10th Sunday After Pentecost-- True Priorities

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

     The Gospel reading today directly follows the account in St. Matthew’s Gospel concerning the Transfiguration.  The Lord Jesus, and the disciples Peter, James and John come down from the high mountain, and encounter the father of the lunatic.  The other disciples have been trying to cast the demon out of the lunatic son, but with no success.  In the meantime, a crowd has gathered. 

     Just as with any passage from the Holy Scriptures, in order for our meditation to be truly profitable, we must put ourselves in the place of the various characters of this story.  We must enter into their sentiments and make their aspirations our own.

     First, we put ourselves in the place of the lunatic son.  We suffer terribly, and we often fall into fire and into water.  We suffer terribly on account of the effect of sin in our lives, because often we labour under the heavy burden of evil habits, or vices.  Often we “fall into fire and water,” that is, we suffer as a result of our propensity to anger and lust; while, on the other hand, we suffer from temptations and habits of depression, boredom and complacency.  While, on the one hand, our passions are too hot, on the other hand, our love for God is too cold.  We therefore spend our lives on the pendulum of vice, swinging between the heat of irascible passions, and the chill of forgetfulness of God.  Without practice in prayer and virtue, and real progress in the spiritual life, we will be incapable of escaping our circumstances and helping ourselves.  To put it another way, we cannot help ourselves at all.  Only Christ can help us to change our lives and become conformed to His Divine Nature. Recognizing ourselves in the lunatic son, we should pray to Christ everyday for His help in correcting our vices, casting out our evil habits, and conforming ourselves to His Divine Nature. 

     The father is also a role that we are familiar with.  Most of us can relate to having deep concern for another person: a child, a relative, a friend.  Our concerns can be about many things.  We can be preoccupied with our children’s prospects for employment or married life, their education or even their appearance.  Nevertheless, we should remind ourselves daily that our central and basic concern should be about the salvation of our loved ones.  Yes, we can be concerned about our loved ones’ physical health, but it is the health of their souls, which should bring us to our knees before God.  Throughout Christian history there are striking examples of this kind of holy concern.  For example, St. Bridget of Sweden, when her eldest son became involved with an immoral woman, prayed that her son would die rather than commit serious sin.  In the end, her prayer was heard, he died a holy death in the peace of the Church.  Similarly, St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo Regius prayed earnestly for thirty years that the direction of her son’s life would change toward God and the Church.  Her assiduous prayers were finally heard, after many sacrifices and mortifications, when St. Augustine was converted from a life of heresy and sexual immorality to a life of true faith and sincere piety.  We should be preoccupied everyday with concern for the salvation of those who are dear to us.  Who should be dear to us? First of all, our family members and friends, of course, should be first in our prayers. But after them, the salvation of every human being should be our concern, as we see them enslaved to false religions, sexual immorality, vice of all kinds, and forgetfulness of God.  Every abandoned human person, who believes that he is only an animal, and that the purpose of his life is the pursuit of pleasure, should be the concern of our prayers, and our prayers should be as insistent as those of the father in today’s Gospel reading.

     We can also place ourselves in the sentiments and aspirations of the disciples, as they ask the Lord Jesus, “Why could we not cast the demon out?” We too, at times, may have the same doubts, as we wonder, “why can we not change, even in the smallest ways, the evils of this world around us?” Or, perhaps, we have come to believe that we are indeed incapable of making any difference at all.  But the Lord Jesus answers our doubts, “You cannot change the direction of this sinful age because of your little faith.” With the disciples, we might well answer, “Lord, increase our faith.” But He says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would be able to say to this mountain, “be uprooted and thrown into the sea.” At times, we may become accustomed to a Christianity that is merely cultural, without the obligation to steady growth and progress in the spiritual life, but God is not willing to forget that our faith is a means to communion with Him.  Communion with God is the point of our faith. It will take work and dedication on our part to build the life of prayer, which leads to communion with God. The key is consistency in daily spiritual practice, even though we may, at times feel a great aversion to it.

     Central to the life of prayer is recognizing our sins and faults, and asking God to correct them, interceding for the salvation of others and for the world, and deepening our faith through daily spiritual exercises.