By F. Luis Casasus, General Superior of idente missionaries
Commentary on the Sunday Gospel of 3-9-2017, Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Book of Jeremiah 20:7-9; Letter to the Romans 12:1-2; Saint Matthew 16:21-27)
Mark Twain wrote: Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.
Our minds are full of thoughts, our internal voice is often meditating on the things that have gone, the things that are still to come, some of you might even be thinking about what you are reading, but we know how easy it is for our mind to wander…
But the real question is how are we thinking? Are we thinking like man or are we thinking like God?
Jesus said that when we think like men, we stumble. How we think and what we think is important. Wrong thinking trips us up. We need a new way of thinking; we need to think as God thinks. In today’s Gospel reading, we see that although Peter was speaking out of genuine concern and love for Christ, what he said was contrary to the will of God. He was actually working against God, working in league with the devil to prevent Christ from fulfilling His mission. Peter wanted Jesus to take the easy way out to victory, through power and glory. But the way of Jesus is not through power and might but humility and service to the extent of dying on the cross.
So long as we are a slave to this world, we can never find the fullness of life. Those who are slaves to this world seek worldly happiness through pleasure, wealth and status. But such things cannot last and cannot bring real happiness because they are not eternal truths.
As Saint Paul warns us today, we should not conform ourselves to this age but to let ourselves to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. Yes, a constant temptation of man is to model ourselves after the world. But Jesus made it clear that it is through suffering and self-denial that we can conquer the world.
There is a story by Guy de Maupassant titled The Necklace. A young woman named Mathilde wishes she was rich and also wishes she was accepted in higher social circles. However, her husband is an ordinary citizen without the resources to fulfill her dreams.
Finally this woman gets the chance to advance her dreams when her husband gets the two of them invited to an elegant ball. She spends a huge sum of money and buys a beautiful dress. She also borrows a beautiful diamond necklace from a friend, Madame Forestier. The stunning necklace draws many compliments from the aristocratic guests at the ball. However, somehow, the worst possible thing happens. Mathilde loses the beautiful necklace.
What is she to do? It was so expensive. Panic stricken, she and her husband borrow thirty-six thousand francs to buy a new necklace so her friend will not find out what she has done. In order to pay back this vast amount of money, they are forced to go to such extremes as selling their home, dismissing their servants, working two jobs, even moving into a slum. After ten years of intense sacrifice, the debt is finally paid off.
One day, after the debt is paid, Mathilde happens to run into Madame Forestier. Her friend is shocked by how quickly Mathilde has aged. And Mathilde confesses what had happened and what they had been through because of it. Quite shaken, her friend reveals to Mathilde that the diamonds which she had replaced at such great cost was fake and that the necklace she had lost cost less than 500 francs. All those sacrifices had been a tragic mistake.
People slaving for values that turn out only to be illusionary or end in heartaches. People worshipping idols can never bring them real happiness. This is exactly what we do when we focus on what is happening around us rather than on the Word of God. When we allow our attitude about the future to be controlled by our circumstances instead of God’s Word, we exalt our circumstances above God. Putting circumstances above God is nothing short of idolatry.
But not only our thoughts are different from God’s ones. Even our generosity is NOT the generosity of God. Our compassion is NOT God’s compassion. Some examples:
* Sometimes, when we seek to protect or to defend some person, we destroy the image of some other person. We must speak the truth with humility, charity and with firmness. Our desire is to enlighten and heal, not to attack other people or to put them down.
* At other times, we are very kind with some person without realizing that we are showing partiality by ignoring others.
* Essentially it is fear that limits our generosity:
A little girl was dying of a disease which her eight year old brother had recovered from some time before. The doctor said to the boy, Only a transfusion of your blood will save your sister’s life. Are you ready to give her your blood? The boys eyes widened in fear. He hesitated for a while and then finally said, O.k. doctor. I will do it. An hour after the transfusion, the boy asked hesitantly, Doctor, when will I die? It was only then the doctor understood the fear that had seized the child earlier. He had thought that giving his blood was giving his life for his sister.
Then, what are the thoughts of God? Particularly, beyond mere curiosity, I have to wonder what does God thinks of me. We need only look at the teachings of our father Founder and our personal experience to realize that the most Holy Trinity, our true Father, true Brother and true Friend, are thinking of only one thing for me:
To deny myself, to take up my cross (which is very much the same thing), and follow Jesus.
The truth is that happiness is ours only when we love and when we see that we are making a difference in the lives of others. This is our victory together with Christ, to give a testimony. Visible fruits, conversions and our own change will be the work of the Holy Spirit, with our modest cooperation and according to His plan sand His time. Jesus himself left us his example of how to deal with temptations and the conflicts of our passions. It suffices to follow him. He does not compromise his fidelity to the Father and to His Reign, and he remains faithful even to giving his life. It was precisely thus that he came to the fullness of life in the Resurrection.
Ironically, we also have the “ability” of cooperating with the devil (and we often use it!)
What he does when people are tempted is to begin to get their focus stronger and stronger on the one thing that he wants them to do. And so he fills their minds with that thing that they do not realize that they have bracketed out Christ in their life. How is this going to affect me? How is it going to affect the people around me? What’s this going to do for me tomorrow? Is this going to benefit me, or destroy me? How’s this going to affect my future? And so he gets us down to thinking only on the one thing: what do I want at this point? What do I need at this point? How can this gratify me now? This is just an example of our sad encounters with the devil.
Many times we repeat that we need a personal conversion or a personal encounter with God. This was the case of Jeremiah. He fell in love with the Lord: You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced; you have overpowered me: you were the stronger. So falling in love with God and encountering His beauty is a pre-requisite to proclaiming the Gospel of joy.
Typically, in our meditations we overlook today’s last sentence of Jesus: The Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct. Again, maybe we are somehow victims of secularism, the ways of thinking and the lifestyles of the world. We do not tend to think of Heaven, our true and eternal home. We remain in the events of life, which can be trivial, tragic, and even monumental in nature, but the events themselves have little power. Instead, we should keep in mind these words of our father Founder, Fernando Rielo:
I look at the world and I see eternity. I eternalize all the acts in my life. I would like all of them to be eternal, that any single act, even the least of them, would endure in the permanent memory and the life of generations to come (FEB 25, 1973).
Adorn yourselves with the attributes symbolically expressed by the Beatitudes, which are the certificates of your eternity (DEC 5, 1981).
Yes, this life is about the meaning of eternal life. This life only makes sense in the context of heaven. That is for basically all of us, whether we are Christian or not. Eternity has been encrusted, like a precious jewel, into our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
