What Must I Do

October 11, 2009

Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

Therefore I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, And deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; Because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her, silver is to be accounted mire. Wisdom 7:7-9

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, "You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to (the) poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Mark 10:21-22

Piety

Christ is the Wisdom of God. His life style and his teaching are living and effective. They bring a sharp focus of what is important about life. Christ appeals to the soul and the spirit. Nothing is concealed from him. His word is sharper than any two-edged sword. Christ reads what we intend to do in all of our action. He is not a prisoner of results. Our dreams and what we decide to do about them and our attempts to give our dreams reality are the meaning and the credit of our lives. We cannot fail when we work for the Lord. It is to Christ that we render account for our lives. All that we do is naked and exposed to Christ and he is forever calling us to give ourselves to him.

Study

Study brings us to the Wisdom of God. In Christ’s life we have the fullest revelation of God’s love for us and the mystery of God has in Christ its most profound expression. We have to be like the young man of the gospel that asks Jesus what we must do to inherit eternal life. Christ tells us that if we love him we will keep the commandments. We are able to do that better each day of our lives as we discover the wisdom that the commandments express. They are the most perfect expression of what interpersonal relations must be if we want to be happy. They speak the wisdom of God. The more perfectly we keep the commandments, the more we are drawn to walk more closely with Christ. It is not hard to imagine ourselves in the shoes of the young man who hears Christ tell him to sell what he has and give to the poor what he gains and thus have treasure in heaven. Study brings us to the examination of our lives and the discovery of what blocks us from belonging totally to the Lord. It is much too easy to lose ourselves in the possession of the good things of life. The Purgative Way of Spirituality strips us gradually of what holds us back from being completely the Lord’s.

Action

The road to closeness to the Lord is fraught with good intentions. Actions, however, speak louder than words. We have to put our riches where our mouths are. Fortunately it is possible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The door within the big gate of Jerusalem is called the eye of the needle. A camel can squat down and inch its way through the closed gates if the pilgrim arrives after the gates have been closed for the night. You cannot ride through the gate when it is closed for the night. It is easy to defend the gate since the entrance only allows entrance one at a time. We have to work at despoiling ourselves of our riches and the extras of our lives one at a time. Action must be focused on closeness to Christ. Our love for Christ must show itself in our willingness to be just like him in the way we live our lives. Amid all the splendid things we have in life, it is possible to save ourselves by drawing closer each day to Christ’s way of doing things. “All things are possible for God” if we let the Wisdom of God be ours.