Many of us going through life with questions like:
What do I need to do to be successful?
What do I need to do to be happy?What should I do to be healthy ?
How much money do I need to send my kids to college ?
How much money do I need so that I can retire comfortably ?These are all valid questions and frankly many of us live with them day in and day out.
But...all of these questions are about our life here on earth, which all of us know is so very fragile and so very short.
The question that Scholar asked Jesus was very important.
What must I do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
Today’s Gospel and this questions remind us so poignantly to raise our eyes and our thoughts and our worries beyond the normal everyday challenges of this life.
The story of the good Samaritan reminds us to fix our eyes and our will and our efforts on ,life with God, eternal life, which is our true destiny and our only real hope.
There was a little old lady in my very first parish in a very poor violent neighborhood of Rome. She had all kinds of challenges, she was desperately poor. She practically lived in Church.
One day she spent the whole day in a park picking mushrooms and as I passed here walking home she was so excited that she would have mushrooms with her pasta that night. The next day when I saw her I asked how her pasta was. For the briefest of brief moments she looked sad and then she said.
I put them out in the garden to dry and someone climbed the wall and stole them.
But Father when you think about eternity what difference does it make?
Anytime there was a disappointment or a challenge or something to endure in this holy woman’s life, her refrain was always the same. When you think about eternity what difference does it make?
The Scholar asked Jesus
Master what must I do to enter the Kingdom of heaven ?
And Jesus responded,
“What is written in the law?
How do you read it?”
The Scholar said in reply,
“You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live.”
Our purpose in this life no matter what challenges we face is to love God and love our neighbor always keeping our eyes raised to heaven.
Let us do so that we may live.
Amen
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