EVERYONE WILL BE SALTED BY FIRE


THURSDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP

James 5:1-6; Ps 49:14-20; Mk 9:41-50

Everyone will be salted by Fire

The gospel of today is a continuation of the Lord’s instruction to his disciples we started yesterday. We should recall that what initiated this instruction was the disciples’ argument about which of them was the greatest. The Lord frowned at them for allowing such a worldly concern to preoccupy them while he was talking to them about the sacrifice he was to make of his life. After reprimanding them for their worldly mindset, he started to enlighten them on what a position of authority entails in the new community. The superior in the community of God’s people is the one who serves his brothers and sisters and not the one who is served. The one who serves others in love is more conformed to the will of the Father than the one who is served. It is on this basis also that the one who supports the work of a disciple will merit a great reward, for such support furthers the realisation of the divine will for the salvation of souls. “If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward.” A disciple of Jesus imbibes the mindset of Christ and commits all to the mission of salvation of souls, which Christ received from the heavenly Father and shares with his own. 

The threat of punishment for those who work to impede the salvation of souls further reveals the importance of the Father’s will for the salvation of all. This teaching of our Lord brings out the seriousness of our vocation as Christians. It is important to remain focused on the vocation we have received as Christians. The fact that the vocation came to us from no less a personality than the Son of God is something to dwell on. We have equally received the third Person of the Blessed Trinity as our eternal guest. So, our salvation is a costly project on the side of God that we must never treat with levity. Hence, our Lord gives it all the weight it deserves in this instruction. “But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.” To work against the success of the mission of Jesus Christ is to work against the will of the Father. It is to be an agent of darkness causing the fall and damnation of souls. To join rank with the demons in their work of obstructing the plan of God for the salvation of man is to locate one’s place beside them in hell, where they will undergo punishment forever. 

We are to constantly and prayerfully examine our lives and motives so as not to live in a manner that will lead others to fall away from God or lose their faith in him. A Christian is allowed to nurse an ambition for greatness, but such an ambition must be to be great in the sight of God. To achieve greatness in God’s sight is the only ambition worthy of the Christian vocation. To realise this ambition, our Lord reveals the divine determination to season us by fire so as not to lose us to the pleasurable things of this world. “For everyone will be salted with fire.” We are to watch over ourselves so that the divine seasoning by fire would produce its effect on us. Understanding what is at stake, we must not treat our faults with kid gloves. “And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out.” The fear of such an everlasting tragedy will make us never to allow a worldly ambition to corrupt our hearts and make us not pay our debt of love to others. James admonished anyone who has forgotten this great obligation to God and neighbours to weep and cry for what would follow at the end of life. “Start crying, weep for the miseries that are coming to you. Your wealth is all rotting, your clothes are all eaten up by moths… It was a burning fire that you stored up as your treasure for the last days.”

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to understand the importance and the dignity of the vocation we have received as Christians, that by setting our minds steadfastly on the glory of your heavenly kingdom we may abandon the illusive wealth and pleasures of this world.

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