4TH NOVEMBER 2022
THEME: MAKING A LIVING VS MAKING A LIFE
There are two basic forces within a human being; one is the instinct of self-preservation which compels one to build walls around him/herself to protect herself. (Body). The other is the constant desire to expand, to become boundless (Soul). If one fails to separate the two and work collaboratively, these two fundamental forces become a source of tension. According to St. Paul, in the first reading, the only relief is when there will be a change from the lowly body to be like Christ’s glorious body (boundless soul), this is only done by patiently awaiting for Our Lord Jesus to do it.(Phil. 3:21)
The force of preservation helps you to root yourself well on this planet (Making a living), unfornately, Paul warns that, when we rely too much on this force, we become enemies of the Cross of Christ (Gal 5:24) and the end result is self-destruction like the steward in the Gospel and even glory in their shame just like the steward shamelessly gambling with the master’s wealth. The other takes you beyond (Making a life), just as Paul put it so vividly in the first reading, our commonwealth is in heaven.
It is so unfortunate that we human beings have failed to differentiate between making a living and making a life, physical need and spiritual needs, the demands of the soul and that of the body hence we ended up solving this by raising the bar of survival. We have become indeed wiser in our own generation and we can manipulate any scheme to ensure our survival are catered for. All of the material versus spiritual struggles of humanity spring from this ignorance. (Gal. 5:17)
We have to be warned that these walls of self-preservation we build today for our survival are the walls of self-imprisonment for tomorrow. The steward’s shrewdness are detected by the master which seems to land him further into a more complicated cases. (Lk.16:3) For a human being life does not seem to end with survival. In fact, life begins with the survival. Human intelligence and awareness have to reach a place where it cannot limit itself to the ambit of survival. It is indeed very paramount to understand that in your life you must fix, how much is survival, you must fix it somewhere. This is my survival it has been taken care of, what it is that really matters to me in my life. And that which really matter according to St. Paul is to stand firm in the Lord by lowering the bars of survival and becoming wiser to the science of the saints.
Let us pray through St. Charles Borromeo whom we commemorate today, who was responsible for the significant reforms in the church to lead us reform our lives from making a living to making a life. May God bless you and keep you always in his love!MAY ST. CHARLES PRAY FOR US!
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