Divine Flute Player

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by Orlando Hernandez

In this Wednesday’s Gospel (Lk 7;31-35) Jesus tells the crowds :

“To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sand a dirge, but you did not weep.’ “.

In the previous verses our Lord had been reflecting on the person of John the Baptist. Jesus now speaks with regard to the way so many people rejected John’s stark message of repentance and asceticism (the “dirge”). He is also saddened by the way His message of forgiveness, inclusion, gladness, and salvation is also rejected as perhaps too lenient, too loose, too much like party music.

In our generation, what will satisfy us? My Lord offers me the joy of an eternity in His Glory, and I often find myself looking the other way, at the pleasures and ideas of this world. Why do I do this? Why am I blind and deaf? I suffer frustration and depression when I look at the news and see the sad condition of our planet. My Lord invites me to go into this heart of darkness with Him and do something about it. But nooo, it’s too hard for me. Let me vegetate in front of the TV.

But He returns, inviting again and again until He becomes irresistible. Like the Pied Piper, He arrives with His flute, playing the most delightful melody, a love song, a dance that can make us “rejoice, and leap for joy”. So we follow Him up the mountain. There are crosses waiting at the top. The poverty, the hunger, the mourning, the intolerance of this world are always there waiting for us. He bears them on His body. He carries us. The tune becomes a song of mourning. We’re invited to die with Him.

But resurrection follows, my faith tells me so. Love is stronger than death. The jovial music returns. There is a purpose to life. The Beloved One embraces us into His glorified body. We’re lost in an endless sea of Goodness. “Dissolved and brought to a deep, conscious, felt knowledge of the Divinity”, Paul of the Cross writes. Nothing can be better than that. We are strengthened and inspired by His Grace to love and help our neighbor.

Lord, open my eyes to see the marvelous treasures that You offer to all of us.! Open my ears to hear Your Song of Life.

Orlando Hernandez

2 thoughts on “Divine Flute Player”

  2. cenaclemary12's avatarcenaclemary12

    From a literary view, I prefer the story of Jesus welcoming the children when the apostles were trying to chase them away. “Let the little ones come to me,”
    The Piped Pier led the children away to their destruction as the poem by Robert Browning based on the story says:
    When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
    A wondrous portal opened wide,
    As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
    And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
    And when all were in to the very last,
    The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
    Did I say all? No! One was lame,
    And could not dance the whole of the way;
    And in after years, if you would blame
    His sadness, he was used to say,–
    “It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!

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