Remember Lot’s Wife: The Danger of Looking Back

2Jn 4-9, Psalm: 118, Lk 17:26-37

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

There is one verse in today’s Gospel that should make us tremble: “Remember the wife of Lot.” Jesus does not explain. He does not elaborate. He simply commands us to remember a woman whose name we do not know, whose words are not recorded, whose life ended in a single, silent glance. She was almost saved. She was almost free. She was almost home. But she looked back.

Saint John, in his second letter, gives us the same warning in different words. “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have worked for, but may receive a full reward.” The danger is not dramatic rebellion. It is subtle drift. It is looking back at the old life, the old ways, the old gods, while our feet are pointed forward.

Jesus describes the days of Noah and the days of Lot. People were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. Normal things. Good things. But they were doing them without God. And when the day came, they were caught unawares. The flood came. Fire fell. And Lot’s wife, who had been warned, who had been led by the hand, looked back. And she became a pillar of salt.

Why did she look back? Perhaps she was thinking of her home, her possessions, her friends left behind. Perhaps she was grieving what she was losing more than trusting what she was being saved for. Her heart was in Sodom, even while her feet were fleeing.

Pope Francis has said, “We can be in the world without being of the world, but we cannot be of the world and of God at the same time. The heart cannot be divided.” Saint John Paul II, reflecting on this passage, wrote, “The Christian life is a constant going forward, a daily conversion, a turning away from the old self and toward the new.” And Saint Augustine, contemplating Lot’s wife, wrote, “She looked back because her heart was not with the Lord. She was saved from the city, but not from herself.”

The second reading tells us to walk in truth and love. “For the sake of the truth that dwells within us and will be with us forever.” Truth is not abstract. It is a Person—Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. To walk in truth is to remain in Him. To look back is to let go of Him.

What is the “Sodom” in your life? What is the old habit, the old relationship, the old pattern of sin that you keep glancing at over your shoulder? Jesus does not ask you to hate your past. He asks you to leave it behind.

Today, let us be like the disciples Jesus describes, the ones who are ready to leave all, to lose their lives for His sake. Let us fix our eyes on Christ, not on what we have left behind. For the one who looks back cannot move forward. But the one who walks in truth and love will have both the Father and the Son, and will stand before the Lord with joy.

Saint John, pray for us. Keep us in the truth. And do not let us look back. Amen. May God bless you all!