The Focus that Motivates
by Fr. David M. Knight
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Thirtieth Week of the Year
Lectionary 149
Jer 31:7-9/Heb 5:1-6/Mk 10:46-52
Inventory
What has God done and is doing for you? How do you use the memory of his great deeds, and little acts of kindness, to motivate and strengthen you?
Remember and rejoice
The Responsorial Psalm gives us the theme of the first reading and the Gospel. It reminds us that we are “filled with joy” by remembering: “the Lord has done great things for us.”
Jeremiah 31: 7-9 summons us to “Shout with joy… exult… proclaim your praise, and say, ‘The Lord has delivered his people.’” As a basis for this hope Jeremiah calls us to remember how God delivered his people in the past. He recalls God’s words to Israel: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
God promises to “deliver,” “bring back” and “gather” his people. He will “console,” “guide” and “lead” them, because he is “a father to Israel; Ephraim is my first-born.”
This is what should be in the back of our minds when we pray at Mass, “Lord, have mercy.” To “have mercy” means to “come to the aid of another out of a sense of relationship.” God has shown through his “faithfulness” and “mercy” to Israel what it means for him to love us as a father loves a first-born.
For that is what we are. By Baptism we have “become Christ,” sharing in his divine life, as he became one of us by taking on human life in his Incarnation. In the Mass we praise the Father for sending Jesus “as one like ourselves… so that you might see and love in us what you see and love in Christ.” (Sunday Preface VII)
Jesus is called the “first-born of many brothers and sisters,” and “firstborn of the dead,” because when he came out of the tomb, as once he came out of the womb of Mary, we came out with him, “reborn” to new life, reborn as a “new creation,” to be and live as his own body on earth. Because we are in Christ, God’s only Son, we are all God’s “firstborn.” We have “become Christ,” and God is as faithful to us as he is faithful to Jesus himself. (See Romans 6:4, 8:9; Colossians 1:18; 2Corinthians 5:17; Revelation 1:15. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 795.)
Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” We can say with equal truth, “As Jesus loves us, so does the Father love us.” That is why Jesus could say, “the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” When the Father sees us, he sees Jesus. (John 15:9; 16:26-27)
This is what gives us confidence as we work and pray for the establishment of God’s reign in the world. We have the confidence Jesus had that the Father always heard his prayers. This is the confidence Paul imparted to his co-workers when he repeatedly assured them of “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” (See John 11:41-42; 1Timothy 1:2; 2Timothy 1:2,; Titus 1:4; and see 2John 1:3.)
In spite of the indifference and apathy we find in fellow Christians (and in ourselves!), and in spite of all the opposition and power of the world, we remember with confidence that “The Lord has done great things for us” and “we are filled with joy.”
What do you want?
We have been asking God to help us “do with loving hearts what you ask of us.” In Mark 10: 46-52 Jesus reverses the question. He asks the blind man and us: “What do you want me to do for you?”
Naturally, the blind man wanted to see. But we know that Jesus’ miracles of physical healing were meant as signs and proof of his power to heal us spiritually. Healed bodies will still die, eventually. But Jesus came that we might “have life, and have it to the full” — and forever. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16; 10:10)
The “sight” the blind man was asking for would have been at best temporary and — in the full range of reality — myopic, if it were only physical sight. But Jesus gives like for like. He says, “Your faith has healed you.” So when the Gospel tells us that the man “immediately started to follow him,” we know that the sight he received was also the light of faith: “sight to the full.” He would find “life to the full” and “joy to the full” by using his sight to “search for the Lord…. seek always the face of the Lord” by the light of faith.
For each one of us Jesus has worked a miracle greater than any of his physical healings on earth. Each of us has received the gift of divine enlightenment, the gift of sharing in God’s own divine act of knowing by sharing in God’s own divine life. We have been made, not just whole but holy: holy as God is holy.
As he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
The key to conduct is vision:
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
Jesus attributed the perfection of his own behavior to this:
The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
When we see God, we will be perfect: “When he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”
Jesus tells us to strive for this now: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We do this by trying to grow in that faith by which we come to know the face and heart of God: “Let hearts rejoice who search for the Lord…. Seek always the face of the Lord.”
Called by God
A first step in getting to know the Lord is to remember what he has done for us: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”
Hebrews 5: 1-6 invites us to recall the “great thing” the Lord did for us when he anointed and consecrated us prophets, priests and kings by Baptism. The letter specifies that “one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God.” We are prophets, priests and stewards of God’s kingship only because by Baptism we have become what Jesus is. Jesus was
appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son...” and “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
And “in him” so are we. We need to remember this when we feel weak or discouraged and use the memory of God’s great deeds to strengthen us to serve him. “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”
Insight: What are the greatest things God has done for me? How do they motivate me?
Initiative: As you begin work, thank God for making you a steward of his kingship.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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