💖 HOMILY - MAY 27 💖

First Reading - 1 Peter 1:3-9

Gospel - Mark 10:17-25

In the consumeristic world, most people want to hoard and accumulate money and possessions. The accumulation of wealth gives security and a feeling of being great among people. The readings of today invite us to treasure possessions that are imperishable and guarantee us our salvation.

In the first reading, Peter weaves the theme of hope as central to our Christian life. He encourages the Christians to withstand the suffering and trials of life with courage for the sake of hope implanted in us by our faith in Jesus. He further underlines that the sufferings and trials of this life pale before the glorious future of faith in Jesus. In addition to it, he congratulates all believers for standing firm in their faith, showing unflinching love and unwavering joy in Jesus who promises them eternal life. As a whole in this section, Peter reassures the believers who were going through sufferings and persecutions to stand strong in the midst of them and believe in the promise of Jesus.

The gospel passage cites another example of faith and hope as requisites from every disciple. The rich man, willing to get an answer from Jesus, comes to him with a query: "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" This question is apparently loaded with the real quest of a person for personal salvation. Jesus gives him an answer; interestingly, they all contain the second part of the Ten Commandments. The rich man had kept the commandments, whatever stated by Jesus from his early days. Jesus loves him for his meticulous adherence to the law. He invites him to a life of detachment and discipleship, but that makes him sad.

What was the problem of the rich man? The problem of the rich man was his attachment to wealth and earthly possessions. Firstly, he was not ready to share his wealth with the poor and needy. It means he was not ready to trust God and God's providence (hope). Secondly, he was not ready to renounce his wealth and follow Jesus as he perhaps considered wealth as more valuable than loving and following God. Thirdly, he did not consider God as his supreme possession rather than material things.

Dear friends, faith and hope are virtues interwoven together. A person who is able to place faith in God will certainly believe in God's promises as well. Peter stresses that our faith pins our great hope on the promises of Jesus, consequently this gives us confidence in our glorious future. The gospel highlights a great problem to the life of faith and hope in God, the attachment to worldly possessions. The rich man, in the gospel, had a real quest for salvation but reluctance to renounce worldly possessions. He failed to place faith in God that it's in Jesus we have our salvation, as a result, he distrusted the hope in the promises of salvation proposed by Jesus in following him.

There are many who desire to be saved but are closely attached to wealth or worldly possessions. We are to examine ourselves, what is our possession? Is it Jesus or something else? If it's Jesus, certainly other things will count as nothing great, but if the other things find priority then God will be devalued in our lives.

Let's choose God as our possession because He is our hope and guarantee of our salvation and will never betray us whereas the possessions of the world cannot guarantee our salvation.