A parishioner's Gospel reflection
Jess and the Rich young man
14 October 2018: 28th Sunday of the Year (Cycle B)
Parishioner’s Gospel
Contributor: Bill Smith
Mark 10: 17-30
The story of the rich young man presents us with an almost impossible challenge. He comes to Jesus declaring that he is leading a good life by keeping the commandments. He looks for Jesus’ approval of his lifestyle - almost expecting to be given a pat on the back and to be told he is doing what is required of him. He is taken aback when Jesus then says that he should give away his vast worldly wealth and give it to the poor, and he goes away disconsolate feeling this is asking just too much.
Many in this part of the world struggle to make ends meet and perhaps have little to share with others. However, many more of us do enjoy a comfortable standard of living while our brothers and sisters in poor countries are under-nourished. Is it enough to respond by making a token donation to charity and patting ourselves on the back?
The message for us is that we should never feel self-satisfied but should strive continually to do better. Whatever we do we can never be good enough to deserve heaven as our eternal reward unaided. Only Christ himself earned that possibility for us by dying on the Cross.
If we were to ask Jesus “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" we could find the answer in our own hearts.
We know ourselves well enough to realise our shortcomings and what we might do to lead a better life.21 October 2018: 29th Sunday of the Year (Cycle B)
Parishioner’s Gospel
Contributor: Aidan Twomey
Mark 10: 35-45
The legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once claimed his right back could start a riot in a graveyard. We hear today Jesus dealing with his own troublemakers, James and John, the Sons of Thunder. They have caused a kerfuffle by asking for plum spots in paradise. We tend to read this as a warning against projecting earthly ambition into heaven, but while we may tut and shake our heads, note that Jesus doesn’t tell them that they shouldn’t shoot for the glory. Jesus merely tells them that seats in the order God has created are not his to allocate, and that they have no idea what they would suffer to get them. Well St James The Greater would find out soon enough, martyred in Jerusalem.
Mercifully, martyrdom is not currently a regular event in Orpington, but we live in a time when the order God intends for his creation is everywhere overwhelmed by a desire that each of us should mould our own life to fit our appetites. Everything - our jobs, our relationships, even our own bodies - is plastic. It will soon be legally impossible to enter into a marriage contract with the intention of lifelong commitment. Our State pays to correct the mistake God made when he created us male and female. Perhaps it will soon be a hate crime to object. Our economy is being essentially removed from any locality, with transactions conducted so overwhelmingly online that the poor and the lonely will stop being a daily reality in our lives and eternally someone else’s problem. And it will be like this because many people, by their choices, willed it to be so. As Christians we may need to stand aside from this liquid modernity and find ways of living that keep our aim heavenward.
For some of us this may be disastrous. Our professional or social lives may become impossible. Partaking in routine political decisions, even by voting, may become untenable. We may need to truly be in the world but not of it, withdrawing to the peripheries to reconstruct a Catholic culture. The order that God has created is real, and will endure, and we should strive for an exalted place in it, enduring what we must.
We pray with the Blessed Virgin Mary that we to whom in the incarnation of Christ was made known by the intercession of an angel, may by his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection.
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Parishioner’s Gospel
Contributor: Bill Smith
Mark 10: 17-30
The story of the rich young man presents us with an almost impossible challenge. He comes to Jesus declaring that he is leading a good life by keeping the commandments. He looks for Jesus’ approval of his lifestyle - almost expecting to be given a pat on the back and to be told he is doing what is required of him. He is taken aback when Jesus then says that he should give away his vast worldly wealth and give it to the poor, and he goes away disconsolate feeling this is asking just too much.
Many in this part of the world struggle to make ends meet and perhaps have little to share with others. However, many more of us do enjoy a comfortable standard of living while our brothers and sisters in poor countries are under-nourished. Is it enough to respond by making a token donation to charity and patting ourselves on the back?
The message for us is that we should never feel self-satisfied but should strive continually to do better. Whatever we do we can never be good enough to deserve heaven as our eternal reward unaided. Only Christ himself earned that possibility for us by dying on the Cross.
If we were to ask Jesus “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" we could find the answer in our own hearts.
We know ourselves well enough to realise our shortcomings and what we might do to lead a better life.21 October 2018: 29th Sunday of the Year (Cycle B)
Parishioner’s Gospel
Contributor: Aidan Twomey
Mark 10: 35-45
The legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once claimed his right back could start a riot in a graveyard. We hear today Jesus dealing with his own troublemakers, James and John, the Sons of Thunder. They have caused a kerfuffle by asking for plum spots in paradise. We tend to read this as a warning against projecting earthly ambition into heaven, but while we may tut and shake our heads, note that Jesus doesn’t tell them that they shouldn’t shoot for the glory. Jesus merely tells them that seats in the order God has created are not his to allocate, and that they have no idea what they would suffer to get them. Well St James The Greater would find out soon enough, martyred in Jerusalem.
Mercifully, martyrdom is not currently a regular event in Orpington, but we live in a time when the order God intends for his creation is everywhere overwhelmed by a desire that each of us should mould our own life to fit our appetites. Everything - our jobs, our relationships, even our own bodies - is plastic. It will soon be legally impossible to enter into a marriage contract with the intention of lifelong commitment. Our State pays to correct the mistake God made when he created us male and female. Perhaps it will soon be a hate crime to object. Our economy is being essentially removed from any locality, with transactions conducted so overwhelmingly online that the poor and the lonely will stop being a daily reality in our lives and eternally someone else’s problem. And it will be like this because many people, by their choices, willed it to be so. As Christians we may need to stand aside from this liquid modernity and find ways of living that keep our aim heavenward.
For some of us this may be disastrous. Our professional or social lives may become impossible. Partaking in routine political decisions, even by voting, may become untenable. We may need to truly be in the world but not of it, withdrawing to the peripheries to reconstruct a Catholic culture. The order that God has created is real, and will endure, and we should strive for an exalted place in it, enduring what we must.
We pray with the Blessed Virgin Mary that we to whom in the incarnation of Christ was made known by the intercession of an angel, may by his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection.
********************************************