God's Time

The fascination with the provisional, the sensation of being masters of time, and the culture of well-being at any price often prevent the men and women of today from following Jesus closely. “They seem to us to be two riches,” but in reality they do not help us to “move forward,” said Pope Francis

as he commented, on the morning of Monday 27 May, on the passage from the Gospel of Mark (10:17–27) proclaimed during the Mass celebrated in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

The evangelist recounts the story of the rich man who approaches Jesus to ask him how to attain eternal life. But when Jesus, “who loves him,” asks him to sell all his possessions before following him, “this good man, a righteous man — a man moved by the Holy Spirit to go even further, closer to Jesus — loses heart: at these words his face fell, and he went away sad.”

“Riches,” the Pope explained, “are therefore an obstacle, something that does not make the journey toward the kingdom of God easy. Each of us has his riches, but they are often riches that prevent us from drawing close to Jesus,” and that sometimes even bring “sadness.”

“We must all,” the Holy Father urged, “make an examination of conscience as to what our riches are that keep us from drawing close to Jesus on the road of life.” These are riches that come from our culture. The first riches “is well-being. The culture of well-being, which makes us less courageous, which makes us lazy, which also makes us selfish.” Sometimes “well-being anesthetizes us,” for in the end “we are comfortable in our well-being.” Faced with the choice of having a child, we too often let ourselves be conditioned by well-being. The Pope imagined a dialogue between a married couple: “No, no, no more than one child, no! Because we can’t go on holiday, we can’t go here, we can’t buy a house; no! Follow the Lord, yes, but only up to a certain point...”

Besides the culture of well-being, the Pope pointed to another that “keeps us from drawing close to Jesus: it is the fascination with the provisional. We are in love with the provisional,” whereas the proposals of Jesus are definitive. The provisional appeals to us “because we are afraid of God’s time,” which is a definitive time.

And as often happens, the Pope offered a memory of his own experience: “I have heard of someone who wanted to become a priest, but for ten years, no more.” And the same thing happens with so many couples who marry thinking: “as long as love lasts, and then we’ll see.” This is “the fascination with the provisional,” the second “riches” that fascinates the men of today and, in particular, drives them to “become masters of time.”

Well-being and the provisional are precisely the two riches that, in contemporary society, “keep us from moving forward.” By contrast, the Pope’s thoughts turned to the “many men and women who have left their homeland to go out as missionaries for their whole lives,” and to the “many men and women who have left their homes to marry for their whole lives and have gone all the way to the end.” This, he affirmed, “is to follow Jesus closely; it is the definitive.” Whereas “the provisional is not following Jesus; the provisional is our territory,” in which we “are the masters.”

Source: News.va