Do You Think That a Man Can Change? by Jennifer Hartline

Earlier this month I watched one of my favorite Christmas movies. (Hush. It’s not too early. No, it’s not.) I’ve watched this film every year for I don’t know how many years now. It began as a Max Lucado book called The Christmas Cross, and became the movie The Christmas Child.

Near the end, there’s a quiet scene in which the main character, Jack, with a weary and heavy heart, asks a profound little question. “Do you think that a man can change?”

Jack doesn’t even know yet the real identity of the old man to whom he poses the question. But that man replies with his own heavy, remorseful, “I hope so.”

The morning after I watched the movie was a Friday. Fridays in the Divine Office are reliable and grounding. Every Friday we pray Psalm 51, the humbling cry of King David calling on God’s mercy. David is guilty of grave sin. This great king, chosen by God above all other men, from whose lineage would come the Messiah Himself, has done wicked, terrible things. He was a lustful, covetous, duplicitous, murderous thief. ….