By Fr Antony Christy SDB –
October 3, 2021: 27th Sunday in Ordinary time
Genesis 2: 18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10: 2-16
Christian faith is all about relationship – it is a relationship initiated by God with me and a relationship to which God calls me. One of the first question that God seems to have asked humanity was: “where is your brother?” My Christian faith stows me right in the midst of a community. Every aspect of my daily life and not only prepares me for a tangible community life but offers me all the necessary scope towards growing in a life of communion. The family, the neighbourhood, the community of faith… all these are experiences and locus where I learn to live my Christian faith and grow in it. The Word today offers us three keys to truly understand our Christian faith and a growth in the same: the family, the other and the community.
The Family – this is the first possibility of relationship offered to humanity by God, right at the origins of a person. As soon as a child is born into this world, he or she is given with a family – a father, a mother and the others who belong to that family, which becomes the locus where the child shall breathe, live, move and grow! A Christian family therefore has not merely a biological significance as the node of origin of persons, but an anthropological or existential sense which makes the person truly what he or she is. That is, it attaches the very identity of the person as the ground where the seed of humanity within the person sprouts, grows and flourishes. The family therefore has a great responsibility in what a person goes to become. The family is the primary place of education and the parents are the first educators of a child. The seriousness of the vocation to Christian parenthood cannot be overlooked.
The Other – let’s understand this in its entirety… the Other and the other are not dimensions extremal to me, but they are dimensions that complete me. I cannot be what I am without the Other (God) and the other (my brother and sister) who give meaning to my existence. What distinguishes a healthy human person is a free and mature rapport with the Almighty (in whatever terms it could be known and understood) and with the other (my neighbour, brother and sister given to me to love). I am responsible for the salvation of the others, says the second reading. Salvation, which means not only a blessing awaited in the other world, but fullness of life here and now. Wishing the good of the other, is a commitment that comes with the call to be a Christian. As a Christian, I share the humanity with my fellow brothers and sisters and I share the divinity with Christ the Son of God who became human – I cannot forget this profound sense of the vocation that I have as a child of God and a disciple of Christ.
The Community – this is the crux of my Christian calling. The entire explanation about the spousal relationship in the first reading, besides a reflection on the call to matrimony, actually refers to the mystery that Christ and the Church partake in. That is what St. Paul presents to us in the letter to the Ephesians (5:32). This mystery is about the Community of faith which is betrothed to the Saviour, that is promised in covenantal relationship to the Lord. It is this Community which is given the responsibility of nurturing every member, with a special attention to the future generation, the young and the children. The life of the Community has to become an element of education to the young, to the upcoming generation, to the entire community of faith, to be built up in relationship with the Lord and with each other. Communion comes from God and division comes from the evil one – a Christian is one who promotes the sense of community, accepting the other as one’s one brother and sister in God’s own family. It is a reminder of our vocation to be God’s people, people of faith and people united in the Lord, growing together in witness of love and communion.
Christian call is all about our relatedness, that we are related to each other in the Lord and related to the Lord in our genuine relationship with one another. May our Christian Relatedness give true meaning and deep joy to every one of us. Let us never divide what God has united – our hearts bound, as one people, in the love of God.
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.