This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
Today’s psalm: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”
When we think of what makes our lives better, our minds might tend toward reality, or tend toward fantasy. If they tend toward reality, we might speak of health care, or convenience technology such as smart phones, which put control over many things in our lives right at our fingertips.
If our minds tend toward fantasy, we might consider the stuff of movies: If only I could find a fountain of youth, win the lottery, wield magic, etc., then my life would be utterly transformed into happiness.
When, in the day to day, we think of what makes our lives better, the first thought that comes to mind might not be Jesus.
His coming, His passion, death, and Resurrection–it was not like a lottery win. From one day to the next, for example, all the apostles’ worries were not over. Even having met Jesus, even having experienced His Resurrection, as wondrous as that was, they still had a difficult walk ahead of them to walk, one that would for most lead to martyrdom.
Nor did Jesus make their lives more convenient, like technology does for us. Quite the opposite. They went from the relatively convenient and familiar life of fishing to one of spending themselves tirelessly for others, in many cases in foreign lands.
And yet, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Mary of Bethany, who poured perfume over Jesus’ feet in love and gratitude in today’s gospel, understood this.
Jesus does not transform our external realities. Well, correction: He does help us with those as well. After all, Lazarus of today’s gospel had just risen from the dead at Jesus’ command. Jesus’ life was full of miracles of healing. Also, by God’s grace, Christians in all ages have made the world a better place, inventing the very notion of hospital care and universities, and striving to insert more justice and respect for the human person into the imperfect institutions of government.
But transformation of the exterior world is not the focus of Jesus’ mission. Rather, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Jesus brings light and salvation back into our souls. We find in our relationship with Him a permanent, overflowing joy that transcends and permeates all the imperfect, passing realities of our exterior world. As the first reading says of Jesus:
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
When it comes to truly making our lives better, no fantasy, no reality comes close to the experience of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ in our hearts.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus in this Holy Week to bring your heart back from distraction with the fretful external realities of this world, to the true light and joy of your life, which is His grace and friendship. Tell Him how grateful you are, like Mary of Bethany, for His gift of self for you, even if the world doesn’t seem particularly impressed by it. Ask Him for the grace to center your life on that which really brings happiness.
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