20220904 THE PARADOX OF FINDING LIFE IN LOSING OURSELVES
04 September, 2022, Sunday, 23rd Week in Ordinary Time
First reading | Wisdom 9:13-18 © |
Who can divine the will of God?
What man indeed can know the intentions of God?
Who can divine the will of the Lord?
The reasonings of mortals are unsure
and our intentions unstable;
for a perishable body presses down the soul,
and this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind.
It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth,
laborious to know what lies within our reach;
who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?
As for your intention, who could have learnt it, had you not granted Wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from above?
Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened
and men been taught what pleases you,
and saved, by Wisdom.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 89(90):3-6,12-14,17 © |
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
You turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
Second reading |
Philemon 9-10,12-17 © |
He is a slave no longer, but a dear brother in the Lord
This is Paul writing, an old man now and, what is more, still a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus. I am sending him back to you, and with him – I could say – a part of my own self. I should have liked to keep him with me; he could have been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the Good News has brought me. However, I did not want to do anything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any more, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as well as a brother in the Lord. So if all that we have in common means anything to you, welcome him as you would me.
Gospel Acclamation | Jn15:15 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
I call you friends, says the Lord,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
Alleluia!
Or: | Ps118:135 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let your face shine on your servant;
and teach me your decrees.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Luke 14:25-33 © |
Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple
Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them. ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
‘And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his possessions.’
THE PARADOX OF FINDING LIFE IN LOSING OURSELVES
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [WIS 9:13-18; PHILEMON 9-17; LK 14:25-33]
The gospel reading today seems rather harsh and impossible to accept. For according to Jesus, discipleship requires that we give up everything and everyone for Him. Indeed, Jesus told the crowd who wanted to follow Him that if we want to be His disciples, we must first hate our father, mother, wife, children and brothers; in other words, all the people that we love dearly and most. But that is not all; we are also to hate ourselves as well. As if that is not all, Christ demands that we give up all our possessions. At face value, such exacting conditions for following Christ would seem not only impossible to fulfil but also ludicrous as well.
Before we write off the words of Jesus as utter nonsense, we need to reconsider them carefully. We begin by considering the first condition of Jesus; which is to hate all our loved ones. Now why did Jesus ask us to hate our loved ones? As we all know, between hate and love, there is only a thin line. Those we hate are really those we love; and those we love would turn out to be those whom we hate. What is worse than hate is actually indifference. When we are indifferent to someone, that someone does not even exist in our sight and on our mind. But when we love someone or hate someone, that person is constantly on our mind. Thus, if Jesus asks us to hate our loved ones, it is not so much to keep them away from our minds, but to be totally detached from them, though not to the extent of being indifferent. To hate is simply a way of Jesus asking us to love in a detached manner. A better word would be compassion. In other words, we are called to love without attachment. Hence the word ‘hate’ is used in relation to love.
Within this context the picture is now clearer. The truth is that if we love our loved ones in a slavish manner, then we make ourselves slaves to our loved ones. As if that is not enough, we will also try to make them slaves of us. That is why lovers and spouse quite often try to manipulate each other. When they are insecure in themselves, they will play the guilt game so that their partners will feel responsible towards them. How often do we hear couples controlling each other’s life to the extent that life becomes stifling and crippling, so much so that love becomes impossible, since love is only possible in freedom? In forcing someone to love us, we immediately lose that love. This is the paradox of love. Isn’t it true that those who are stifled in relationships feel extremely relieved when that relationship has ended?
When we love people without enslaving them, we make it possible for them to love us. Because they are free to go and free to stay, they would not feel pressurized into loving us. Without any obligation to love, we can be certain that their love for us would be free, unconditional and genuine. Only such kind of love can truly be liberating both for the lover and the loved. Thus when Jesus asked us to hate our loved ones, He was simply asking us to love them in such a manner so that such love, especially among family members and friends, would be real, strong, lasting, joyful and liberating. When we are not loved unconditionally or freely, there is no way of finding happiness in life. This is the way God loves us and this must be the way we love others as well. So in order to love, we must hate. This is the fact of life. We must love in a detached manner. So this is the first condition of following Jesus.
The second condition laid down by Jesus is that we must hate ourselves. Again, on the surface, such a demand is simply intolerable. How can we be happy if we hate ourselves?
The truth is that when we love ourselves, we actually hate ourselves. People who are too concerned about themselves will end up hurting themselves. Ego-centred and self-centred people cannot be happy. Happiness must be shared if it is to be genuine. The consequence of selfishness is that we would be left alone by ourselves. People would avoid, hate or make use of us. They would see us as their competitors. We will also feel miserable within ourselves. Due to our obsession with oneself, we become paranoid, fearful, insecure and anxious. We begin to imagine that everyone is against us and a threat to our happiness. This will lead to further scheming and manipulation. Eventually, we will make even more enemies.
However, when we stop loving ourselves, that is, when we are not too concerned about our needs and instead focus on others, we begin to love ourselves. In forgetting about ourselves, we have no self to worry about. When there is no ego, no self, then there are no problems, since worries and problems do not exist in the abstract but are attached to our ego. Consequently, in loving others, we begin to find the real meaning of life. We experience true love, which is loving and being loved in return. So in forgetting ourselves, we actually find ourselves in others. Yes, this is the paradox of life.
That is why we must always remember that to find oneself is to lose oneself. God never gives to us but through us. We cannot love ourselves directly. We can only love ourselves indirectly. We can love ourselves only through loving others and being of service to others. But when we try to love ourselves directly, we become our own prisoners and we lose all joy and happiness in life. Narcissism will lead to self-destruction because the worship of self is the worship of false gods, of nothingness. Hence, we can now see the truth of Jesus’ teaching: to hate self is to love self authentically.
Lastly, we examine the third condition of Jesus, which is the giving up of all our possessions. What is the reality behind our possessions? Isn’t it true that the more we cling to our possessions, the more we are possessed by them? Instead of being master over things we allow things to usurp our place. Yes, we become slaves of our possessions the moment we cannot let them go; when they exercise control over our happiness. Take drug addicts for example. They cannot live without drugs. Deprived of drugs, they become restless, edgy and even violent. All of us are addicted to our possessions in some ways. Some of us cannot be happy without a car; some cannot be happy without wearing jewellery and expensive clothes; some cannot live without smoking or drinking. So isn’t it true that our possessions are masters of our lives?
Hence, we must ask ourselves seriously this question: is it better to have more possessions and lose our happiness and peace, our family, our health and our life, or is it wiser to have less so that we can have more? When we learn to let go the non-essentials in life, we will be happier because we come to possess what is really vital for life and happiness. In giving up our useless and fathomless pursuit of wealth, glory and power, we find ourselves living a simpler life – but a life that is more profound because it is lived intensely and meaningfully.
In the final analysis, happiness is not dependent on how much we have but how we are. Happiness is not to be measured in material terms but in personal terms. The determinant of happiness is whether we are personally enriched rather than materially enriched. A rich life cannot be exchanged for a life of riches. Many people who live simply, live a rich life – rich in love, peace, joy, health, and freedom. Those who are slaves to wealth and power and glory will find it impossible to be happy in life because they will always live in fear, anxiety, competition, envy, bitterness and restlessness.
Today, Jesus invites us to consider carefully whether we want to live, or simply to exist. If we really want to live fully, then we must die. But perhaps, we still have not been able to grasp fully what the gospel is speaking about. If that is the case, we must take time off for prayer to be more in touch with divine wisdom. Unless we see life in its deepest depth and reality through the eyes of God and the mind of Jesus, we will always be short-sighted in life. The outcome of our lack of foresight is that we will eventually destroy ourselves. Prayer is the key to divine wisdom and divine life. In coming to know the real meaning and essentials of life, we will experience tremendous joy and freedom, a joy and freedom as Jesus tells us in John’s gospel, the world cannot give. Let us pray for this grace to be free from our undue possessiveness either of our loved ones, ourselves or of our possessions. Yes, instead of being a prisoner of all these, let us, like Paul, become a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Paradoxically, in being Christ’s prisoner, we attain the ultimate true freedom and joy. Like him, we transcend the world and ourselves.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
