The book of Wisdom says that wisdom reflecting on itself, one way to translate it, renews all things. Producing saints and the prophets. So when Jesus walks through an area you can be sure that there’s going to be some action between God and man. Of course it’s a great mystery that the Lord selected Matthew at his tax collector’s post. The Lord addresses us right where we are. Right in our life. And Matthew is a tax collector, so he goes to work and goes at his work everyday, probably fully aware of the rejections of the people and his status and social status and all the problems. But doesn’t stop him from getting his cut on anything that passes through his station. It’s interesting that we are the tax collectors also. We tend to live in our little world and get our taxes on things that go through our day. We get our cuts. But Jesus comes and He encounters him. He addresses us right where we are and the power of this is revealed in Matthew himself. Matthew writes his gospel and he’s telling us something. He’s witnessing. He knows the Matthew before and after. He knows the Matthew who was the tax collector and the Matthew who is the evangelist. And what he’s really saying is that the most significant thing I can tell you about the gospel is that Jesus came into my life. And He changed me. And you know this is one of the incidences where after the change Matthew threw a party. So it shows us a rather powerful truth that the word of God encounters us to transform us. Now we have prayed asking the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us during this retreat and the Lord enabled us to have Fr. La Verdiere with us who is rather a good servant of the word of God. So we must allow the Lord to encounter us. Right where we are so that he can transform our lives. So that like Matthew we may be very happy about the most significant fact about our life. That the Lord is in it.

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