May 26, 2010
Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a (pure) heart. You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God, for: "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever." 1 Peter 1:22-25a
[W]hoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:43-43
Piety
An old Southern preacher’s technique for prayer goes like this:
I reads myself full,
I thinks myself clear,
I prays myself hot and
I lets myself go.
Study
Every Cursillo Weekend has the same set order of talks…and the first talk delivered by a laywoman or man on a weekend is the Ideal talk. This helps launch the weekend with the participants and team members reflecting upon our Ideal by pondering the question, “Where do we put our time, talent and treasure?” The answer, of course, reveals our ideal.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are still thinking in human terms by seeking power and influence. They did not clear their mind and let themselves go. They still were clinging to their old (selfish) ways of thinking. They reveal this desire for such earthly “ideals” through the request to sit at the right and left hand sides of Jesus in heaven. However, Jesus long ago rejected symbols of earthly power when he was tempted in the desert. He rejects this once again in today’s reading and gives it final rejection when taunted on the cross to have the angels of heaven swoop down to save him.
These human “ideals” are those which spring from perishable seed which Peter rejects in the first reading. Instead, he tells his audience to put their trust in the living and abiding word of God. Through Jesus, the embodiment of this living and loving God, we are urged to put our faith and hope in only God.
Beloved, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 1 Peter 1:18-21
When we make Jesus our Ideal, then we have a corresponding duty to love each other (what Peter calls “sincere mutual love”). Jesus embraces such an Ideal and asks us to do the same. Greatness in the Kingdom of heaven, he teaches, does not derive from where you sit but from whom you serve. [W]hoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Action
Embracing this Gospel of Love and Life brings us to a new birth, the birth Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus and the rebirth in the Spirit which we celebrated last Sunday in the Solemnity of Pentecost. New birth means we have to reject old ways and "lets myself go."
