GRACE OF SERVICE AND FRUITFULNESS

FRIDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME     

1 Pet 4:7-13; Ps 96:10-13; Mk 11:11-26

The Special Graces of Service

Understanding our new life and spiritual relationships with God reforms our understanding and knowledge of the material and temporal life and realities therein. We have access to temporal and spiritual realities through our natural and spiritual lives. We are accustomed to the former, for we knew no other until we came to know Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. The latter is received, as it were, in the former; It grows only to the extent we give it attention and the required spiritual food. We can afford an unconscious living in the former, carried only by the senses and their attractions to sensible things. But the spiritual life needs our conscious and constant attention. Saint Peter, in order to help us develop this consciousness, reminds us of the temporality of the physical world. “Everything will soon come to an end, so, to pray better, keep a calm and sober mind above all, never let your love for each other grow insincere, since love covers over many a sin.” A constant remembrance of the illusory nature of the physical world puts us in the mood of prayer. In other words, understanding that everything we see will pass away with our natural life gives us an orientation for the spiritual and permanent realities. This is the wisdom that Psalm 90 expresses: ‘Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

What is required is a spiritual reference point; we need the grace to have our new spirit as the principle of our daily living. Without this grace, we experience life as a person in a moving vehicle. Such a one may become unaware of his motion due to the motion of the vessel containing him. But fixing his gaze on things outside the vessel makes him aware of his movement and the things passing by as the journey progresses. So, we set our minds on what is stable instead of setting them on the passing things. This will mean working on developing ourselves on what matters and what is valuable, as Peter recommends to us, saying, “Welcome each other into your houses without grumbling. Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others.” The graces are special, which are sent to each of us daily, because God ordered them for our sanctification and that of others around us. Previously, we have understood these graces to comprise sensible goods and favours, trials and persecutions, and spiritual gifts that build us up in Jesus Christ. God sends his graces to make us better at our priestly roles and duties. Hence, Peter added: “My dear people, you must not think it unaccountable that you should be tested by fire. There is nothing extraordinary in what has happened to you. If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed.”

The Lord prepares the world for his everlasting rule through the active participation of his members in the priestly sacrifice of his life to the Father. The sacrifice is achieved once and for all on the Cross of Calvary, but continues in the lives of his members, through whom he brings about his mysterious reign in the world. What is now present in mysteries would be unveiled when the façade of the temporal realities is put aside. All those who are deceived by the temporal façade of physical goods and stability would be caught off guard and unprepared for the everlasting reality and kingdom of God. They would be sentenced as the Son of Man had sentenced the deceptive fig tree. “Next day as they were leaving Bethany, he felt hungry. Seeing a fig tree in leaf some distance away, he went to see if he could find any fruit on it, but when he came up to it he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season for figs. And he addressed the fig tree. ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again’ he said.” Being out of season rightly excuses the fig tree. But because the Lord intends to teach us through the event, the fig stands for each of us planted in God’s vineyard and watered by the divine stream of grace; every season is for fruition. We must pay faithful attention and drink deeply of the graces he sends.

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 and her children fruitful in good and charitable works. Through our Lord Jesus, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.