Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Today’s first reading relates David’s reaction to the death of Saul and Jonathan in battle against the Amalekites. Given that Jonathan was David’s dear friend, we might expect that David would weep for him. Yet David weeps and sings a lament also for Saul, who had persecuted and hunted David and who in many ways could be seen as David’s rival. But such is the power of love: it can enable us to weep and mourn even for our persecutors rather than to seek vengeance upon them. Without love, such behavior would be unthinkable.
It is because of love, too, that Jesus allows himself to be so surrounded by the crowds who seek healing and teaching that it becomes impossible for Jesus and his disciples even to eat. This behavior, and perhaps as well the perceived difference between Jesus now and Jesus before he began his public ministry, is what leads his relatives to say, He is out of his mind.
As followers and members of Christ, we are called to let God’s love so transform us that we, too, might do what we once thought unthinkable, to the point that others say of us, “You are out of your mind!” Today, let us consider this call to radical charity and pray that we might be so taken up in God’s love that we should live out of our own minds, no longer ourselves, but Christ in us (cf. Gal 2:20)!