20170302 WHAT IS LIFE AND PROSPERITY?
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
First reading
|
Deuteronomy
30:15-20 ©
|
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.’
Responsorial
Psalm
|
Psalm 1:1-4,6 ©
|
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.
Gospel
Acclamation
|
Ps50:12,14
|
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!
Or
|
Mt4:17
|
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!
Gospel
|
Luke 9:22-25 ©
|
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?’
WHAT IS
LIFE AND PROSPERITY?
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: [ Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 9:22-25]
Moses
said to the people, “See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and
disaster.” What will you choose? Obviously, no one chooses death and
disaster or poverty unless he or she is suicidal! The real problem
perhaps lies in the understanding of what is life and prosperity. How to
make a choice unless we know what we are choosing? Once we are clear of
what we are choosing, we can then think of the strategy and approaches.
So what is life? For many
people, life is identified with pleasure, wealth, status and power. But look at
what King Solomon found out at the end of his life. He said, “I thought to
myself, ‘Very well, I will try pleasure and see what enjoyment has to offer.’
And there it was: vanity again! This laughter, I reflected, is a madness, this
pleasure no use at all. I resolved to have my body cheered with wine, my heart
still devoted to wisdom; I resolved to embrace folly to see what made mankind
happy, and what men do under heaven in the few days they have to live.” (Eccl 2:1-3) Indeed, those
who spend their whole life like King Solomon will come to the point at the
height of their success when they realize that even the pleasures of life
cannot satisfy them. On the contrary, for indulging in the pleasures of life
and immoral activities, we destroy our body and mind. Greed and lust
destroy loving relationships. Drugs and gambling destroy our minds and
take away the peace from our hearts by making us anxious and addictive.
Alcohol and over eating harm our bodies. Indeed, to such people, Moses
said, “you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter
and possess.” With all our success, our life and happiness will be
shortened.
Is life just work and
achievements, money and worldly success? Some work so hard and became so
successful only to realize that they have been left out in life. While
all their friends are having happy families and found their partners, they are
all alone. Some, because of ambition and prolonged hours working day and
night, from Monday to Sunday, suffer deterioration in their health. Life
becomes empty even with all the money and success they have made for
themselves. Again, Qoheleh says, “For so it is that a man who has
laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to
someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great
injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has
undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office,
his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.” (Eccl 2:21-23)
These are the false gods
that we are warned about in today’s scripture readings. “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.” To work for nothing means to waste our efforts, time and energy on
the false gods in our lives. That is why Jesus cautioned us, “What gain, then,
is it for a man to have the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very
self?”
Life is more than worldly
satisfactions. It has to do with love and relationships. We are not mere bodies
but we have a spirit. We are called to a transcendent life.
This means that life requires meaning if we are to live joyfully and
purposefully. Moses says, life is to “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.”
Living in the love of the
Lord is what gives us life. There is nothing that can satisfy the human
soul except God alone. Even human friendship which is part of this life cannot
sustain us because our friends will leave us, no matter how close we are.
Only the love of God remains forever and goes beyond this life. Only when
we love God, would we choose Him above everything else. To choose other
things before God would be to choose the inferior things of life since all
other things are created by Him. All other works of creation would be
less than the author of creation.
How, then, can we live in
the love of the Lord? 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.” When we love God, we will obey His
voice and His commandments. In the gospel, Jesus said, “Whoever has my
commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be
loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” (Jn 14:21) He also said,
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my
Father’s commands and remain in his love.” (Jn 15:10) We cannot
claim we love God if we do not keep His commands.
In loving God, we love our
neighbours as well because that is also the command of the Lord. “‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mk 12:31) In the
ministry and teaching of Jesus, He gave great emphasis to loving our
neighbours, including even our enemies. A man can be said to love God truly
when he also loves his neighbours absolutely, without discrimination, simply
because they are God’s beloved as well. Thus, we cannot keep our wealth
and resources to ourselves. Like God, we give generously to each man
according to his needs, not his greed. In imitating the goodness and
generosity of God, a man demonstrates that he loves God and lives in His love.
This is because he shares in the mind and heart of God, in His attitude towards
the world, humanity and created things.
Secondly, to live in the
love of the Lord is to live an enlightened life. The psalmist says, “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.” The fool
walks in darkness but the wise man walks in the light. Pondering over the
Word of God keeps us focused, for the Word of God is a light for our path.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Ps 118:105) When we
build our lives on the Word of God, we can be sure of how we can live our
lives.
Thirdly, to live in the
love of the Lord is to cling to Him for our security and not the passing world.
The psalmist says, 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.” We need to draw strength from the Lord like the Samaritan woman
at the well. Only the Lord can give us the living water that springs up
like a fountain in us. Those who cling to the Lord will bear much fruit
as our Lord promised us. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in
me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do
nothing.” (Jn 15:5)
What is prosperity? Being
prosperous is not to be rich in this world’s goods but to be rich in love and
service. Jesus said, “Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but
anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.” True prosperity
is when we prosper with good works because of the wealth of love and compassion
in our hearts. This was how Jesus lived His life. He came not just
to serve us but to die for us. Jesus said, “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.”
Secondly, to be rich is to
be free for love and in love. It is a freedom from self and the
attachments to the world. Jesus taught us, “If anyone wants to be a
follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and
follow me.” When we are able to deny ourselves for the love of Christ and of
our brothers and sisters, we will find life. This is the joy of a
Christian who is rich in unconditional love and service. He enjoys good relationships
with all those people of good will. In this way, through his selfless
service, he wins people over and becomes their friend. The wealth of the
generous man is in his relationships, love and fellowship. This is what
the Lord promised the Israelites, “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 what the Lord promised to Abraham and His disciples as
well. “Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or
brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who
will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal
life.” (Mt 18:29f)
The choice is therefore
ours. What will we choose? There is no choice really. Not to choose
God is to choose death. But that is our choice as well. If want
life and happiness, then choose God! Let us take heed of the Word of God.
“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.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights
Reserved
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