The priest Alberto Reyes Pías, parish priest of Esmeralda, Camagüey, and one of the most followed religious voices in Cuba, published a new spiritual meditation on his Facebook profile this Sunday in honor of the XXVI Sunday in Ordinary Time, using the parable of the two sons from the Gospel of Matthew (21:28-32) as a starting point.
Under the guiding thread of that parable—in which the son who first said "no" to his father but later repented and went to work in the vineyard ended up doing his will—Reyes developed a reflection on the ways in which human beings harm themselves by labeling, giving up, or indefinitely postponing the change they know is necessary.
"Just as there are many ways to harm others, there are also many ways to harm ourselves, to do damage, to immobilize the best of ourselves," the priest wrote at the beginning of his text.
Father Reyes identified three major forms of that spiritual self-aggression.
The first is to label oneself as irredeemable: "Without realizing it, we self-harm by telling ourselves that 'this is who I am,' 'I can't change,' 'it's not going to work,' 'it's not worth trying,' 'I don’t have the strength for that.'"
The second is the denial of one's own need for change: "And we also self-harm when, perhaps to silence the voice of our conscience, we try to convince ourselves that 'I have nothing to change,' 'I'm fine the way I am'."
The third, she noted, is related to the fear of breaking with an already established image in front of others: the fear that a shift in one’s own life might "surprise" or "disappoint" those who have always known us in a certain way.
To illustrate that last point, the priest referenced specific biblical figures: “Do we really think it was easy for Mary Magdalene and Matthew to break away from the lives they led and follow the Lord?” he asked, recalling that both continued to be viewed by the society of their time as the prostitute and the tax collector, even after following Jesus.
Reyes also addressed procrastination as a form of self-harm: the promise of taking "the first step" that is indefinitely postponed, while nurturing "a tomorrow that never comes because we never do anything to make it arrive."
In the face of all these forms of paralysis, the priest emphasized that the divine invitation remains open, but without coercion: "God will always ask us to go into His vineyard, to step out of mediocrity, to bring out the best in ourselves, but He will never violate our freedom."
"And to be true to the yes, and to change the no we gave, the best thing is not to wait until tomorrow, because every journey begins when we take the first step," concluded Reyes in his reflection this Sunday.
This delivery is part of the weekly column "I've Been Thinking," which Reyes started in 2020 and has already surpassed 176 published entries on Facebook. The priest has maintained a busy public activity in September: he reflected on forgiveness, called for hope, and described the Church as the "uncomfortable neighbor" of the Cuban regime.
Father Reyes has paid a price for his critical voice: in January, State Security summoned him and issued a warning, and in July, the authorities prevented him from traveling to Miami. Despite these pressures, he has not stopped his weekly publications or toned down his message.
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