Monday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time A-1
Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 18 (17):19-20 The Lord became my protector. He brought me out to a place of freedom; he saved me because he delighted in me.
Collect Grant us, O Lord, we pray, that the course of our world may be directed by your peaceful rule and that your Church may rejoice, untroubled in her devotion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Scripture today: 1 Peter 1:3-9; Psalm 111:1-2, 5-6, 9 and 10c; Mark 10:17-27
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No-one is good — except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honour your father and mother.' Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. (Mark 10:17-27)
God and Morality Many years ago I used to notice an aspect of the literature of the time that I found to be revealing. When I was a boy I loved to read the Tarzan, Superman, Batman and Phantom comics. Take any one of those characters. Each of them was a fantasy, and each was highly moral. No immorality entered into their activities in the stories, of which they were the main protagonists. But equally, not one of them was religious. God was altogether absent from the stories. Their morality was religiously agnostic. Presumably this reflected the intent of their creators who, in their turn, were children of their cultures. The characters of those stories were secular. Morality was completely separated from religion. They were moral but entirely disinterested in religion. Of course, moral characters in fiction need not be like this as we see in the character, say, of Deerslayer/Pathfinder in the novels of James Fernimore Cooper of the nineteenth century. But my point here is to raise the issue of the relationship between morality and religion, of being good and being religious. In our Gospel today (Mark 10:17‑27) a man came to our Lord to ask what he must do to gain eternal life. So he was religious. He wanted to attain God and he saw in Jesus his guide to God. Moreover, he was very moral. Our Lord told him that he must keep God’s commandments. If he did that he would gain eternal life. The man responded by saying that he had done this from his earliest years, and it was evident that his moral life, his goodness, had had religion for its inspiration. He had kept the commandments of God in order to please God. His case reminds us that religion is a tremendous inspiration for morality. The good life finds its incentive in God and religion. If we want to be good, having a real relationship with God will inspire us to be so. In turn, if we want to be religious we must strive to be good. Our man in the Gospel of today reminds us of all this.
When the man gave his reply to our Lord, our Lord looked on him and loved him. Man’s efforts to be good and to do God’s will draw down on him the special affection of God. It perhaps reminds us of that occasion in the Gospel when our Lord was preaching the word to a group of his disciples. Word came through the crowd that his mother and his brethren wished to see him. His reply was, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Anyone who does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.” In a special way Christ loved those who strove to do God’s will. But there is more still. Having looked on this good young man who had made it his business since his youth to be good, Christ proceeded to invite him to something further. He invited him to take the path of perfection and that path was the following of him. Goodness finds its inspiration in God and religion, but the path to perfection lies in the following of Jesus Christ. The converse of this is that the desire to be good may be regarded as the foundation or the basic soil in which the seed of this higher life is planted. If a person is striving to be good he is disposing himself for the higher call from Christ. However, if the call comes, the person may still refuse and this we see in the young man of our Gospel today. Christ called him to perfection and it meant leaving all and following him. He went away sad because he had many possessions to which he was attached. He was a good man. He desired God and heaven. He had always been good and he was certainly religious. Christ loved him and honoured him with a special call to follow him. But he turned it down and with that he turned down the chance of attaining perfection in goodness and holiness of life. It was a tremendous tragedy for one with so much promise, but it shows that at any point a person may use his freedom to falter in the upward path.
God and morality are profoundly connected. If we wish to be good, then we must love and serve God. If we wish to love and serve God, God will expect us to strive to be good. The secular outlook that divorces religion from morality and regards morality as essential and religion as peripheral is profoundly flawed. It will lead to the breakdown of morality. God is the life of man and Christ is the way to God. Indeed, he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. So let us hear his word, let us feel his love, and let us follow him. At the same time, if we wish to love God, we must strive to be good.
(E.J.Tyler)
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