Tuesday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time In yesterday’s gospel reading the rich young man found it impossible to follow Jesus because of his attachment to his possessions, in spite of his great desire to inherit eternal life. That is why Jesus goes on to say in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of an needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of kingdom of heaven. This stark statement of Jesus left the disciples astonished and led them to ask the almost despairing question, ‘Who then can be saved?’ They seem to be saying, ‘it must be nearly impossible for anyone to enter the kingdom o heaven, not just that rich, good man who approached you’. Jesus cuts across their negative thinking with a very hopeful statement, ‘for men this is impossible; for God everything is possible’. Jesus is saying that arriving at our ultimate destiny is more God’s doing than our doing; it is due more to God’s grace than to our efforts. In the language of the letter to the Ephesians, God’s ‘power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine’. It is above all when we are low in ourselves and feel the journey is too much for us that we need to remind ourselves of this great truth. Saint Paul declared in a letter from prison, ‘I can do all things in him who gives me strength’. We need to keep putting our trust in the resources the Lord is always giving us and which we need so much.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:03:30 +0000
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