WORD 2day: Monday, 7th week in Ordinary time
February 24, 2020: James 3: 13-18; Mark 9: 14-29
Trying to prove one's ascendancy comes very natural and instinctive to everyone. It is ingrained in our very beings - of course we have heard the theories such as the survival of the fittest and the natural selection, where one proves better than the other to exist, or becomes extinct. As human persons can we go on with this as our mentality - unfortunately, that is what is happening in the world at all levels, be it interpersonal, familial, social, national, international or global level. Every one is trying to prove their ascendancy over the other! It is in this context, we can read the Word today and it makes an absolute sense.
Where does our true ascendancy lie? In proving physically powerful, intellectually superior, economically influential, politically potential and socially dominant? The Word says - it lies in being humble and wise! A humble and wise person will be a person of faith and a person of true and profound Christian faith will be humble and wise!
Humility makes one know, recognise, realise and accept the real truth about oneself. That one is not all-powerful but related, interrelated and interdependent - on God, on fellow beings and on the entire reality. When this humility takes over there is a natural ascendancy that is seen in a person. That is faith!
Wisdom is knowing the truth and being able to put it into practice in the concrete situations of life. It is not knowing something, believing something else and living something totally different - so dissipated a life-style. Wisdom is that lovely coming together of knowledge, daily life practice and mode of responding to situations. That is Christian faith!
Without these our life is so full of tendency to prove, to justify oneself, to establish oneself superior than the others - a demon that is devouring humanity and the universe right now. These demons can be driven away only by prayer!