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Revelation 2:8-11

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• the first and the last, who once died but came to life
• I know your tribulation and poverty, but you are rich
• do not be afraid of anything that you are going to suffer

Applying the Word to My Life:
There was a point in Callistus's life when almost anyone looking at him would have assumed the story was over.

According to the earliest account, written by a rival who disliked him, he had been enslaved. He had been involved in a financial venture that collapsed. Punishment followed, and eventually he was sent to hard labor in the mines of Sardinia. Whatever plans he once had for his life had narrowed to survival.

Then, somehow, the road opened again.

Callistus was freed. He returned to the Christian community. He was trusted with responsibility, then more responsibility. Eventually he was placed in charge of the Christian cemetery along the Appian Way, caring for the resting places of believers who had died in Christ.

And then the former slave, prisoner, and man associated with financial failure became pope.

That's why the words Jesus speaks to the Church in Smyrna feel so fitting: "I know your tribulation and poverty, but you are rich." The world sees one set of facts. Christ sees something deeper.

That difference matters in the interior life too. We carry our own ledgers around inside us. We remember failures, embarrassing moments, sins, things people have said about us, and all the ways we think we've fallen short. If we listen to those voices long enough, they start telling us who we are.

Prayer teaches us to listen for another voice.

The interior life is where we learn to let God tell us who we are.

Callistus seems to have learned that lesson well. As pope, he became known for insisting that Christians who had fallen into serious sin could still be reconciled to the Church through repentance. Some thought he was far too generous. They wanted certain failures to remain permanent marks against a person.

Callistus knew what it felt like to have a life reduced to the worst thing on the page. He refused to do that to others.

Mercy doesn't pretend the past never happened. Sin wounds. Bad decisions have consequences. But none of those things gets the final word over a life God is still working in.

That's true for us too. We can spend years listening to the world's accounting, or our own, and miss what Christ is saying. He looks at poverty and says, "you are rich." He looks at failure and still sees vocation. He looks at repentance and sees a future.

The deeper our life with God becomes, the more His judgment begins to replace the others.

And once we've received that kind of mercy ourselves, it becomes much harder to deny it to someone else.

My Response for Today:
Today I'll ask whose voice is defining me, and choose to listen to God's.

ABOUT ST. CALLISTUS I
Name: St. Callistus I (also Callixtus)
Lived: Date of birth unknown, Rome – died c. 222–223, Rome
Feast Day: October 14
Patron of: Cemetery workers
Title: Pope and Martyr
Read more: New Advent: Pope St. Callistus I