Only One Thing Matters

Only One Thing Matters

Twenty-Seventh Week of Year II     Tuesday    October 4, 2016

In the Responsorial Psalm we pray God will guide us as he did Paul: “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way” (Psalm 139).

In Galatians 1: 13-24, Paul describes himself as a faithful steward of the tradition he grew up with:  “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it…. for I was… zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.”

Because Paul assumed leadership and worked against what he perceived as wrong, God accepted his good will and enlightened his false understanding. Paul recognized God’s guiding hand in his life: “God, who had set me apart before I was born… was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.” Paul recognized his call and, as a faithful steward, was as zealous for Christ as he used to be against him.

We also were “set apart” from the moment we were reborn in Baptism. We were solemnly anointed with chrism, committed and consecrated to carry on the work of Jesus Prophet, Priest and King. As faithful stewards of his kingship, we need to work as zealously as Paul to establish his reign over every area and activity of human life on earth. No wonder we ask for guidance! “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.”

Luke 10: 38-42 teaches us a very important lesson: all of our action must come from prayer — the kind of prayer in which we sit at the feet of Christ, listening to his words, absorbing his mind, growing into conformity with his heart, learning to hear his voice within us and to surrender to his Spirit. “Mary… sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.”

Often, like Martha, we “are worried and distracted by many things.” But Jesus reminds us, “There is need of only one thing.” Our only real goal in life should be union with Jesus Christ; union with him in mind and heart and will, so that we might be united to him in action. To cry, “Thy kingdom come!” is useless unless the accompanying refrain of our heart is, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”

It goes without saying that nothing else matters at all. And yet we have to keep saying it — to ourselves and others. Wealth doesn’t matter; health doesn’t matter — what good are either except to be used to bring about the reign of God? Be logical!

We are stewards. We have abandoned all to Christ in order to manage all for Christ as faithful administrators of what is his. And all is his! Like Paul, we live to work for Christ. There is nothing else.¹

¹Philippians 1:20 –25; 3: 8-9.

Initiative: Be Christ’s steward. Learn from him to live for him alone.