DESIRING THE EVERLASTING THINGS AND GLORY

SUNDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP 

Gen 3:9-15; Ps 130; 2 Cor 4:13-5:1; Mk 3:20-35

Desiring the Invisible and Everlasting Things

Since we are usually moved by what we love or desire and move away from what we hate or dislike, it follows then that the best way to captivate or capture a human person is to work on what he likes or loves. God made us rational beings. This implies two ways of knowing: the first is through the senses by following the intelligible forms of natural or physical things; the second is through the light of the word of God that enlightens our intellect interiorly. The first leads us to the knowledge of physical or material things that are temporal, while the second leads us to the knowledge of spiritual things which are eternal and enduring. The first reading presents what happened after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Because they followed the instigation of the evil one in seeking the physical knowledge of a created thing and rejected the directive given to them by the word of God, they lost their spiritual light to know spiritual things and the desire for things eternal. The human desire became banal, and our intellect turned toward physical things. Because man sought the knowledge of physical things in disobedience to the word of God, we lost the light of the word of God and the desire for spiritual things. “The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done? The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’” This was how the evil one made captive human knowledge and desire. He enslaved humanity to do what he wanted.

But the Lord immediately fashioned a way out of the captivity of the evil one for man and woman. By willing another beginning with a woman whose desire would be to do the will of God and her love would be to meditate on the word of God and contemplate spiritual things. “I will make you enemies of each other; you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” Because the evil one has taken control of the lower pathway through the senses, part of the enmity between him and the woman would involve little or no trust in the sensible path to truth by the woman and her children. Faith is the ordinary path for the woman and her children, which makes her and her children at home with spiritual reality. St. Paul writes of these in the second reading. “As we have the same spirit of faith that is mentioned in scripture—I believed, and therefore I spoke—we too believe and therefore we too speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus to life will raise us with Jesus in our turn, and put us by his side and you with us.” While faith is the ordinary means of living for the woman and her offspring, faith is an extraordinary means for all of us born of the old corrupted human nature enslaved to sensible things. Hence, we need retraining to live by the extraordinary means of faith that initiates a spiritual life in us.

These two means cannot remain active in us, for they originate from two opposed loves. They represent the enmity between the woman and the evil one. The decay of the physical life and love is the flourishing of the spiritual life and love. St. Paul encouraged us to be happy for the decay of what is physical in us. “That is why there is no weakening on our part, and instead, though this outer man of ours may be falling into decay, the inner man is renewed day by day. Yes, the troubles which are soon over, though they weigh little, train us for the carrying of a weight of eternal glory which is out of all proportion to them.” Our Lord explains that it is only by the entrance of the Holy Spirit through our acceptance of faith in the word of God that the stronghold of the evil one is destroyed in our souls. Thus, refusal to accept the gift of faith and a new life from the Holy Spirit is a perpetual sin, locking eternal life out of a soul and perpetuating its enslavement to evil. But all who receive the word and desire to do the divine will are one with the woman and are offsprings with her offspring. “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’”

Many usually infer from this statement from our Lord that he had no special reverence for his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Such an inference is wrong because the Lord made the statement to correct a mistaken impression in those who reported his mother and relatives’ desire to see him. The mistaken impression was their thinking that his relatives had a greater right to his presence than those who were listening to him. Our exposition above clarifies the Lord’s statement in that the desire of those listening to him and their love for the word and the will of God put them on the same pedestal with him and his mother Mary. They are her offspring and at the same time one with the woman in enmity with the evil one. An unclean spirit cannot dwell in anyone who hears the word of God and keeps it, for the word of God is the principle of a new and spiritual life. To live by faith is to live in the dawn of eternal life. “My soul is waiting for the Lord. I count on his word. My soul is longing for the Lord more than watchman for daybreak.” 

Let us pray: O God, from whom all good things come, grant that we, who call on you in our need may at your prompting discern what is right, and by your guidance do it, so that we may grow more and more in our spiritual life.