20150525 CHRISTIAN PERFECTION IS POSSIBLE THROUGH THE GRACE OF CHRIST

20150525 CHRISTIAN PERFECTION IS POSSIBLE THROUGH THE GRACE OF CHRIST

Readings at Mass

First reading

Ecclesiasticus 17:20-28 ©

To those who repent, God permits return,

  and he encourages those who were losing hope.

Return to the Lord and leave sin behind,

  plead before his face and lessen your offence.

Come back to the Most High and turn away from iniquity,

  and hold in abhorrence all that is foul.

Who will praise the Most High in Sheol,

  if the living do not do so by giving glory to him?

To the dead, as to those who do not exist, praise is unknown,

  only those with life and health can praise the Lord.

How great is the mercy of the Lord,

  his pardon on all those who turn towards him!

Psalm

Psalm 31:1-2,5-7 ©

Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just!

Happy the man whose offence is forgiven,

  whose sin is remitted.

O happy the man to whom the Lord

  imputes no guilt,

  in whose spirit is no guile.

Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just!

But now I have acknowledged my sins;

  my guilt I did not hide.

I said: ‘I will confess

  my offence to the Lord.’

And you, Lord, have forgiven

  the guilt of my sin.

Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just!

So let every good man pray to you

  in the time of need.

The floods of water may reach high

  but him they shall not reach.

Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just!

You are my hiding place, O Lord;

  you save me from distress.

You surround me with cries of deliverance.

Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just!

Gospel Acclamation

cf.1Th2:13

Alleluia, alleluia!

Accept God’s message for what it really is:

God’s message, and not some human thinking.

Alleluia!

Or

2Co8:9

Alleluia, alleluia!

Jesus Christ was rich,

but he became poor for your sake,

to make you rich out of his poverty.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Mark 10:17-27 ©

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’ And he said to him, ‘Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.’ Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.

  Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, ‘My children,’ he said to them ‘how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were more astonished than ever. ‘In that case’ they said to one another ‘who can be saved?’ Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he said ‘it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.’

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION IS POSSIBLE THROUGH THE GRACE OF CHRIST

SCRIPTURE READINGS: Ecclesiasticus 17:20-28; Mark 10:17-27

“A man ran up, knelt before him and put his question to him, ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Surely, this man must have been a sincere person. His genuine desire to find eternal life is expressed in his disposition towards Jesus.  But take note of Jesus’ immediate response to the man, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone”.  Christian perfection, in a nutshell, is to share in God’s life.  This sharing in the divine life or goodness of God involves three stages.

Firstly, we are called to renounce sin, and repent from our sinful way of life.  As the author from Ecclesiasticus says, “Return to the Lord and leave sin behind, plead before his face and lessen your offence. Come back to the Most High and turn away from iniquity, and hold in abhorrence all that is foul. Who will praise the Most High in Sheol, if the living does not do so by giving glory to him?”  This is negative obedience. This comes about through a contrite heart and a real acknowledgement of one’s sinfulness, especially those sins which we try to hide because of shame or those that our pride rationalizes away.  So the psalmist who confessed his sins to the Lord and had his faults taken away was filled with joy because he was liberated from guilt.  He said, “Let the just exult and rejoice in the Lord. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin.”  Without being free from our guilt and self-hatred, how can one be available to the love of God and others?

Secondly, a true renunciation of sin is done out of one’s realization that his sins have hurt not only himself but his fellowmen, especially his loved ones and God. When we convert for the sake of ourselves and for our good, it is not yet the life of perfection. True conversion of life is when we do so out of pure love for God who loves us. Nevertheless, even if we repent because we know that we are hurting ourselves and our loved ones, it remains the gateway to a true experience of God’s love.

Such form of repentance is followed by active obedience, expressed in obedience to the commandments of God.  Jesus asked the man whether he had kept all the commandments since this is both a condition and also the path to finding peace and joy.  On one hand, sharing in the goodness of God entails following His commandments by refraining from killing, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, cheating and disrespect for one’s parents.   On the other hand, the observance of such good works must spring from our own experience of God’s love.   Unfortunately, many of us are living a so-called righteous life, not out of love for God or for others, but simply for ourselves and our pride.  When God’s commandments are observed out of pride and not as a consequence of our gratitude to His love and mercy, such performance of good works ironically lead us further from God and our fellowmen.  This explains why even though the rich man had “kept all these from my earliest days”, yet he finds emptiness in his life.

What is lacking?  Namely, this, a personal relationship with the Lord!  Although the above two stages of spiritual life are necessary conditions in participating in God’s goodness, they cannot yet give one the fullness of divine life.  Not surprisingly, the man was still unfulfilled. At the same time, we are told that Jesus was to some extent happy for him, for we read that “Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.” His conscience was free but something was still missing.  Fulfilling these two stages of spiritual life cannot grant us full happiness unless we are ready to enter into the third stage, which is that of kenosis, self-emptying spirituality.  If Jesus said that only God is good, He is simply saying that God is one who has emptied Himself in love.

Only when one empties his life for others, can one find true joy and meaning.  Hence, the command of Jesus, “‘there is one thing you lack.  Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’”  So if one does not wish to live a mediocre life but seek the fullness of life in Christian perfection, then one cannot be simply contented to give up sin or obey the commandments.  Rather, our primary objective is to identify ourselves with the Lord in self-emptying love. This presumes we follow Jesus.  Following Jesus is more than just living the kind of life He lived, but by identifying ourselves with Him in His love for His Father and the whole of humanity.

We must therefore ask, at what stage in the development of our spiritual life have we arrived at?  Negatively, we must consider which particular sin we still cling on to without wishing to give it up.  Positively, we must also reflect on whether we have taken the Christian way of life seriously.  Hopefully, we have gone beyond the first two stages of moral integrity and faithful Christian living according to the precepts of the gospel and His Church.  But to be truly effective in ministry and in the work of evangelization, we need also to strive for Christian perfection in our spiritual life, in desiring to give up everything for the gospel, in living a life of poverty.

This seems to be a tall order.  The rich man went away sad because he could not let go of his wealth and follow Jesus in His ministry of love for the poor.  It seems humanly impossible to give up everything for God and for the poor. This is not disputed by Jesus. That is why he appended his remark by saying, “For men, it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.”   The truth is that the key to growth in spiritual life is not something to be undertaken with our own strength, but through His grace.  That being so, when Jesus told the man to follow Him, He was simply reminding him that such a life of kenosis cannot be exercised without a real relationship with Him.  He did not simply say to His disciples, “Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor,” but this command was immediately followed by the injunction to follow Him.  It is only when we are in union with Him that we will find the strength and courage to free ourselves from a life of sin for a life of selfless love, just as Jesus did in His total dependence on the Father.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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