Be Calm

August 21, 2007

Memorial of Saint Pius X, pope

“My Lord,” Gideon said to him, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are his wondrous deeds of which our fathers told us when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' For now the LORD has abandoned us and has delivered us into the power of Midian.” Judges 6:11

Everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. (Matthew 19:29-30)

Piety

Let us pray: God, when bad things happen, help us to refrain from demanding an answer from you to the question “Why me?” Sometimes, it is hard for us to understand your wondrous deeds and your words. It is harder still for us, in human terms, to pursue the mission you lay out in your life. Help us to avoid being tied to physical possessions. Instead, help us to anchor our life in one person, your son Jesus. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/082107.shtml

Living in the suburbs my entire life – suburbs which today are rapidly filling up with McMansions – makes reading today’s Gospel troubling. Hearing priests and deacons throughout my life attempt to preach about this to wealthy parishioners can almost at times sound funny and apologetic when compared to the simplicity of this reading from Matthew.

Spend some time in a nursing home that is caring for elderly patients…women and men who are losing their minds to Alzheimer’s or dementia yet still maintain the control of their physical bodies causes one to pause. You can see people who have given up everything.

Maybe these people led rich and powerful lives. But without their minds, they have lost touch with everything they used to hold dear. They live in less than one bedroom with just a few changes of clothes. No books. No cars. No computers. No stereos or MP3 players. No Playstation or Nintendo WII. They have given up all. Or had it taken away.

Last weekend in one such home, there was a woman walking around looking for Jesus, looking for church. She was entering the rooms of other patients asking, “Where is the church? I need to find the church?” She may have been stripped of all of her possessions, yet she remembered deep in her consciousness and was still being drawn to worship. She no longer has the capacity to sense or even lament that she has lost everything. But she still wants to worship. How many others spent the day at the horse races, NASCAR, MLB, or the pre-season NFL football game and never darkened the church threshold?

Jesus is teaching us that riches are an obstacle to entering the kingdom that cannot be overcome by human power. If we had lost everything, our daily life might be filled with anxiety. Instead, Jesus wants us to be with him and him alone. Only then will we experience peace.

This woman, walking the halls of a nursing home, may have already passed through the narrow gate to experience peace. She, without knowing it, is evidence to all of us that wealth and material goods are no longer considered a sign of God's favor. Just following Jesus. Just meeting him face-to-face like Gideon.

Recently, a small book created a publishing buss around The Prayer of Jabez.

“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”
1 Chronicles 4:10

I always was amazed that Jabez prayed to God to “enlarge my territory” as second of his four requests. The New Testament Jesus changes everything. Jesus rejects wealth and prosperity with his parable and lessons in Matthew 19 and 20. As the NAB notes explain, “Since wealth, power, and merit generate false security, Jesus rejects them utterly as a claim to enter the kingdom. Achievement of salvation is beyond human capability and depends solely on the goodness of God who offers it as a gift.”

Therefore, all of us who respond to the call of Jesus, at whatever time (first or last), will be the same in respect to inheriting the benefits of the kingdom, which is the gift of God. Whether we are babes in swaddling clothes, adults with families or the elderly who have given up family, wealth and possessions, may we know that the Lord is at our side.

Action

What possessions can you jettison? The White Elephant Sale is fast approaching.