It's Columbus Day Weekend; and now for the first time October 11 is Indigenous Peoples Day. Christopher Columbus symbolizes, for me, perseverance. Probably born in the Italian seaport city of Genoa, he became a sailor and explorer. If the world was round, he surmised you can reach the east by sailing west. It took a long time to finally convince Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to fund the exploration.
Columbus' voyages connected the so-called Old and New Worlds. Thus, began the age of great discovery with its triumphs and tragedies.
A person of vision, Columbus never gave up on his dream. And we have our dreams too. Not all dreams come true, but some will if we persevere.
The word of God takes us back to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel. The author pleads, not for wealth or power or fame or beauty, but for true wisdom.
That enables us to distinguish what’s important in life, to answer those fundamental questions: What am I living for? What is my purpose? Today we might ask God to grace us anew with true wisdom.
The Letter to the Hebrews speaks about the word of God which, like a surgical knife, can open us up and reveal our true purpose: living an other-centered, God-centered life.
The author may be asking you and me: what drives us? God and service to our fellow human beings? Or our own self-concerns?
In the Gospel, we have the story of the well-to-do young man who is not content with his life. He’s looking for something more. He wants eternal life.
Oh, yes, he has observed all the commandments. But he wants to know: what else should he do? And Jesus recognizes the potential for spiritual greatness within him and says: Go, sell what you have and follow me.
Sadly, this person couldn’t give up what he had. He couldn’t see the potential within himself to follow Jesus.
Yes, the young man was searching for fuller and deeper meaning. The so-called “good life” didn’t seem to satisfy him.
Wanting to live for something more, greater than oneself, motivates many people.
A well-known twentieth century author, Viktor Frankl, was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, just outside of Munich, Germany. Among the books he wrote is the classic “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
In prewar Vienna, Frankl had a wife, two children, a good psychiatric profession and a comfortable home. But he lost all of these because he was Jewish. In the concentration camp, he lost every earthly thing he treasured – wife, children, profession, home. And these losses brought him face-to-face with the fundamental questions of life: What should I be living for? What is my purpose?
Frankl discovered that people could put up with incredible hardships, cruelties and sufferings, without losing their serenity and respect for others, provided they saw that these hardships had some ultimate meaning.
In their hearts, people yearn for
something or someone that can bring greater value to their lives.
This can take different forms: such
as family, a profession, a passion for human rights, the greater common good,
and so forth. When a person finds something with transcendent meaning, that
meaning awakens new energies within. People see more, perform better and, in
short, they become men and women of faith.
Every person of faith has someone or something to whom he or she gives their ultimate allegiance. That objective may be something quite finite -- wealth or power as in today’s Gospel -- or it may be God himself, the absolute good.
The 19th century Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky in his classic “Brothers Karamozov” wrote: “Every man, every woman, must bend his or her knee before some god.”
You and I profess to find the ultimate
purpose of life in a relationship with
God, a God who:
--by the power of the Spirit became one of us in Jesus;
--transformed the crucified Jesus
into a new heavenly reality; and is alive
among us today especially in the sacramental life of our global faith
community;
--challenges us to reach out compassionately to his image in our fellow human beings; and eventually to let go of our earthly life in the mystery of death, so that we can be transformed into a new kind of spiritual embodiment, like the Risen Christ.
Jesus in the Gospel recognized the potential for spiritual greatness in the young man, and when asked, gave him a pathway. But the man walked away.
What obstacles might be within ourselves, that keep us from experiencing the fullness of life in God's kingdom? How can we roll away those stumbling blocks that prevent us from following Jesus?
I hope that each one of us recognizes the potential for greatness within one another. And I hope that recognition will compel us to help one another, to realize the incredible potential for good that we all have and just do it.
