If you ask people what they want, they’ll often say that they want a new car, a better job, a bigger house, or some other possession.

But if you probe a little deeper, you'll find that they don't really want possessions. Rather, they desire a sense of fulfillment, a feeling of being loved and cherished.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In other words, the only way we can become truly happy and fulfilled is by giving ourselves in love to God and the people he has placed in our lives. We have to go beyond ourselves and our own selfish interests if we are to live the truly abundant life Jesus has promised. As Pope St. John Paul II often emphasized, "Man finds himself only by making a sincere gift of himself to others.”  It isn't always an easy choice, but it is the only way to a truly rewarding life.

This week, in addition to the great lesson on the importance of self- giving love, Jesus also tells us, “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” This has profound implications in today’s world, where so many claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” By this statement, Jesus explains that he has invested his authority in his Apostles. That same authority has been handed on over the centuries to the bishops and priests with the result that if we want to accept Jesus in our lives, we must accept the teachings of Jesus's successors and the Church in which they serve. In other words, to be “spiritual,” we must also be “religious”.

---

 

It has been said that the books of Kings, the second of which supplies our First Reading, are demonstrations of God's justice. Each of the failures of the kings of Israel and Judah bring down a punishment upon the land they govern as predictable as that night will follow day. The episode in this story is not otherwise, but the just reward given is not for ill deeds but for good ones. A woman called only “the Shunamite” (because she lived in a town called Shunem) offers hospitality to the prophet Elisha, building a little place for him to stay in her own home when he passed by and needed lodging, and this only because she recognized him to be a holy man of God. She is richly rewarded for her kindness when God grants to this women who had been previously childless a son to take up into her arms, through the intercession of Elisha.

Later in the same story we find that the child, now grown, dies tragically. The good woman, in great sorrow, appeals again to Elisha the prophet who comes down off of Mount Carmel and goes to great lengths in his appeal to God for the return of life to the child, who does indeed come back to  life so that the Shunammite might again take up her son (see 2 Kings 4:36-37). So the just reward for service done to God's prophet is even greater than we see in this reading! In our own day, when those who have been given God's authority in the Church are much maligned, we would do well to offer our aid to them whenever possible.
 

 

Just as the son of the Shunammite was raised from death by the power of God, so was the Son of Mary raised from the dead. In his case, however, that just vindication of his perfect righteousness led to an eternal Resurrection, so that “Christ being raised from the dead will never die again” (Romans 6:9 RSV). And St. Paul makes clear that by our Baptism we share both in the death he died and in the Resurrection by which Mary again took up her Son. So the first of our readings in combination with this one from Romans provide us with what we could call a “mystagogy” of the Sacrament of Baptism. “Mystagogy was that form of instruction on the sacraments in the first centuries of the Church which enabled those (in the grace of that very sacrament) to see the power it conveyed more clearly. This instruction often took the form of an analysis of an Old Testament reading which served as a prophetic pointer toward the sacrament being explained. In this case, the mystagogy of St. Paul on the mystery of Baptism is expanded and deepened when the Church pairs it with the First Reading from Second Kings to help us see the dramatic power of Baptism by which we are brought back to a new and eternal life and taken up into the arms of holy mother Church.
 

 

In this Gospel reading we see once again the mystery of the unity of all the holy ones in Christ. As noted last week, in chapter 10 of Matthew Jesus is bestowing a share in his own authority upon the Apostles as they are sent out. They are warned that the preaching of the truth will evoke a division between those who accept the truth and those who won't. He promises to those who aid them in their mission a share in the reward of the missionary. And that is because those whom Christ sends bear him mysteriously within themselves such that to welcome them is to welcome him. St. Luke gives us a parallel text, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).

To reject the Apostle is to reject both the Son and the Father! That is the sad state of those who refuse the truth and end up on the wrong side of the division that the Divine Truth introduces among men. But those who hear the truth and aid those who preach it, in even the smallest ways, will have their reward, too. As we see in this text, even a little water is a great gift when the cause for which it is given is that of the Son's own mission of love from the Father. In this great cause, we must value nothing more than that cause itself.
 

---

---

MEDITATION:

I’m sure many of you have heard someone say they were “spiritual but not religious.” What does that mean to you when you hear it?

What might you say to someone who says they don’t need to belong to a church?

Have you ever experienced a time when you lost your life for the sake of Christ only to find it? In other words, has there been a time when you made a sincere gift of yourself only to find you received more than you gave?

 

---

---

Opening the Word offers prayers and insights for the Sunday Scriptural lessons. Watch the video presentation that accompanies this reflection FREE at   Formed.org.