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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

October 13, 2024

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Collect

May your grace, O Lord, we pray,
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Wis 7:7-11

I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. 8 I preferred her to sceptres and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her. 9 Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem, because all gold is but a little sand in her sight, and silver will be accounted as clay before her. 10 I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her radiance never ceases. 11 All good things came to me along with her, and in her hands uncounted wealth.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 90:12-13, 14-15, 16-17

R/. Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

Second Reading Heb 4:12-13

The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before God no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Alleluia Mt 5:3

Gospel Mk 10:17-27

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’ ” 20 He said to Jesus, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Catena Nova

If you consider riches and their full enjoyment to be merely a short-lived illusory vanity, if you know that a virtuous life pleasing to God is better than riches, you will hold fast to this conviction and keep it in memory; then you will not sigh, complain or reproach anyone, but will thank God for everything, when you see that people worse than you are praised for eloquence or erudition and wealth. Insatiable desire of riches and pleasures, love of fame and vainglory, coupled with ignorance of truth, are the worst passions of the soul (St. Anthony of Egypt).

“If you wish to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mt 19,21). Do not be cast down by these words lest the same thing be said to you, as to the rich young man: “It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (v.23). Still more, when you read this sentence, consider that death can snatch these possessions away from you, that the aggression of someone powerful can carry them away (St. Ambrose of Milan).

The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of Heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the Angels (St. Gregory the Great).

Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches (St. Catherine of Siena).

Who could count all those who have had wealth, power, honor? But their glory, their riches were only lent to them, and they wore themselves out in preserving and increasing that which they were forced to abandon one day (St. Ignatius of Loyola).

There is a difference between possessing poison and being poisoned. Pharmacists keep almost every kind of poison in stock for use on various occasions, yet they are not themselves poisoned because it is merely in their shops, not in their bodies. So, too, you can possess riches without being poisoned by them if you keep them in your home, purse or wallet, but not in your heart (St. Francis de Sales).

[The rich man] isn’t asking how to go to heaven when he dies. He is asking about the new world that God is going to usher in, the new era of justice, peace, and freedom God has promised his people. And he is asking, in particular, how he can be sure that when God does all this, he will be part of those who inherit the new world, who share its life. . . . Among the various results of this misreading has been the earnest attempt to make all the material in Jesus’s public career refer somehow to a supposed invitation to “go to heaven” rather than to the present challenge of the kingdom coming on earth as in heaven. Time would fail to spell out the additional misunderstandings that have resulted from this, but we might just note one. Jesus’s controversies with his opponents, particularly the Pharisees, have regularly been interpreted on the assumption that the Pharisees had one system for “going to heaven” (in their case, keeping lots of stringent and fussy rules), and Jesus had another one, an easier path altogether in which God had relaxed the rules and made everything a lot easier. As many people are now aware, this does no justice either to the Pharisees or to Jesus. Somehow, we have to get our minds around a different, more challenging way of reading the gospels. (N.T. Wright)

Homily

On my last doctor’s visit I was screened for various maladies with one question being, “Are you depressed?” To which I responded, “Do you watch the news? ” My next appointment happens to be on Election Day. I hope I'm not asked the question this time — but I'll be glad to be around a doctor! In fact, a survey of U.S. adults taken right around the time of my appointment last spring found that some 14 percent of respondents reported symptoms of depressive disorder in the previous two weeks. The good news is that is down considerably from a peak of 30% early during the pandemic, and down precipitously from a year ago this month. (statista.com).

Like the pandemic, among the triggering factors for depression, are unwelcome changes in life patterns. And that might also have been responsible for the case of depression we find in today’s gospel: the rich man who went away sad after his encounter with Jesus — the man in whom Jesus’ words provoked a painful mind for he had many possessions. That’s a detail which tells us the man may not have just been starting out in life -- that he was old enough to have made his fortune. We could imagine him, therefore, at some crossroad in his life, some turning-point, when he was open to something new, perhaps even on the verge of transformation. We might call it a “mid-life crisis”: an urgent impulse that made him run up to Jesus, kneel before him, and ask the burning question, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Which is why Jesus’ answer disappoints him at first. For that business about the commandments was old hat. He observed all those things from his youth. So if his question was prompted by dissatisfaction with his life, a realization his pursuits until now did not provide the fulfillment he thought they would, if he was ready for a change of pace, a chance to work on things long neglected, if he was looking for something more out of life, then we can understand why Jesus’ serving up the same old stuff, left the man hungry precisely for something “more”.

Problem is, when Jesus finally told him what he was lacking, what it would take for him to travel further on the journey, when Jesus said to him, Go, sell what you have. . .then, come, follow me, it was more than the rich man would do at that point in his life. Even if it meant settling for less: for those very things he had done from his youth that no longer gave him life. And so a depression set in: his face fell, and he went away sad (G).

God knows what kind of “life” he went on to live. I suspect his sadness continued, a sort of listless, low-energy existence. That’s what happens at crucial junctures along the way: either we grow, faithful to our “true self,” filling out what we lack or have left undeveloped -- or else we become, well, sad.

And there are lots of things to prevent such growth. Sometimes we can do little about them. After all, we have obligations. Mid-life crisis or no mid-life crisis, we can’t just walk away from our lives. And yet, we have to be honest about what we can give away -- if we want to be whole.

Pope Francis once commented on today’s gospel saying: “Jesus asks you to leave behind what weighs down your heart, to empty yourself of goods in order to make room for him, the only good. We cannot truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things . Because if our hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who will become just one thing among the others. For this reason, wealth is dangerous and – says Jesus – even makes one’s salvation difficult. Not because God is stern, no! The problem is on our part: our having too much, our wanting too much suffocates us, suffocates our hearts and makes us incapable of loving.”

Which reminds me of St. Francis of Assisi whose feast day we celebrated on the 4th of this month. While much younger than the figure in the gospel – and no keeper of the commandments from his youth! – Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant, had it made as the scion of Pietro Bernardone. And he took every advantage of it, following a meandering path of adventure and self-indulgence. But a stint in prison, a pilgrimage to Rome and a chance encounter with a leper triggered a conversion to a life of renunciation that, much to his father’s dismay, literally divested him of the family’s wealth when he stripped off his finery in the public square and followed ever after his new muse, Lady Poverty. Few people in history have taken Jesus’ admonition to the rich man as literally as Francis did, “Sell what you have…and come, follow me.”

And if I may quote his namesake once more, “Jesus is radical. He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart. Even today he gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange? We cannot respond to him, who made himself our servant even going to the cross for us, only by observing some of the commandments. We cannot give him, who offers us eternal life, some odd moment of time. Jesus is not content with a 'percentage of love': we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty percent. It is either all or nothing….[Else] we find joy in some fleeting pleasure, we close ourselves off in useless gossip, we settle into the monotony of a Christian life without momentum, where a little narcissism covers over the sadness of remaining unfulfilled.”

Of course, such emptiness can gnaw at us no matter our age. So the rich man is everyone really – it’s just a question of how empty we are at any given season of life, knowing what we are lacking, and where a new vision and new approach to life might be found. That’s why we pray the spirit of Wisdom come to us, that prudence be given us, deeming riches nothing in comparison with her (cf. I). And if her counsels should at first pierce us, sharper than any two-edged sword; if God’s living and active word at a given point in time, should, at first, penetrate even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it’s only to help us discern the reflections and thoughts of our heart (cf. II). No doubt a painful process at times: this knowing who we are, and what God would have us be. Yet, no creature is concealed from [God], but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must render an account (II). Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Intercessions (The Sunday Website; Joe Milner)

For the Church: that we may experience God looking upon us with love and respond generously to what God asks of us today.

For the Synod that is currently meeting in Rome: that God will guide the whole Church in listening to the Holy Spirit so that we may deepen our communion and be more faithful to the mission of evangelization and reconciliation.

For deeper awareness: that we recognize the limits of power, beauty, fame, and wealth, and learn to trust God who alone fulfills all our needs and wants.

For a greater reverence and appreciation of human life: that we may recognize God’s gift of life in each person, particularly in the very young and the elderly who cannot speak for themselves.

For children who have been neglected, are malnourished, or abandoned: that God will free them from danger, bring them to a safe and loving environment, and heal their wounds of body, mind, and spirit.

For all who are recovering from storms or wildfires: that God will sustain them, speed the assistance that they need, and give strength to all who are helping them.

For all who are ill: that God will heal the sick, strengthen those facing a long recovery, and renew all who are caring for them.

For greater care for the air that we breathe: that we may each take responsibility for the quality of the air that affects every person.

God of wisdom, whose word probes the motives of our hearts, with you all things are possible. Let worldly treasure not keep us from Jesus, who looks on us with love. Free us to leave all things and follow him, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen (ICEL; 1998)

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