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Theo Tigno•
8/15/2010 6:10 pm
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Monday, August 16th 2010 |
Matthew 19: 16-22
A young man approached Jesus and said, "Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?" He answered him, "Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." He asked him, "Which ones?" And Jesus replied, "You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Dawg's Thought:
Today's prayer intention - for those who are traveling.
In reflecting on today's reading, I heard the invitation of Christ to look at the beatitudes for the perfection that is in the rich young man in today's reading, as well as in me.
Here is an excerpt from Fr. John Harden (note: there were some errors, and I tried my best to clean them up for readability):
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A law and love. If we were to give a name to the Decalogue in one word it would be law. If we were to give a name in one word to the beatitudes we could say love. However we better be sure that these two, law and love, are seen as not only not incompatible. On the contrary, the one is an expression of the other. What the beatitudes do therefore is to bring out what is only implied in the Ten Commandments. What is it? That the laws of God are so many manifestations of His love. We commonly, but I would say incorrectly, think of a commandment as something we do not like to do, but ordered to obey under penalty of suffering if we disobey. I've seen it. A mother tells her boy to do something. He stands up, "do I have to do it?" "Yes, Johnny" as I've heard more than once from my mother, "you have to do it." The beatitudes on the other hand are so many divine assurances of happiness from a loving God. Certainly we have to cooperate with his will. Yes, we must submit our selfish desires for what we want to His all-wise demands corresponding to what we really need. But as beatitudes they are not so much demands or commands as loving invitations from, I repeat, a loving God. God gains nothing from our doing His will. Nothing. All the gain is ours. To love someone is to share what I have with the one I claim to love. In the beatitudes Christ is giving us a share in His own divine happiness both here and hereafter. All we have to do is follow His example.
Everyone wants to be happy -- the universal desire of the human heart. Yet so many people are not only unhappy but sad, discouraged, despairing ... It cannot be because they do not want happiness. It can only be either because they do not know how to be truly happy or they may know all right but they are unwilling to pay the price. There is no greater lesson we can teach others than the lesson we have learned ourselves. The happiness promised us by Christ in the beatitudes is the joy of doing the will of God. This is the only true joy here on earth as it is the only true promise of perfect joy in the world to come. If I were to identify false joy, the joy promised us by the world it is the happiness that comes from doing your own will. And conversely true joy taught by Christ and enshrined in the beatitudes comes only and in the measure that we are doing the will of God.
(http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Beatitudes/Beatitudes_006.htm)
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Take care and God Bless.
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