POSSESSION AND SECURITY


MON DAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Rom 4:20-25; Lk 1:69-75; Lk 132:13-21

Desiring the Right Blessings

Prayer is basically the desire for God. Although the desire manifests in different forms at various times and stages of our journey toward God. Because the original sin we inherited from Adam and the actual sins we committed against God gave us an orientation to creatures, in place of the original orientation of man to God, our spiritual journey entails the purification of our desire and refinement of our opinion about God. God attracts us by satisfying our bodily desires, but the indulgence of our sensible desires is only a sign of the deeper spiritual satisfaction He wants us to desire and enjoy. Thus, when our Lord wetted the appetite of the five thousand that he fed with five loaves and two fish, he presented his body and blood as the real food and drink they should longed for. Therefore, our spiritual journey and experience of prayer go through this purification, through which he gradually uses our sensible desires and love for temporal goods to bring us to desire the enduring things. This is not to say that God is not interested in our temporal welfare, but he would want us to desire more the everlasting goods which are spiritual. Our Lord confirms this when he urged us to set our minds on the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and every other thing will be added unto us.

Our understanding above is well illustrated by the story of Abraham. Yahweh called him and promised him the land of Canaan and a multitude of children that would form a nation. The temporal promise was just an attraction to draw out Abraham’s faith, which is necessary for the reception of the spiritual meaning of God’s promise to him. God withheld the gift of an heir to Abraham until his faith was purified to understand and desire the spiritual heir, the promised land of heaven, and a spiritual nation that was the true fulfilment of God’s promise. Saint Paul has this to say on the issue. “Since God had made him a promise, Abraham refused either to deny it or even to doubt it, but drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, convinced that God had power to do what he had promised. This is the faith that was ‘considered as justifying him.’” His faith in the word of God justified him and enabled him to see the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, who is the promised Offspring. Our faith in the word of God is also the means by which we are purified or justified to behold Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul, therefore, continues: “Our faith too will be ‘considered’ if we believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was put to death for our sins and raised to life to justify us.” As we believe in Jesus Christ and pray in his name for our material needs, God gradually purifies our desires through faith to make us see the eternal and imperishable inheritance he promised us in Jesus Christ.

The comprehension of these imperishable goods we are to inherit in Jesus Christ is the purpose of the gift of prayer in the first place. Prayer is an original desire for God in each of us, which starts as a desire for material or temporal goods. It is the will of God that we graduate from the elementary desire for transitory goods to spiritual desire for imperishable goods. We displease God when we are fixated on the temporal goods. He expressed this displeasure in the Gospel reading when someone asked him to arbitrate between him and his brother over material possessions. He replied: “My friend, who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?” Subsequently, he admonished his disciple to beware of avarice and love for material gain or goods. “Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.” If material possession gives us no security, from where does our security come? Faith in Jesus Christ, through which we comprehend our imperishable goods and inherit God as our ultimate Good. Like the man in the Gospel who wanted to use Jesus Christ as a means to possess temporal goods, many practice a spirituality that has prosperity as its end and Jesus Christ as the means. Jesus Christ is not only the way, but also our ultimate good or inheritance. So, with Zachariah, we praise God for the eternal provision he made for us in Christ. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel! He has visited his people. He has raised up for us a mighty in the house of David his servant, as he promised by the lips of holy men, those who were his prophets from of old.”

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. 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.      

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