The five commands

In today’s gospel we have the well known story of the rich young man whose walks away sad because he apparently can’t give up his possesions. But if we look closely we see more. There are actually five commands that Jesus gives him as the way to perfection, the way to reach his goal.

GO - the first thing Jesus commands him to do is go away. That in itself can be very difficult for us. The idea of retreat, quiet, alone time with God can be too difficult. But if we are to be truly human, to be the people God created us to be, we must from time to time step away from what we know, step away from our routine, from the busyness that we call life.

SELL - It is interesting that Jesus does not tell him to give his possessions away. Jesus does not say,”Give what you have to the poor,” He commands him to sell it. To sell something I first of all have to know that it is valuable. I have to know the value of a thing, and set a price. Jesus is not telling him that possesions are valueless. On the contrary, to sell all he has means that he knows precisely how valuable the things are and the freely chooses to part with them. Bu at this pint in the process he would still have a safety net, the money from the sale.  He can still provide for himself.

GIVE - The third step is to let go of the safety net and simultaneously fulfill the second of the two great commands, love your neighbor. Again he must stretch. In a class driven society, he would not personally know any poor people. He would only see them as we see street people, from a certain distance.  To reach perfection, he cannot give the money to family and friends, he must give it to the poor.  Now he is truly free. And ready for the next command. 

COME - The fourth command is the opppsite of the first. He was told to go away, now he is commanded to draw near to Christ. No money, no possesions and therefore totally dependent on God and others for the needs of life. And yet, it is then that he is truly free. 

FOLOW - The last step may in fact be the most difficult. He is told to follow. The Greek literally means “to be on the same path”. The true disciple must walk the same road as Jesus, to walk with Jesus, day in and day out. It is not something you do once, it must become a way of life, all day every day. That is the hard part. 

In this simple story we are given the path to Christian perfect (go, sell, give, come, follow). Each of us must look into our hearts and discover how we are called to do each and f these things if we wish to reach our telos, our goal, our perfection. 

Why not Mary?

For many of our non-Catholic brothers and sisters the role of Mary can be difficult to understand. Unfortunately, we Catholics have, at times, contributed to the confusion by not being able to explain this aspect of our faith. We have all heard the crazy ideas, the most common being, “Catholics worship Mary.”

To explain our faith we need to reach back in the scriptures,

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Eph. 1:4)

Before God ever created the first atom of the universe, He knew his entire plan.  We see this most fully in the many ways that the Old Testament foreshadows the events in the New Testament. God prepares, not days or weeks ahead, but centuries ahead.  He prepares individuals for their unique missions. 

Secondly, we must remember the commandment,

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.(Ex.  20:12)

We believe that in all of human history God became incarnate one time, in Jesus Christ. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were unique events.  If we can agree that the events of Jesus were unique, should we not also agree that the role of Mary, as the one through whom he took on our humanity, was unique? And worthy of remembrance and celebration ?

And if we believe that we are brothers and sisters in and of Jesus and she is his mother, how could we possible say that she is not our mother?

And are we not commanded to honor our mother?

Today we celebrate God bringing his plan for Mary to its logical conclusion. Her role in history was unique and so the completion of that role was unique. What son would not do likewise for his mother?

The gift of Life

Today as I celebrate the gift of another year of life that has past, I must always spend time reflecting on the supernatural courage displayed by today’s saint, Maximilian Kolbe.

There is no more deeply rooted instinct in the human person than the drive to hold on to life.  And yet, St. Maximillian was willing to follow Christ in the  fullest way, surrending his own life to save another. His group of prisoners were sentenced to be starved to death, in an attempt to deter any other escape attempts.  When he did not die after two weeks, he was given an injection of carbolic acid. 

It is easy to imagine a parent who gives their life to save a child. But which of us would so simply surrender our life to save a stranger?

How did he do it?

If we look to his spiritual life we find a deep devotion to Mary.  Perhaps if we follow the example of his spiritual life, we may find ourselves more able to follow his example of self-sacrifice, not only for our friends and those we love.