I’m trying something different for recording the homily: AudioBoo on my iPad.
(Yes, that is a thunder clap about half way through. There was a thunderstorm outside when I recorded this.)
I admit it. I like the things of the world. I like having stuff, using stuff, collecting stuff, buying stuff, and desiring more stuff. I don’t think I’m alone in this. Most, if not all of us, have, want, buy, use, and collect the stuff of the world. In itself, possessing and using the things of the world are not bad. In fact, many of the things we possess are tools which make our lives easier. We would much rather live in a house instead of a cave. Laundry machines clean our clothes easier and more thoroughly than washing them in a bucket. It’s a lot easier and faster to travel between towns in a car than by foot.
The problem with possessions is when we allow them to become attachments. Instead of the car or house being a tool to make our lives easier, it becomes something we just can’t live without. We begin to place our possessions over everything else in our lives, even our very salvation, which is what Jesus warns us against in today’s Gospel: “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
As Christians, this warning by Our Lord should be a wake-up call. We should be taking these words and reevaluating our lives. Do I allow my possessions to dictate my life, or do I allow the things of God to lead me? As Christians, we are called to separation from the world. “In the world, but not of the world” is a common phrase that clearly expresses how we should relate to the things of earth. We can have possessions and use them, we can be involved in earthly activities, but we must not allow those earthly possessions and activities to rule our lives.
As Christians, we need to seek constantly to avoid attachments to the things of the earth, things which will one day pass away, and develop attachments to the things of Heaven, the things of God which will never pass away. This doesn’t mean that we’re all called to live a monastic or cloistered life. Even where Our Lord says that we must hate our fathers, mothers, spouses, children, or siblings, His words aren’t an encouragement to neglect our responsibilities to our families. What He is warning against is allowing anything in this world to get between us and seeking God’s will for our lives and the eternal life He promises.
By maintaining this separation from the things of the world and seeking God’s will, we are fulfilling the call to holiness that we all share. Seeking holiness is not something that the “professional religious” such as priests and professed religious do, but all Christians must spend every day of their lives striving to be holy.
There is a risk in striving to be holy: we have to be willing to accept suffering in our lives. We already know that our lives are full of suffering naturally, but seeking holiness means accepting that suffering just as Our Lord accepted the suffering on the Cross. Jesus tells us, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” To follow Our Lord means taking up our suffering in this life and uniting it with His suffering on the Cross. Through this union of our suffering with Our Lord’s, we can see that the suffering we face in this life is just as much a part of God’s will as the joys we experience in order to prepare us for the eternal life in Heaven.
Of course, that’s very difficult for us to understand, as we don’t want to suffer. We constantly seek to find ways to alleviate the suffering. The problem is that we don’t truly understand God’s will. As the Book of Wisdom puts it, “scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in Heaven, who can search them out?”
We barely understand why things happen here on earth, and have almost no clue as to why God allows much of what happens in our lives. In response to our lack of understanding, we need to ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and help us to discern God’s will for our lives. Only through that discernment can we appreciate the role suffering has in preparing us for the salvation promised by Christ, but we can only enter into that discernment if we are willing and actively seeking to detach from the things of the world.
