EMBRACING POVERTY FOR THE WORD

SAINT AGATHA, VIRGIN, MARTYR   

1 Kings 2:1-4,10-12; 1 Chron 29:10-12; Mk 6:7-13

Material and Spiritual Poverty for the Word

We come to the fullness of our humanity when we keep the word of God. Since God made us for himself, the words he addresses to us would be considered to be similar to the manual of operation of our nature. We suffer the maloperation of our nature in ignorance of the revealed word of God. For this reason, we consider the holy Scripture an indispensable companion for our daily Christian life. Although it may seem that many live successful lives without reference to God or his words as written in the scriptures. We must understand that we are tripartite in our composition; we can organise our material or bodily appearance so well that none can know the inner restlessness we suffer without God. But as composed of body, mind, and spirit, we can never truly enjoy the fullness of life and peace without the intervention of God within us. As we noted earlier this week, without God's intervention, none of us can truly understand our miserable state in life. We may call ourselves or others happy who seem to be enjoying fullness of bodily and material wellbeing. But the façade of happiness remains as long as the cloak of ignorance of the true worth of created things and material wealth remains. God sends the grace of his word to remove the veil of ignorance from our eyes that we may understand how spiritually poor or dead we are before he calls us to account for our lives.

David was a man after God’s heart because of his dedication to doing the word of God. We have seen the instances in which he sinned gravely against God and his humble submission to the punishments God gave him for the sins after he confessed them. Those instances of his sins were all due to his inadvertence or lack of attention to the word of God and divine presence with him. Understanding that the promises of God to him can only be fulfilled on the condition that he and his sons pay close attention to the word of God, he admonished Solomon, his successor, to commit himself to obeying the injunctions of the Lord. “I am going the way of all the earth. Be strong and show yourself a man. Observe the injunctions of the Lord your God, following his ways and keeping his laws, his commandments, his customs and his decrees, as it stands written in the Law of Moses, that so you may be successful in all you do and undertake, so that the Lord may fulfil the promise he made me.” The promises God made are for us and for our children and for us; our success and happiness as humans depend on our keeping the word of God. As David well noted, being a man depends on walking in the light of God’s word, for the word of God defines what the human person truly is. A human person is one who has life in his body, soul, and spirit.

To be fully alive, we must have life and be active on these three levels of human life. Only the possession of the word of God activates these three levels of our lives. To be alive spiritually, we must focus on God, the source of spiritual life. Since we cannot see God in our mortal body, holding unto his words suffices; we encounter God in his word, which is spirit and life. The apostles and disciples of our Lord were privileged to see the Word in bodily form. But faith extends their privilege to us, for what they saw was not what they believed; they believed in what they did not see. Hence, through faith, they were able to wield the authority of the Eternal Word they believed. “Then he summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses.” He required them to be detached from material possessions so that their full attention would be on the Gospel and on God they were to proclaim. The divine authority comes to us through our communion with the Word. The received authority is exercised in various ways; Saint Agatha exercised the same authority by her extraordinary life of purity and courage unto death. She was martyred at Catania in Sicily, probably during the persecution of Decius (250-253). Devotion to her was widespread in the Church in the earliest times, and she is one of the few saints mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass. May her prayers help us to detach ourselves from creatures and be attached fully to the Word of God.

Let us pray: May the Virgin Martyr Saint Agatha implore your compassion for us, O Lord, we pray, for she found favour with you by the courage of her martyrdom and the merit of her chastity. 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.