If someone asked if you had an aversion to God you would probably be horrified at the notion. "Of course not" would be your response.
Today the prophet Jeremiah spoke of people who "turned their backs, not their faces, to me." We are all in constant motion. We try to keep our faces turned toward God, but like a ship in the ocean unless we are constantly making corrections we can slow end up turned the wrong direction, and even 180° off course.
In Latin the word to turn toward is conversion. The opposite, the word that means to turn away is aversion. If you are reading this blog you are probably not a person who has turned completely away, but all of us have a tendency to avert our eyes from those parts of gospel that are most uncomfortable for us. For some is it the simplicity of life, and care for the poor. For some it is the sexual morality. For some it is the keeping of Sabbath or some of the sacraments.
Today Jeremiah challenges us to be brutally honest in examining our hearts and acknowledge the parts of the gospel to which we have an aversion. Are there some areas where our neck has become so stiff we can't hardly turn it, from our way to God's way?
Like a stiff neck it may take time to work out the stiffness, and mobilizing a stiff neck can be painful. But it comes down to a simple fact, there are only two ways we can be moving, conversion or aversion. We are never standing still. We are always doing one or the other.
In this third week of Lent may we be constantly in conversion, making the constant corrections needed to keep our face turned toward God.
