From pastor’s desk on the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time , year B
What is the key to wisdom, fulfillment, and happiness? Certainly, the world will provide all sorts of answers: education, the place you live in, money, power, popularity, good and meaningful relationships, etc.. Unfortunately, as we know from experience and observe the world, it does not work that way. For even if someone has all these things, he still can be miserable. How many famous and rich people are depressed and cannot find fulfillment in their lives?! If the human heart is empty, that is, devoid of God’s grace, nothing can satisfy it. On the contrary, the more goods one try to acquire, the more he or she will be irritated by those things, including by “good” relationships. Only in God the human heart must find solace and fulfillment.
The first reading of this Sunday provides a guideline to happiness and prosperity. However, it is different from what usually people seek in this world. God spoke through Moses to the Chosen People:
Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. (Deuteronomy 4:1)
One may say, “we are not Jews,” so these words are not addressed to us. Although those words indeed originally were addressed to the Israelites, St. Paul, a converted Jew, immediately interpreted them while saying that the Church of Christ is the New Israel. Thus, all who belong to Jesus Christ now become a new chosen nation. In light of this interpretation, that same Scripture passage still speaks to us, for we too are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” in Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Peter:2:9).
Regarding God’s promise of the land, we are not looking anymore for a specific geographic location like the Jews did. We do not search for another Promised Land, for we believe that the promised land is the life in God through Jesus. It is our faith that will lead us to that inner spiritual realm, in which we will experience blessedness, that is, true fulfillment and happiness. The road to that “land” begins with the careful observance of the Commandments, which encapsulate the love of God and the love of our neighbor. There is no way around God’s Commandments. This truth is many expressed times in the Sacred Scripture and emphasized by the teaching of the Church. Also many historical events can confirm its validity – only if it had opened our eyes to see it.
For that reason, God spoke first through Moses, and then through our Lord Jesus—the New Moses—the message of salvation. To understand it better let us read two fragments of the Sacred Scripture together. One from Deuteronomy (this Sunday’s first reading), another from the Gospel of John:
Observe them [the Commandments] carefully, for thus will you give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’ (Deuteronomy 4:6).
I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
(John 10:9)
Our Blessed Lord leads us to the fulfillment of the commandments; He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” He shows us the way to careful observance of God’s precepts, which, in turn, leads to wisdom, happiness, and even prosperity. What we see in today’s world is the opposite of what God instructs us to do. The world’s state of affairs reflects poor human condition. By and large, people have turned away from God and consequently they disregard the Commandments. As a result of this, there is an escalation of immorality, violence, wars, disdain for human dignity, and widespread stupidity or folly, to use Jesus’s words from this Sunday’s gospel.
I pray that all of us be truly faithful to what God reveals to us through the Holy Scriptures, including the Commandments and the precepts of the Church. Please teach the Commandments your children and grandchildren that they too may achieve authentic wisdom, blessedness, and prosperity.
Have a blessed week. Fr. Janusz Mocarski, Pastor