THE DESIRE TO DO THE WILL OF GOD AS TRUE RELIGION

TUESDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Sirach 35:2-15; Ps 50:5-8,14,23; Mk 10:28-31

Repentance as the Desire to do God’s will

The passage of Sirach for today’s reflection sheds more light on why our Lord’s heart went out to the man who enquired about eternal life. As we noted yesterday, the man's observance of the commandments of God since his youth expresses a degree of commitment to God. Sirach confirms this by writing: “A man multiplies offerings by keeping the Law; he offers communion sacrifices by following the commandments. By showing gratitude he makes an offering of fine flour, by giving alms he offers a sacrifice of praise.” He had accomplished the first two religious exercises; he needed to do the remaining two to become like Jesus Christ. Going back to our understood purpose of God’s commandments and Law, that is, to reveal to us the nature of sin and the weakness of fallen human nature, what is of importance is not our success in keeping the Law and commandments but our desire to do the will of the Father expressed in them. Given this, success and failure in keeping the Law and commandments means the same to God, who is pleased with our desire to do his will.

The desire to do the will of God is what conforms us to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. It is this desire that the Lord sought in the man, and not finding it, intended to establish by sending him to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor and conform his life to that of the Son of Man. The desire arrives when we discover that God confers eternal life on us gratuitously, not by what we have done. The Law and the commandments aid this discovery and enshrine the knowledge of our nothingness in us. The discovery helps us complete the rite of religious worship of God by gratitude and sacrifice of praise to God. These are the last two of the four religious exercises Sirach gives as constitutive of the spiritual worship of God. In the case of the man who came to Jesus Christ, his success in keeping the commandments of God did not help him establish a solid foundation for his desire to do the will of God by offering him a firm knowledge of his nothingness before God. In his infinite wisdom, God allows us, when we glory in keeping the Law and the commandments, to fall into sin, to undeceive us about our possessions and their true worth before him. God loves us when we keep his Law and commandments, but our keeping them must express our deep desire to do the will of the Father, not to show off our righteousness or ground to condemn others.

The Lord teaches that it will be impossible to enter the kingdom of God or possess eternal life if we consider keeping the Law and the commandments a certificate for eternal life. The unceasing desire to accomplish the will of the Father in our lives guarantees our entrance into the kingdom of God. We follow Jesus Christ only in this regard. “‘What about us? We have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not be repaid a hundred times over, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and land—not without persecutions—now in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life.’” The Lord confirms the necessity and the sufficiency of the desire to do the will of the Father in all things as the act of spiritual worship of God. Every act and art that expresses this desire constitutes a true and spiritual worship of God. But any religious act and art devoid of a sincere desire to do the will of God cannot please God. The purpose of the gospel is to bring all men and women of goodwill to the possession of the knowledge of the divine will revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ. It is the will of the Father that we give up everything to proclaim the gospel to all so that his peaceful rule will extend to all peoples and nations.

Let us pray: Grant us, O Lord, we pray, that the course of our world may be directed by your peaceful rule and that your Church may rejoice, untroubled in her devotion to your divine will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.