Wednesday, 12 February 2020

IDOLATRY AS ATTACHMENT IS THE CAUSE OF MAN’S DOWNFALL



IDOLATRY AS ATTACHMENT IS THE CAUSE OF MAN’S DOWNFALL


SCRIPTURE READINGS: [1K 11:4-13Ps 106:3-435-3740Mk 7:24-30 ]
In the first reading, we read of King Solomon who was growing old.  His wisdom used to be proverbial for many.  But as he grew older, he lost his wisdom because he was unfaithful to the Lord.  He was attached to his many wives.  Instead of putting God above everyone else, he placed his many wives and concubines above God and the State.  Indeed, attachment is always the cause of many of our miseries, especially attachment to people, not just to wealth, power and status.   Over-attachment to our loved ones is worshipping false gods.
But is it wrong to be attached to our loved ones?  In the gospel, surely, the mother was very much attached to her daughter who was going through tremendous suffering caused by possession of an evil spirit.  We can imagine how distraught it must have been for the mother to see her daughter tormented by the Evil One.  When we love someone, it is extremely heartbreaking to see our loved ones suffer, whether due to an accident, illness, especially when it is incurable, or a psychological or emotional disturbance.  So we can certainly feel with the mother in the gospel over the condition of her daughter.
So is there a difference between the attachment of Solomon to his wives and that of the mother to her daughter?  Indeed, there is a real difference.  In the case of Solomon, his attachment to his wives resulted in his giving priority to them over his duty as King of Israel and most of all, his devotion to God.  How true it is in life when we put our loved ones before the love of God.  For the love of our loved ones, we are ready to sacrifice our God and even our conscience for their sake.  A woman would sleep with a man, going against her faith and conscience because she is afraid to lose the love of the man.  Before knowing the man, she was devoted to God. He was the center of her life.  But having fallen in love with the man, God is displaced.  Her heart is no longer given to God but to the man.  In other words, idolatry is the consequence when the woman worshipped the man in place of God.
When someone is the ultimate in your life, that person is your God.  So we must ask who the most important person in our life is.  Who are we living for?  Who do we belong to?  Where will we be at the end of this journey in our life?  Unless, we are able to answer these questions sincerely, we will only deceive ourselves.  Although many of us, like King Solomon, profess our faith in God as the Almighty, and to love Him with all our heart, soul and strength, in reality, God is not our first love, nor the most important person in our life.  He is just a back-up when things go wrong, someone whom we can turn to when we are in trouble or in despair.  Otherwise, when things are doing well, He is out of our mind and He has no place in our heart.
But does it mean that in loving God, we will love our loved ones, family members and friends less?  On the contrary, we will love them even more!  We will not just love them but we will love them with the love of God in our hearts.  We will love them with the love that God has loved us with.  We will value our loved ones in perspective, that they are God’s creatures and we are all His children, and that He has given us to each other so that we can encounter His love through each other, and support each other.   So it is our love for God that impels us to love even more, to the extent of giving up our lives for our loved ones just as Christ the Son of God died for us.   We will not love less and we will keep on loving, not because our loved ones are always loving towards us, but rather because we want to love since God has loved us.  But this love is never possessive, never so attached that it takes God’s love from us.  On the contrary, we hope that the people we love will help us to love God even more and together we love God and find happiness.
Indeed, this is what married life and true friendship is all about.  A true friend must be one who leads us not to himself or herself but to God.  Husband and wife are called to help each other grow in holiness and love.  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.”  (Eph 5:25-27)  What is true of husband and wife, is true for all relationships.  Our task is to mediate God’s love to each other, and help each other to live out our vocation in life, which is to love God and to love our fellowmen in truth and compassion.
If we examine the love of the mother, it is quite different from that of King Solomon.  It was her love for her daughter that brought her closer to God.  She felt for her daughter who was in turmoil because of the devil in her.   It was out of compassion and empathy for her daughter in pain that she approached the Lord to ask Him to deliver her from the bondage of the Evil One.  And she did not spare any effort or sacrifice to make her request heard by the Lord.  She was persistent and would take no “no” for an answer.  Even when she was humiliated because of her gentile status, she continued to plead to the Lord to assist her.  When the Lord said to her, “The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.”  She retorted, “Ah yes, sir ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps.”
Indeed, the illness of her daughter did not turn her away from God but gave her a greater reason for faith in God.  This is not the case of many people.  When they fall sick or they have a tragedy or a failure, instead of putting their ultimate faith in God alone, they become resentful of God.  They blame God for their predicament and give up faith in Him for allowing such a tragedy in their lives.  They stop praying to God and even cut Him off from their lives entirely.  Bitterness and resentment set in and they turn to themselves and the world for solutions.   Not for the woman though.  Her faith was firm and strong even though she was a pagan.  But she believed in Jesus.  Hence, our Lord remarked, “For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter.’  So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.”
As for Jesus, He showed us what love of God entailed as well.  They were sent out to proclaim the Good News.  They were tired and wanted to rest, but their rest was aborted because the people followed them.   Upon seeing them, their hunger for the love for God, Jesus was filled with compassion for them.  Because they sought the Lord, Jesus could not allow them to go empty handed.  After that, they thought they needed to go somewhere where Jesus would not be recognized.  What better place than to go to a Gentile territory!  So, “Jesus left Genesaret and set out for the territory of Tyre.  There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised.”
Once again, it was difficult for Jesus to travel unrecognized.  “A women whose little daughter who had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet.”  We can imagine what was going through the mind of our Lord.  As a man He was tired.  And this woman who was not a Jew was seeking help from Him.  The Lord was probably a little annoyed because at this rate, he would not be able to get any rest.  Rightly so, Jesus did not feel that His mission at this point of time was meant to be extended beyond the Jews as He did not have the capacity to proclaim the gospel beyond Palestine.  It was not on His agenda.  He had enough on His plate and certainly did not feel responsible for converting the Gentiles.  Yet, out of compassion for her and her insistent plea, He acceded to her request.  It was her faith in Him and her love for her daughter that moved the Lord to give in to what she asked for.  What is important is that it is always the love of God first before the love of our fellowmen.  When one loves God, it is manifested in our selfless love for our brothers and sisters.  In other words, the love of God must come first so that we can love our fellowmen in the right order.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved


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