20160211 THE PARADOX OF FINDING LIFE
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Deuteronomy
30:15-20 ©
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Moses said to the
people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster.
If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today,
if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his
commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord
your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own.
But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn
into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most
certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the
Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you
today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so
that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God,
obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this
depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
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Psalm
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Psalm 1:1-4,6 ©
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Happy the man who
has placed his trust in the Lord.
Happy indeed is the
man
who
follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor lingers in the
way of sinners
nor sits
in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is
the law of the Lord
and who
ponders his law day and night.
Happy the man who
has placed his trust in the Lord.
He is like a tree
that is planted
beside
the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit
in due season
and whose
leaves shall never fade;
and all
that he does shall prosper.
Happy the man who
has placed his trust in the Lord.
Not so are the
wicked, not so!
For they like
winnowed chaff
shall be
driven away by the wind.
for the Lord guards
the way of the just
but the
way of the wicked leads to doom.
Happy the man who
has placed his trust in the Lord.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Ps50:12,14
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Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
A pure heart create
for me, O God,
and give me again the
joy of your help.
Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
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Or
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Mt4:17
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Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
Repent, says the
Lord,
for the kingdom of
heaven is close at hand.
Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
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Gospel
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Luke 9:22-25 ©
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Jesus said to his
disciples: ‘The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by
the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be
raised up on the third day.’
Then to
all he said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce
himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to
save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man
will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and
to have lost or ruined his very self?’
THE
PARADOX OF FINDING LIFE
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: Deut 30:15-20;
Lk 9:22-25
Moses
said to the people: “See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and
disaster.” The answer is obvious as to what we desire. We all seek
life and prosperity. Who does not want life and happiness? All
of us are afraid of pain and suffering; loneliness and meaninglessness.
So, clearly all of us in the world, with our without religion, seek the
fullness of life and love.
But
the way to achieve it is not that obvious. This is where we go our separate
ways. Each one seeks to find life his or her way. Very often, in
the process of seeking happiness, we end up with more misery. We lose our
direction and we often get hurt and disillusioned in the process. This
seems like is a contradiction. For a Christian, it is a paradox. Jesus
said, “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses
his life for my sake, that man will save it.”
There
are two ways to find life, the way of God and our way, which is the way of the
world. What is the way of the world? The wisdom of the world tells us that
we must rely on no one else but ourselves. This is the world of science
and technology promoted by the atheists, the agnostics, the humanists. We
are called to rely on ourselves. But can technology and science change
the heart of man and give him meaning and purpose? The truth is
that the more wealth, power and riches we have, the more insecure they make
us. Trying to find happiness in such worldly pursuits only make us more
insecure, knowing that our life is not in our hands. Even if our
enemies do not take them away from us, death will put an end to all that we
have.
As a
result of fear, we become selfish and regard others as enemies rather than our
friends or brothers and sisters. Protectionist attitudes make us weary of others. We
become more insecure and we seek to dominate each other. Instead of
finding life, we find loneliness and death. We are separated from God and
others. We have wealth and power but no love and friends. We live
in fear each day. We live in fear of tomorrow and are always
anxious. Most of all, we are fearful of death, which takes away all that
we have accumulated. This is the pronouncement of the psalmist, “Not so
are the wicked, not so! For they like winnowed chaff shall be driven away by
the wind for the Lord guards the way of the just but the way of the wicked
leads to doom.”
Jesus
captures this state of emptiness in man succinctly when He remarked, “What
gain, then, is it for a man to have the whole world and to have lost or ruined
his very self?” This is the warning of Moses as well. “God will
bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if
your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into
worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most
certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the
Jordan to enter and possess.”
What,
then, is the biggest and most fundamental sin? It is the sin of idolatry, to
render worship to self and things. The sin of idolatry is to live in
illusion. Idols are non-reality. So, to worship idols is to worship
falsehood. The things of this world cannot last beyond this life. Consequently,
the way to life is to trust God as the Ultimate Reality in whom you can place
your trust totally and give your life to, for He is the only reality. This
is what Moses urged the people. “I call heaven and earth to witness
against you today: so that you and your descendants may live in the love of the
Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life
consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore
to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.”
Trusting
in God to give us life means that we want to follow the path He has shown us. The commandments given to us by
God are the sure means to find true happiness and peace. Moses said, “If
you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if
you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments,
his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will
bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own.” This is
affirmed by the psalmist. “Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.”
Unfortunately
most of us see the commandments of God as hindrances to our happiness, our
freedom to do what we want. Yet, the truth is that we behave like children, wanting
to do things our way, failing to realize that the path we choose is hurting
us. We are ignorant. So if we want to be happy, we must obey the
commandments, as the psalmist tells us, “Happy indeed is the man who follows
not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinner nor sits in the
company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders
his law day and night. He is like a tree that is planted beside the
flowing waters, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves shall
never fade; and all that he does shall prosper.” The laws of God,
ironically, are meant to give us true freedom from slavery to our passions and
sins. Those who live by His commandments find peace even in suffering and
opposition. To know that we have done what is right in spite of
opposition makes us happy, as our conscience is clear before God and man.
But
it is not enough to have fullness of life through observance of the
commandments unless we love completely by emptying our lives in love for
others. Jesus challenges us to live our lives more fully and radically when He said, “If anyone
wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross
every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.”
How
can we live our lives in such risky manner by loving to the extent of dying to
self? Jesus has
shown us the way. He said to His disciples, “The Son of Man is destined
to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and
scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third
day.” Jesus was fully aware of what love entails. But He was
not afraid of the price of love. He knew that it is only by going to the
extent of giving oneself that one can one truly live.
We
are called to live a life that is truly free, a freedom that transcends death
and all limitations. When
a person is no longer afraid to die, that person has conquered death as Jesus
did. With Jesus, therefore, we are called to carry our crosses that come
from the daily struggles of being faithful to our spouse, children and our
vocation. We need to continue to renounce ourselves daily and put others
before ourselves. The only thing we should not do is to put them before
God. So long as we put God above all things, we will know where we should
give ourselves completely to. Let us not be deceived by the world and those
who think that Christ has come to give us riches and prosperity on earth.
Rather, if we want to be His follower, we must lose everything we have for
others. To the extent that we can empty our lives for others, to that
extent we are truly the followers of Jesus.
Most
of all, we are called to live in His love. This love is rooted in His passion, death and
resurrection. As we enter into the season of Lent and as we contemplate
on His paschal mystery, we will find strength to carry our crosses borne out of
love for others and see everything in life in perspective, especially our
suffering on this earth, so that we live fully for love in this life and
forever in the next, in true freedom and joy and peace.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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