Dear Friends,
The story of the Young rich man who asked Jesus what he should do to enter the kingdom of heaven comes to my mind while reading today’s gospel. “God master, he said, “what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
I would say that this question is still ours today as we strive to follow Christ. The answer for us today is even simpler and less challenging than the one He gave to the rich young man: “Go and sell all that you have, and give it to the poor; then come and follow me.” Christ rather calls us to true freedom; the kind of freedom that goes beyond a simple feeling or attitude of doing whatsoever I want for my own sake. This freedom invites us to look around us and discover the chains that keep us from living as children of God. But what can really refrain us from living our identity and commitment as children of God? What does impair our freedom? The response is given us in the readings we listen to today.
In today’s gospel, Christ brings us to a new understanding of what can enslave us. The common tendency is to see the obstacle to our true freedom in someone else; the one standing in front of me. And we point fingers and accuse one another as the source and the cause of our misfortune. Christ wants us look not far from us but precisely in ourselves. In today’s gospel he wants us to search within us to find out the chains that enslave us: our eyes, hands, mouth, and mostly our hearts. These are the obstacles which hinder and block our journey to heaven, because they lead us to sin. Or more precisely, they are the instruments and the means we use to sin. Our eyes enslave us when they keep us away from seeing in one another nothing else but the image of God. It is only when we let God purify our eyes that we can be able to see His wonders and the goodness in other peoples around us. As long as our eyes will be blinded by anger, jealousy, prejudice and every kinds of evil, we will always remain slaves of sin, and the kingdom of God will remain away from our reach. Our hands enslave us when we use them to destroy and take something that does not belong to us. Our mouths enslave us and hinder our access to the kingdom of God when we use them as instruments to disparage others, to curse and to entertain gossip and defamation…
True freedom for us today is to let God free us from these bondages to look for happiness to God rather than to ourselves. As we strive to surrender to God’s will for an experience of the true freedom of God’s children, let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery