Wednesday in the Twenty-Eighth Week of Ordinary Time at Mississippi Abbey

We each have a life to spend. Jesus and Paul are telling us that we shouldn’t just spend it; we should invest it. And we do, consciously or unconsciously. We invest our lives in what we care about. So, we should care about our caring.

One test of our caring is our need to know about the condition of what we care about. We don’t like being ignorant of the welfare of the cared about. When we wonder about what God’s will is, we are caring about our caring. That’s good; it means our relationship with God is not a side-interest, but a central one. A more genuine sign of our caring about caring is asking ourselves if what we care about is really worth caring about. Doubt and questioning are not incompatible with Faith.

Paul cites the various forms of self-seeking and Jesus indicts the Pharisee’s for self-seeking. He charges the scholar with over-emphasis on performance and “looking good”. They never question their caring. That is what is woeful.  What they are invested in will not last the length of a life, much less beyond that.   

Jesus calls us to care about our caring. Our caring is the way, the truth, and the life. I mentioned yesterday that when my monastic call came I was unable be attracted by anything else. I wondered, “What sort of person must I be to want to give myself so entirely to God?” The answer: I must be a monk. That’s when I stopped moving away from any attachment that would block this call and began to move toward the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Then one becomes fully invested. Such wholehearted caring is called “liberation”. To be free for such wholehearted caring that guides one’s life is to have found the way, the truth, and the life. Again, I think you know what I mean.