Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary time
November 3, 2018: Philippians 1: 18-26; Luke 14: 1,7-11
There is a funny saying in Tamil which goes thus - there are some who wish to be the bridegroom if it were a wedding house and the dead body if it were a funeral house! The former is attractive but the latter is fearsome, but of course for someone who longs to hog the limelight anywhere and all the time, nothing is too big. Such persons go to any extent. But does that give one the true joy of life, a joy that lasts and a joy that adds meaning to life?
Jesus speaks of this with a simple example of our tendency to pick places in gatherings!
Protocols, rules, regulations, respects due and hierarchy are considered sacred these days, more sacred even than the Sacred! This is what Jesus is reminding us of and Paul is confronting us with! Paul speaks of his vision of life and death: according to him both are important but never before Christ! Before Christ, nothing else matters - neither well being, nor success, nor life, nor death, nothing, absolutely nothing! For me, to live is Christ and to die is a gain - what a statement to make!
Speaking of picking places, it is a sound imagery that we can propose to ourselves questioning our priorities in life. What matters to us: honour in the face of persons around, riches to fill our lives with, titles to adorn ourselves with... or Christ for whom we are ready to live and to die? If Christ matters to us the most, we have won over everything else: honour and dishonour, pleasure and pain, comfort and persecution, life and death!
Just yesterday we remembered our dead loved ones, and prayed that they find their place with God in eternity! Don't you think it begins here? Yes, let us pick our places with Christ here and now, and we shall be guaranteed a place with him in eternity!