8th. SUNDAY (A)
(Isaiah
49:14-15; 1st. Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34)
No one can serve two masters. He will
either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. Do not
worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day
is its own evil. Seek first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Today’s Gospel reading is of supreme importance for our personal
well-being, for the most frequently encountered, truly great, obstacle to our
living more fully human and Christian lives is distraction, deliberately
cultivated and eagerly sought for in our media- sensitive modern society:
leading directly to superficiality and derivatively to ‘cares of the world’ --
worrying over what is past, self-solicitude for the present, and anxiety about
what the future might hold – all of which, together, make effective
self-commitment to God and His purposes well-nigh impossible, as can be found
in the lives of so many nominal Catholics and Christians today.
Our modern world, becoming ever more at variance with the Lord,
boasts about its ability to provide endless distractions (literally at the tip
of one’s finger!) whilst denying, indeed mocking, the very suggestion that
there is any institutionally-accepted cause for the sickness and pain of
superficiality, indecisiveness, and anxiety in the lives of so many: what is so
popular and generates so much money cannot be wrong! At least, it must be tolerated! Jesus, on the contrary, was most clear and
decisive in His teaching:
Your heavenly Father knows (all your
needs); seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
things will be given you besides.
Those words, ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness’
require, however, a degree of commitment and selflessness that life in modern
society -- where distractions generate both abundant money and immediate
popularity – ‘institutionally’ opposes.
Today, young children, indeed even infants, are – through the
media which delights to detail, dramatize, and magnify -- made aware of and
excited by what is going on around them long before they are able to
recognize, and rightly appreciate, what is going on within themselves.
How much children need to be guided by their mothers – uniquely
and naturally endowed and also spiritually empowered by God, to guide their
child’s earliest and most tentative response to its experience of human
life! A mother – uniquely – can lead
her child to a shared appreciation of the deep and calming influence of
what is both ordinary and lovable in the world around; as well as – perhaps
with the added help here of a rather special father -- to a humble and grateful
experience of admiration and awe before the exuberance of what is wonderful in
nature and her seasons!
Again, how much children need a mother who knows herself
and is willing and able to open up her heart and mind in order to introduce
them – early in life! -- into an awareness of the sublime yet fragile glory of
human relationships which form the fabric of daily human living and offer what
is life’s greatest experience of natural fulfilment!
Finally, how many children are blessed to find themselves living
in and learning with a family where a truly Catholic appreciation of Mother
Church and love for Jesus’ Person and teaching is a shared light and
joy, guide and support, in all difficulties and trials; evoking in return
gratitude and love, loyalty and self-sacrifice?
We find, alas, so many young people are wrapped up, enmeshed and
embroiled, in internet activities, secretly or even publicly, acerbic and
disturbing; or else fixated on the television which -- frequently and
unashamedly -- stirs up, with seductive and violent emphasis, what most young
people cannot deal with aright because they have not become able, perhaps never
had the opportunity or the necessary guidance, to gradually discover and learn
what it is to be in tune, and at home, with their own personal self and
individual make-up. So many are
ill-at-ease with themselves, and need endless ‘things to do’, to occupy their
thoughts and temporarily distract their imagination, lest the ever-threatening
background danger of self-preoccupation with its accompanying kaleidoscope of
vague fears, raises its head against them.
As a result they are strongly tempted to taste and enjoy some of the many passing satisfactions,
irresponsible pleasures, and fleeting consolations, being touted and displayed in
a continuous stream on the screen before them or in the late night,
back-street, or foolishly juvenile society around them; all of which bring
nothing more than a multiplicity of shallow satisfactions and passing moments
of pseudo-exaltation, before ebbing away and leaving behind, as the wages of
sin and worldly inheritance, a numbing sense of frustration, emptiness, and
disenchantment.
Today Jesus seeks to protect young people from such
situations. Life is not meant to be
lived in a warren with dark corridors leading hither and thither into ever
deeper recesses of darkness and threat.
He speaks to us as Lord and Master with words that are both sure and
true:
No man can serve two masters; he will
either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Jesus lived and died with the words of Israel’s psalms in His
heart and on His lips, and often in the Gospels He seeks to pass on to us some
of the blessings He Himself had gained from living those words to the
full. Today’s is one such psalm:
Only in God be at rest, my soul, for from
Him comes my hope. He only is my rock
and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall
not be disturbed.
Notice those final words: ‘I shall not be disturbed’; they
indicate a deliberately willed purpose, not a hardly-noticed automatic or
merely hoped-for result. If we look at
Jesus we can see how He Himself followed the psalmist’s lead, and we may,
perhaps, even glimpse thereby something of His Personal relationship with His
Father in Heaven:
Look at the birds in the sky; they do not
sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds
them.
He must have often seen and thought upon what He saw when, alone,
He watched and heard the birds fluttering above and around Him; and as He observed
them His thoughts would instinctively
turn to His Father, their habitual resting place … ‘they do not sow but My
heavenly Father feeds them’.
Learn from the wild flowers. They do not work or spin. But not even Solomon in all his splendour was
clothed … as God has clothed them, the grass of the field.
Again, He must frequently have admired the simple beauty of
Israel’s flowers, and always His thoughts would turn in gratitude to, and rest
confidently with, His Father …. ‘I shall not be disturbed’.
Jesus’ love for His Father was total and unremitting … He saw what
was beautiful or good and immediately His life’s compass swung to His Father in
admiration and praise; and when He looked upon what was evil He would
compassionate His Father:
Father, forgive them for they know not
what they are doing.
Ultimately, love is the only guarantee that we will never be
subject to the domination and dichotomy of two masters. It is love alone which can give us the
initial strength and courage to choose, to shoulder what we might
possibly admire but could never, of ourselves, undertake.
But for such love of God we have to be prepared to give ourselves
… ‘I shall not allow myself to be disturbed, I will love God!’
If we now turn to St. Paul we will see, and wonder at, of his
oneness with Jesus’ teaching; for we are all surely aware of our human
sensitivity to the opinion of others, and even more especially might that have
been felt by Paul, since his work did not involve objective skills, tangible
powers, but was totally concerned and involved with people, affecting them and
indeed changing them through his proclamation of the Good News. Would not his ability, success, and
effectiveness as an Apostle, therefore, be inextricably linked with, and in
some measure dependent upon, his own personal charm and popularity? But in blunt contradiction with any such
thoughts or suppositions, Paul tells us:
It does not concern me in the least that I
be judged by you or by any human tribunal.
Paul was in not subject to human opinion! Indeed, in that respect one can say that he
was dead to men. He served but one
Master. And yet, there was another, more
secret and hidden tribunal by which he might have been affected, influenced,
and ultimately corrupted, in his discipleship: that of self-justification and
self-satisfaction. But Paul proceeds
immediately to totally repel any such thought:
I do not even pass judgement on myself;
but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the One who judges me is the Lord.
Paul was sublimely simple: no reflecting on himself, neither his
successes or failures nor his personal faults or popularity. He was indeed, a most wonderful disciple of
Jesus His Lord … one dead to the world and even to himself for love of Jesus:
I consider everything as a loss because of
the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted
the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain
Christ (Philippians 3:8)
Jesus would say at the height of His torments and dereliction:
Father,
into your hands I commit My spirit;
St. Paul, as a supreme disciple, would likewise say (2 Timothy
1:12):
I know the One in Whom I have put my
trust, and I am sure He is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted
to Him.
Such examples do most surely inspire us, but the only way for us
to respond to such inspiration is to follow their example.
Parents, lead, guide, and encourage your children to recognize,
appreciate, respond to, what is beautiful, good, and true in life. As they grow up and need rules for guidance
and strength, offer them your own companionship and show them the truth, love,
and the beauty behind and above such God-given and humanly-necessary
rules. Obedience, to be sure, is at
times absolutely necessary as our ultimate defence and surest guide, but
its authority and power should always be based on love and express love:
Whatever is true, whatever is honourable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think
about these things. (Philippians 4:8)
And so, my dear People of God, may Jesus’ final words in today’s
Gospel inspire us to go out from Holy Mass today with loving purpose, firm
hope, and most joyful confidence, to advance more surely on our life-long
endeavour to:
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and not worry about tomorrow.
