Be gone with Christ!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary time

October 29, 2022: Philippians 1:18-26; Luke 14: 1, 7-11

I wish to be gone and to be with Christ, says St. Paul today in the first reading. He is certainly not despising the present world or the present life, but longing for that life in Christ, that union with God, that life in eternity. The psalmist expresses the same in the words - my soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life. 

Jesus goes a step ahead and speaks of living this life, with the sense of eternity. The virtue does not lie only in longing for eternity, but in making that eternity come closer to our lives by the choices we make and the prioroties we take. Jesus' teaching today is one of those means to live with the sense of eternity.

Those who humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled. Humbling oneself is an experience of valuing eternity; it is to understand how limited and little we are, inspite of the celebrated titles and trophies we attach to ourselves. The more we are able to look at this perspective, the more we grow aware of the presence of the Almighty, the significance of Eternity and the meaning of life from the mind of Christ. 

Being gone with Christ... is that way of life, being taken up with Christ, thinking like Christ, living like Christ, and looking at everything, every person and every event from the perspective of Christ. When we do that, according to the world we would be misfits, strangers, we would be considered "gone"... but for us, we will be in union with Christ, closer to Christ, in the footsteps of Christ; we would be gone with Christ.