By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
28th Sunday in Ordinary time: October 10, 2021
Wisdom 7: 7-11; Hebrew 4: 12-13; Mark 10: 17-30
The Word this Sunday is on the primacy of the Word. The most categorical criterion for a Christian life in this world is the Word, and nothing can define more what a Christian has to be in this life and what awaits him or her in the next.
There is a craze for wealth and pleasure, comfort and ego, in this world and this is what we term, ‘worldliness’, a tendency to to give importance to the conventional standards of the world. This is what St. Paul warns against, when he says, ‘do not conform to the world’ (Rom 12:2). The other pole that is more proper to a follower of Christ, a disciple of Christ, that is a Christian, is the path of Godliness – where God matters the most, God’s ways become the criteria of decision, and God’s people become a point of sensitive concern.
Every person who is active and wishes to live one’s life to the full, will certainly be confronted with this dilemma, a tension between Godliness and worldliness. The Word this Sunday, wishes to reflect on this and offers us the clear cut criterion to go by: the primacy of the Word, the Wisdom of God.
The tendency towards Godliness: There is a natural tendency towards Godliness that every Christian possesses – owe it to the baptismal grace, or the upbringing of the family, or the influence of the faith community or atleast the effect of indoctrination that happens right from the early ages of a person. That tendency is what keeps faith going amidst all crises that exists in the world…but is that enough. The first reading speaks to us of the longing for Wisdom, the yearning for the presence of God, the wish to belong to God and be possessed by God. This is a grace and we cannot squander it. And as a community of faith we have the responsibility to nurture it and nourish it in the upcoming generations.
There is a call in that lovely passage to develop within us an intimate love for God, a soul-stirring yearning for God and a passionate search for what pertains to God in any concrete circumstance that we find ourselves in. For example – finding myself in the pandemic situation, what has been my predominant sensibility: aggressive self-preservation? or fierce rebellion? or insensitive indifference? Can’t we today reflect and judge for ourselves, what has been our tendency? When we do that we can measure pretty well the level of our tendency towards authentic Godliness.
The tension from worldliness: Many a moment, the yearning for Godliness that we have within is confronted with the worldliness that overwhelms us from all around. The society and the so-called world keeps bombarding us with the terms such as. ‘success’, ‘achievement’, ‘wealth’, ‘power’, ‘influence’, ‘trending’, ‘fashion’, ‘advancement’, ‘development’, and so on. What are we to look up to: the God who calls us to sacrifice and self-giving or the world which clamours after self-fulfilment and self-actualisation?
This tension increases even as we tend to encapture the meaning of our life in terms of what we do and what we achieve, rather than what we are and what we are created to be! For the true followers of Christ, this tension reaches its peak, when the Lord calls us ‘to go sell everything. give it to the poor and then come and follow him!’
We try to compromise that statement and say, it has to be interpreted in context and it has to be understood with the circumstances in mind! But the Lord continues to harp on the same values: self-emptying, reaching out, and finding meaning in the Lord and in the Lord’s ways! When we call ourselves Christians, when we say we are followers of Christ, when we say we are living our Christian call here and now… how true is it? The Word is the judge!
The Word, our Judge: The Word in the foundational principle of our Christian life. It is the Word that makes all the difference for the choices we make. It offers us all the wisdom we stand in need of to live a life that is meaningful. The Word is our Judge, practically because the Word gives us the criteria to live by.
When those criteria are met we are affirmed; when they are not, the Word holds us on a tribunal… it can scan through our heart and our mind, isn’t it! The Word is the treasure that gives meaning to our Christian life. Once we grasp the Wisdom that the Word is, we would come to the conviction that it is worth giving our life in the service of the Word. Just as so many saints who have gone before us, saints whom we have known, those who we do not know, and those who have been living may be right next door to us… we need to respect the primacy of the Word, deciding to live at the service of the Word. And at the service of the Word, whatever we give up comes back manifold.
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.