30th Sunday, Year B (Gospel: Mark 10:46-52) What do you want me to do for you?

 

You know the story of the man trapped in a flood after a hurricane. The waters are rising fast, but he is a man of faith and prays to God for deliverance, confident that God will rescue him.

 

As the waters reach the second floor, he is at the window and sees a rescue boat coming. They call to him to get in, but he refuses saying, ‘It’s ok, God will rescue me.’ Try as they might, they cannot convince him and eventually have to leave.

 

As the waters continue to rise he climbs onto the roof. Another boat shows up and calls to him to get on board before it’s too late, but again he refuses, confident that God will rescue him.

 

Now he is at the pinnacle of the roof with the waters still rising. Then a helicopter appears and lowers a rope to rescue him, but again he refuses the help, assuring them that God will rescue him.

 

Not long after, he drowns. When he comes before God, he asks, ‘Lord, why didn’t you rescue me?’ The Lord replies, ‘I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more do you want?’

 

Imagine for a moment if at one time before you die, the Lord himself appeared to you and asked you one question: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ the same question he asked the blind man. Notice how He didn’t presume the blind man wanted healing, but asked him. What would you ask him? Maybe it would be a cure for a physical illness, or for someone you know. Maybe it would be to resolve a difficult situation to, like a marriage that’s in trouble, or maybe for help for your children. Perhaps it would be for more faith. If you are foolish it might be for lots of money.

 

I think I might ask God to give me more faith, faith to recognise what we already have, to see what is in front of me. We ask for help all the time, we ask God to be present to us, we ask God to forgive and heal us… and He does, but we often don’t recognise it.

 

Often we feel alone on this journey and wish that God was closer to us and not just observing us. We would like to know that Jesus is looking after us: and He is. In every mass Jesus becomes present to us in the Eucharist, when the bread and wine really and truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. We can receive Jesus into our own bodies every day if we wish. There is nothing more intimate than this. God is not just observing us from a distance to see if we measure up, He is present to us every step of the way.

 

We want to know that we are forgiven, so that we can be at peace and we want to be healed. Many people live in dread of the sins of their past. God offers us his forgiveness and healing through confession, but we often see it as a burden, something the Church tells us we have to do. If we could really see what it is, no one would have to tell us that we need to go. Everyone would want to go, because each time we go to confession we experience the forgiveness and healing power of God’s grace. Confession is one of the sacraments of healing, but Satan is clever and has managed to convince many people that this is just a power trip for the priests and that we don’t need to confess to anyone except God directly. Satan does not want us to go to confession because he knows how powerful confession is and how close it brings us to God. It always makes me sad when I visit people who are dying and I ask them if they would like to make a confession and they say ‘no.’ God has sent them a priest, but they don’t take advantage of it.

 

When I was working in Venice (Florida), I came to know a lady whose family were originally from my home town, so she felt a special connection to me. When I moved to Fort Myers she asked if I would come and see her, which I did. I ended up visiting her twice. Her family were originally from my hometown of Galway, in Ireland, so she felt we had a special connection. Each time she complained that her Church had abandoned her and would not come to her need. I pointed out both times that not only had God sent her a priest, twice, but a priest from her hometown, but she still complained, ‘My Church has abandoned me.’ She couldn’t see what was right before her.

 

I visited a young lady (40s) in the hospital one time. She said she didn’t want to see me, or talk to me, which is fine. A few hours later she died. God sent her a priest, but she turned me away. I’m not judging her on that, but God often sends us help that we don’t recognize.

 

There is a temptation to want to see God in a spectacular way, which would be nice, but usually that is not how God works. God’s presence is subtle.

 

We wonder if God hears or answers our prayers. Jesus says ‘Ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will be opened to you, seek and you will find. Whoever asks always receives…’ (Matt 7:7-8). God always hears us and always answers us, but it may not be the answer we were hoping for, or we may not recognize the answer. God knows what we need the most, even though we may not see it. If your seven-year-old son asks for a chainsaw for his birthday, hopefully you won’t give him one. He may be angry and think that you are mean and don’t care about him, but because you are older and wiser, you know that that is not what he needs.

 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, ‘So, do not say, what are we to eat, what are we to drink, what are we to wear? Your heavenly Father knows all your needs. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be given to you as well.’ (Mt 6.31). God must be at the center and then everything else will fit into place.

 

Several times I have led the OCIA course (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults), for people who want to become Catholic, or who have been baptized but never received their confirmation. The course runs from October through Easter. It is always a joy for me to see the eagerness and excitement as we come near Easter and they are about to come into the Church. They can see all that God offers us with new eyes. Last year a lady was baptized, confirmed and received her first Eucharist at Easter. She said it was the most memorable day of her life, and it was really a joy to see.

How do we become more aware of this presence of God around us? Through prayer. That’s why Jesus spent so much of his time trying to teach people to pray, so that they would become aware of the reality of God with them and around them. When we pray and give time to God and the things of God, we start to recognise how much God is all around us, in everything we do, in people we meet. I always think it is great to see so many people calling into the church during the day, sometimes just for a moment; to be silent, or to speak to the Lord, or to ask for something. These are all different ways of praying, of being with God and simply acknowledging God’s presence.

 

We talk about God sometimes as if God were an optional extra in our world. You can choose to believe in God or not. The truth is the other way around. We are the optional extra. God is there one way or the other, whether we acknowledge him or not, but we are only here because God has created us and keeps us in existence. We need not exist, but God exists no matter what.

 

I heard a priest say once, ‘If God isn’t in your money He isn’t in your life.’ In other words God is meant to be in every part of our life, if He is there at all. Otherwise we are practical atheists. We can know that God is there but do nothing about him. That is practical atheism. You know that your next-door neighbor exists, but if you never speak to him, or meet him, or bother with him, he or she might as well not be there. That is practical atheism and there are a lot of practical atheists around. 

 

If God is to be part of our life, we have to continually communicate with him. That’s what prayer is. If you find yourself saying that you don’t have time for prayer, ask yourself how much time you give to your cell phone. When was the last time you decided that you would no longer eat or sleep, because you don’t have time? We make time for what is important to us.

 

Talk to God in your car on the way to work; that is prayer. Being aware of God in your home, even if it is noisy, is prayer. Reading the word of God; spending some time in silence. God has plenty to say, if we take the time to listen. The more we pray, the more we will recognise that God has already given us everything we need. God is deeply concerned about us, about every aspect of our lives and God always answers us when we pray. We have his word for it. ‘Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks, always receives’ (Luke 11:9).

 

 

 

28th Sunday Year B (Gospel: Mark: 10:17-30)

 

There is a priest by the name of Benedict Groeschel from New York, he died in 2014. He founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a reformed branch of the Franciscans. Fr. Groeschel is an excellent speaker and in one of his talks he was saying that there is a man he knows in New York who is a multi millionaire, with more money than he could ever spend, or knows what to do with.  Benedict goes on to say that he was talking to this man at a particular conference and he—let us call him John Goldman—was saying to Benedict that he would like to put his money to good use, but he didn’t know what to do with it.  He admitted straight out that he had more money than he could ever spend.  Benedict said that if he wanted he could give a donation to one of the orphanages that they run in the Bronx, as it would make a big difference to them.  In spite of the fact that it was John Goldman himself who brought up the subject and admitted that he didn’t know what to do with all his money and wanted to put it to good use, by the end of the conference he still hadn’t agreed to part with one cent of his money. Benedict was saying that it was as if he was possessed by his wealth. He had no freedom. His wealth controlled him.

 

Most of us don’t have that kind of problem. In fact, most people have the opposite problem, but it is still very easy to become consumed even with the desire for money, or riches, or indeed anything. The problem is not the riches themselves, but our attachment to them.

 

In the Gospel, see how Jesus responds to the rich young man who is keen to live the right way.  When he asks Jesus what he should do to get to heaven, Jesus doesn’t say ‘You should sell all your possessions,’ first He says, ‘You know the commandments; live them.’ It is only when he is pressed further that Jesus says, ‘Go and sell all you own...’  What is he doing? Jesus is showing the young man that he is not as free as he thinks he is. In spite of the fact that he could probably buy anything he desires and do anything he wants because of his wealth, he is in fact a slave to his riches. Jesus is not trying to make the young man feel bad, or guilty, rather, since he did ask, Jesus is pointing out where the problem is for him. The problem is not in having riches, since riches are neither good nor bad, but that we get so attached to them that we are no longer free. No doubt the young man felt he was living a good life and probably was, but the Lord wanted him to see that he was not as free as he thought. You don’t have to be very wealthy for that to happen. 

 

St. John of the Cross says that if you become too attached to your rosary beads, get rid of them. He also says there is no point in taking a vow of poverty if you are still consumed with the desire for the things that you have given up. The freedom from them is what is really important.

 

There is a story of two monks out walking on a journey. They come across a creek and they meet a young lady who is trying to get across, but she is afraid. So one of the monks offers to carry her across. She accepts and he carries her across the creek, lets her down and then they part ways. After some time the other monk says, ‘You shouldn’t have carried that lady across the creek. You are a monk!’ The first monk says, ‘When I carried her across, I left her down and walked away, but you are still carrying her in your mind.’ We can become obsessed with anything.

 

Thank God for what you do have, but ask yourself are you free from it, or a slave to it? Because if you are a slave to it—thinking that you could not do without it—then it is the master. Think of your cell-phone. Most of us would find it pretty hard to do without it.

 

God wants us to be free to open ourselves up to God and to enjoy this beautiful world that He has given us, but God is the only thing that is really important. Everything else is going to be left behind when we die, even our bodies. They will disintegrate. That is why Jesus is telling us not to get caught up with what is ultimately trivial and forget the only thing that matters. We should enjoy what we have, but don’t let it become the master.

 

For those of you who have children. How much time and energy do you put into preparing them for this life, which is temporary? Probabaly a lot! But how much time do you put into preparing them for the world to come, which is eternal? Probably not as much.

 

When people hear this gospel, many people only hear the part where Jesus says, ‘How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ But perhaps the most important part of this Gospel is the last part. When Jesus says, ‘How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,’ the apostles are astonished, just as most of us probably find this hard to understand too, since the general thinking is that if we had enough money, it would resolve most of our problems. But when the Apostles ask, ‘Then who can be saved?’ or in modern English, ‘Who can get to heaven?’ then Jesus says, ‘For people [by their own strength] it is impossible, but not for God.  Everything is possible for God.’ That is the really important thing to remember. Everything is possible for God. By our own strength we are very limited in what we can do, despite our best efforts, because we are weak and we easily get distracted by wealth, or work, or relationships or whatever. God knows that we often get caught up in all the wrong things, just like the rich young man in the story, but God is bigger than all of this. God is bigger than the mistakes we make, bigger than the mixed motivations for what we do. That is why we just keep coming back to him and asking him to help us, to forgive us, to guide us: and He does. The wonderful thing that God continues to teach us, is that it is never too late to come back to him.

 

The disciples said: ‘If that is the case, then who can be saved?’ Jesus said: ‘For people it is impossible, but not for God; because everything is possible for God.’