FOCUSSING ON JESUS CHRIST OUR PRIZE

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, BISHOP, DOCTOR

1 Cor 9:16-19,22-27; Ps 84:3-6,12; Lk 6:39-42

Focussing on the Prize

The analogy of competitors in a game is what St. Paul put before us today to illustrate our Christian duty of living the Gospel. The passage makes it clear that as attendants to the bridegroom, we have the only option of graduating to brides in our Christian vocation. As he had already warned us of our limited time to achieve this expected perfection, he pressed the message home with today's message. The Gospel preaching is a duty we must take up and is not optional. “I do not boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands.” It is a commitment to the life of God that we must live and make progress in living every day. To be negligent about our most important duty is to risk being punished. To neglect the Christian duty is to be ignorant of its eternal value. This negligence comes from attending to things with no relationship with the bridegroom. For the lack of the required desire and zeal for the groom, the five virgins were deemed foolish and put out of the wedding hall. Hence, St. Paul says that the ability to offer the Gospel free of charge at any time is a reward.

This readiness to preach the Gospel at any time is a feature of the bride, for the bride lives for the groom and does everything for him. The bride is freely and lovingly yoked to the groom as Paul testifies. “I made myself all things to all men in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings.” This statement that is worthy of our Lord in his humanity is suitably found on the lips of the apostle Paul to let us know the progress he had made in his transformation into Christ. His analogy of the athletes training to win a prize in a game is to the point. We must live the Christian life with our eyes focussed on the heavenly bridegroom. Any athlete training without hoping to win the award will lack the motivation to undertake hard training. The same applies to us; we must attend to the word of God to become one with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It involves eliminating anything against or contrary to the Gospel in our lives. “That is how I run, intent on winning; that is how I fight, not beating the air. I treat my body hard and make it obey me, for having been an announcer myself, I should not be disqualified.”

This spiritual training is of utmost importance for us, for we are to become like Jesus Christ in all things. If we bear the name Christian, others must see Jesus Christ in us. We must be the Gospel they read every day. If we do not know the Gospel or imbibe its values, then we will become blind guides for the blind. Our Lord made this point in the gospel today. “Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher.” Are we aware that we are undergoing spiritual training every day? We need to focus on the prize without allowing ourselves to be overly distracted by the affairs of this passing world.  St. John Chrysostom understood the requirements of the Christian life and chose the ascetic life from an early age. He was well-educated in secular and sacred sciences.  His well-ordered gospel life made him become an effective and fruitful preacher of the Gospel. This wonderful gift of preaching earned him the name ‘Chrysostom,’ which means ‘golden mouth.’ When he was elected the Patriarch of Constantinople in 397, he brought the same orderly life to the lives of the clergy and the laity alike. The Emperor exiled him twice because of his fearless condemnation of anything that was not in line with Christian values. He died on his second exile worn out by his hardship. He was a trained athlete for Jesus Christ.  

Let us pray:  O God, strength of those who hope in you, who willed that the Bishop Saint John Chrysostom should be illustrious by his wonderful eloquence and his experience of suffering, grant us, we pray, that, instructed by his teachings, we may be strengthened through the example of his invincible patience.