize our sin, but not obsess over it. And we must trust in the far greater mercy of the Lord.
We must recognize that we have turned away from God, and continue to turn from Him, in order to return to Him. The turning is not the climax of the story, though—it is only the rising action.