This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
There is something beautiful but mysterious about the reading from St. Paul this morning. He says, “All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, so that I too may have a share in it,” and later, “I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
Paul speaks in the reading as becoming a slave for others, all things to all, that at least some may be saved. But then he almost speaks as an outsider looking in, one who would like to have a share in the Gospel, one who considers himself at some risk of being disqualified.
St. Paul clearly does not suffer from one of the sins that most characterizes the Church in our age. Perhaps the sin of the later period of the early Church was heresy; perhaps that of the Middle Ages was worldly ambition; perhaps that of the Renaissance was decadence; and perhaps one of the sins that most characterizes today’s Church is presumption of salvation.
St. Paul stumbles upon no such pitfall. He is well aware of his weakness. He knows that in the end, eternal salvation is dependent upon faithfulness, and he does not take his own faithfulness for granted. Still, he keeps on with joy and optimism, because He is passionately in love with Jesus Christ and trustingly places his eternal welfare in His hands.
In the Gospel passage today, Jesus talks about not worrying so much about others faults as examination of our own–or more precisely, he does not prohibit correcting faults in others, but urges us to place priority on our own, which tend to be much larger than we initially assess them to be.
St. Paul’s hesitancy to presume on his own salvation shows that he has taken Jesus’ words well to heart.
But perhaps the question arises: How are we to trust fully in the Lord, if we don’t presume a little? Conversely, how are we to avoid presumption, if we don’t take on responsibility for our own lives, rather than abandoning them into the hands of Jesus?
Once again, St. Paul’s attitude borne out in this and all his letters provides us with the answer. “I know him in whom I have believed.” Paul can be content and undisturbed, with his life completely abandoned into the hands of Jesus Christ, because he trusts not in an outcome but in a person. He knows how much Jesus loves him. and he entrusts everything to that love, with (frankly) something of a “damn-the-torpedoes” attitude toward everything else.
Many in today’s Church presume that God will save them and pretty much everyone else, without really focusing on their relationship with God at all. Their priorities lie elsewhere, in comfort and worldly ambition, and they assume God will usher them into heaven because He’s such a nice guy, because He is merciful. The gloss over the obvious fact in Scripture and all Church Tradition that the manifestation of that mercy is the second chance afforded through Christ’s sacrifice–not in any guarantee or pseudo-guarantee that we’re all going to make it.
Ultimately, even though trust can sometimes look like presumption, the reality is that they are night-and-day different. Indeed, trust (rather than fear) is the only real antidote to presumption. Trust means prioritizing our relationship with God through real daily time dedicated to prayer, frequent sacramental life, avoidance of sin, and acts of love throughout our day, and in this way really abandoning all other priorities (even the priority of our own salvation) over to His care. It frees us from presumption, which is the casual assumption that God doesn’t care if He’s an afterthought, the last priority on our list.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: The Church defines “perfect contrition” as being sorry to God not out of fear of consequences, but out of sorrow for having hurt Him whom we love. Similarly, a perfect life is one lived not in fear or presumption, but saturated in loving, trusting focus of our attention and priorities on God. This is not something we can achieve on our own–not even close. In dialogue with Jesus, ask Him to fill you with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Ask Him to take control of your relationship with Him and do whatever it takes to bring it where He wants to take it.
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