28th Ordinary Sunday

The month of October is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and we all entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. On the first of October we prayed with St. Therese, recognising that we are all missionaries, Disciples of Christ. The Church teachings and programmes do help us to deepen our missionary spirit, a call to holiness.  It is a pity, however, that many of our Christians were unable to take advantage of them. 

The first reading asks us to discern everything before God. We heard Salmon’s prayer of thanksgiving, "all good things came to me with her and through her hands, incalculable riches."  In his discernment he chose God, divine wisdom. This discernment helped him to serve God and his people in justice and peace, so that even the Queen of Sebha came to meet him.  We all are searchers or seekers of truth.

We are all like this man in today's gospel. We all would like to inherit eternal life, the life promised by the Lord.  What should we do? The Lord invited Nicodemus to be born again, to be born again, as a child of God, so that he might see the angels of the Lord. Looking at this man, the gospel tells us, the Lord loved him. In this love He invited him to cling to God, God alone.

If we want our hearts to be filled with the love of God, we must know how to empty them, to empty even the human love, which is so precious to God. We are called to imitate the parable of the man in the gospel who found a precious pearl and sold everything he had so that he could buy it. Very often, we wish to inherit something wonderful without losing anything of ours.

Unfortunately, like that young man in the gospel, the contemporary humanity has lost the meaning of life. Man was content with whatever he received from the Lord and he abandoned God, the source of all the gifts that man seeks.  Very recently when Cardinal Robert Sarah analysed the reasoning behind Europe's degradation, he said that Europe has forgotten God. Let us not be naive, we cannot deny this truth.  We are slowly moving away from God.

We must recognise that not everything is up to us and we cannot do everything. It is impossible for us to empty ourselves fully, yet everything is possible for God, Jesus tells us. It is in this possibility that God asks us to let go, to sell or empty. It is not easy to surrender totally to God. With God everything is possible, St. Teresa of Avila tells us. 

If God asked him to sell everything, it was not so that he would be poor, a call to poverty. On the contrary, to be rich before God. This young man, lived in the poverty of grace, of divine mercy, a poverty of love and charity. He did not want to share his goods with his brothers and sisters who were poor.  Jesus wishes that we associate everything to God and to His will, because we have received everything from God. Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and give to God, what belongs to God.  Today’s readings calls us to freedom, to discern and apply the wisdom that God has given to us. This wisdom that we receive from the Word of God,  will certainly help us to empty ourselves and see the richness in our wilful poverty, where God will be the centre of everything. Amen.