The rich young man

THAT gospel story of the rich young man who asked Christ about how to gain eternal life (cfr. Mt 19,16-22) provides us with a great lesson on total self-giving since only then can we fully identify ourselves with Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. 

 For this, we have to be willing and ready to leave everything behind. We should not only be generous in giving away things. Rather, we should give our very own selves, convinced that by doing so we would be completely emptied of ourselves and filled only with the spirit of Christ. This is what is proper to us. 

 We have to be vigilant so as not to be trapped by our human and temporal concerns, no matter how legitimate they are when viewed only with our human and natural ideals. When not pursued with Christ, they can only spoil us. Yes, the pursuit of effectiveness, efficiency, profitability, wealth, good health, and the like, if not done with and for Christ, can only spoil us. 

 That’s because the things of this world are meant only to be the means, the occasion, the instruments we have to use to show our faith, hope and love for God and for others. 

 That is why Christ in his priestly prayer before his passion and death said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” (Jn 17,15-16) 

 What is clear is that while being in the world, we should be detached from the things of the world. Our heart should be completely with God. This is what is meant by being ready to leave everything behind for Christ. And with God, we would have everything else actually! 

 Let’s always remember that clear indication of Christ: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Mt 6,33) Christ even illustrated this point more graphically through parables, as when he said that the kingdom of God is like a treasure found in a field or when one finds a pearl of great price that would provoke one to sell all he has to buy that field or pearl. (cfr. Mt 13,44-45) 

 St. Paul lived this indication well when he said, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” (Phil 3,8) 

 We should also remember what Christ said was the greatest commandment, and that is, that we have to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. (cfr. Mt 22,37) In other words, we have to give God everything, assured that what we give away, we will regain many times more. 

 And it’s not just things that we have to give, things that we can spare to give away. In the end, it’s really our whole selves that we have to give. This was dramatized in that episode about a poor widow. 

 “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all.” Christ said. “For all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Lk 21,3-4)

The Assumption of Our Lady

AUGUST 15 is, of course, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It reminds us that by a special divine privilege, Our Lady was assumed body and soul to heaven at the end of her earthly sojourn. That, I suppose, is due to the most special role she played in the economy of human salvation, being chosen as the mother of our Redeemer. This dogma was defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950. 

 Many spiritual considerations can be derived from this solemnity, but for now we can focus on the truth of our faith that our body too, and not only our spiritual soul, is meant for heaven where we have our definitive home with God for all eternity. 

 This solemnity reminds us that we need to take care of our body as a necessary consequence of our care we ought to give to our soul. That’s because as human persons, we are both body and soul, and not just one or the other. 

 Let’s always remember that our body is an essential part of our humanity. It’s meant to be animated by a spiritual soul whose life is always a participation of the life of God. As our catechism would put it, our body “participates in the dignity of the image of God.” (CCC 364) If we know how, we can and ought to see God in our body! 

 We have reason to even glorify our body since in it we can glorify God. St. Paul explains it this way: 

 “Your bodies are the shrines of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. And he is God’s gift to you, so that you are no longer your own masters. A great price was paid to ransom you. Glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence.” (1 Cor 6,19-20) 

 Still in another part of the same epistle, St. Paul teaches: “Your bodies are not meant for debauchery. They are meant for the Lord, and the Lord claims your bodies...Have you never been told that your bodies belong to the body of Christ?” (6,13) 

 The current and dominant attitude toward the body and the material world in general, I am afraid, has suffered a dangerous mutation, a radical reversal of God’s designs for them. We seem to be falling into two extremes. 

 One is to consider the body as completely evil, as when the distinction between the body and the soul becomes exaggerated that they by nature become hostile to each other. This mindset is prevalent among those who may be regarded as too spiritual in their life. These are the puritans and the like. 

 The other extreme, the more common one, is to consider the body alone as completely good, with no more need for spiritual animation and direction. This is the case of a variety of people—the hedonists, the naturalists, etc. 

 While there is a distinction between the body and the soul, between the material and the spiritual realities of our life, we should not forget that both make up our nature. They cannot and should not be separated. 

 We should realize that we need to have our body properly animated by the spirit of God. It should not just be left to follow purely biological and other natural laws. It has to be spiritualized and supernaturalized with the grace of God and our effort of loving God all the way! We should learn how to materialize the spirit and spiritualize the material.

The gender and human sexuality issue

WE are all familiar with that gospel episode where some leading Jews tested Christ by asking him if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. (cfr. Mt 19,3-12) That is where Christ clarified about man being created as male and female, and about the indissolubility of marriage. It’s a gospel episode that somehow clarifies for us about the current hot-button issue of gender and human sexuality. 

 We therefore have to realize that in any effort to clarify certain aspects of our humanity, especially nowadays when all sorts of man-made ideologies are being forwarded to explain things, we should first of all approach Christ through the Church which he founded and endowed with enough powers for it to authoritatively transmit the teachings of Christ. 

 After all, Christ is the God made man who is the fullness of divine revelation so we would have the right knowledge of things that, in our case, include spiritual and supernatural realities. We just cannot depend our own estimation of things, no matter rigorously scientific that estimation is made. 

 In this regard, it definitely is good to refer ourselves to a Vatican document issued in 1995 entitled, “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.” It needs to be brought out more in the open. Given the many issues in this area that have managed to generate a lot of confusion and complications, the document offers a basic and comprehensive primer especially to parents who are the first teachers and formators of their children. 

 What we have in society only reflects and is a result of what we have in the families. If the families do not do well or even fail in the education of their children in human sexuality, we cannot expect a society to have a healthy attitude toward this very important aspect of human life. 

 The naked truth is that problems in this area have multiplied not only in number but also in kind. Wherever we go, even if we just take a cursory look around, we can immediately see that there are things that are not quite right or, shall we say, that at least raise eyebrows, provoke questions and concern, etc. 

 Pornography is now so easily accessible that even little innocent children can already get exposed to them. Teen-age pregnancy is on the rise, together with casual sex and hook-ups, STD, abortion, contraception, and illegitimate children. This is not to mention the rise of problems related to the confusion in sexual identity and gender. 

 There is a tendency not to talk about these issues, except when they involve people who are supposed to be the teachers, defenders and models of healthy human sexuality either in the state of marriage or celibacy. 

 In a way, there is good reason not to talk too openly about human sexuality, because it touches on very private, personal, confidential matters. Besides, it’s such a sticky thing that it would require some precautions before talking about it. 

 But we really do have great need now, more than ever, to talk about this topic both openly and discreetly, realistically and prudently. Obviously, the more proper venue for this talk would be within the family, and personal conversations between parents and children, the father with the boys, and the mother with the girls. 

 Discussions of this topic in public should be done in subsidiary roles, focusing more on explanations and reminders of relevant moral principles than on displaying certain techniques, more on appeal to virtues than on simply enumerating a list of do’s and don’t’s.