33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Year C

Spiritual Reflection

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Year C (PDF)

Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.  Lk 21:19

Someone who is poor in spirit seeks only God and His will and desires no other riches. God comes to those who have nothing because only those who have nothing truly need him. Thus, it is written that theirs is the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 5:3). However, everything on which we count and in which we place our hope apart from God, even if it is something we are involved in because of God’s will, is a barrier that separates us from the Lord. it is a “treasure” that occupies the place in our souls that should be empty for the Lord who knocks.

Spiritual riches are not only an obstacle in seeking God; they are also a mirage, an illusion. Ultimately, all of our various material, intellectual, and even spiritual “treasures” can instantly become useless. If you build a comfortable house for yourself, how do you know that you will live in it, even if you build it because of God’s will? What if you suddenly have to travel to another place? What if you die before the job is finished?

 For the person who attempts to live an interior life, not only material goods, but also spiritual goods, constitute an important reliance. For example, perhaps you are taken by some excerpt from Sacred Scripture and you hope that this excerpt will deepen your spiritual life. In this way, the excerpt becomes your treasure. Why do you assume that this Scripture excerpt is meant for you in particular? God’s plan can be quite different. Perhaps you are simply supposed to relay this pertinent excerpt to someone else for whom these particular words will happen to be very important. Meanwhile, your life will not change at all. Do not place your hope in any religious practices or in any words because, in doing so, you witness to the fact that you disregard God and do not want to lean on him. You live as if he does not exist.

 If you strive for the attitude of spiritual poverty in fulfilling God’s will, and if you do not try to create riches out of the fruits of God’s will, then you do not have to be stripped. However, by leaning on persons or things, you sentence yourself to the torment of being stripped. When the Lord God sees how His gifts that you appropriate wound you and close you to His love, He intervenes with His light of truth. He does this in order to show you that these are only deceiving mirages, which His power can instantly dispel.

If you count on gifts and place your hope in them, then you lack the wisdom of faith. Even worse, you ignore God. In some sense, you even despise God. If you disregard the Lord of the universe, and you do not want to lean on Him, then you live as if He does not exist. When it all comes down to it, who is God for you, especially if you do not lean on Him, even when fulfilling His will?

Slawomir Biela, Open Wide the Door to Christ, pp. 99-101

 References from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

2471 Before Pilate, Christ proclaims that he "has come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." 266 The Christian is not to "be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord." 267 In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian must profess it without equivocation, after the example of St. Paul before his judges. We must keep "a clear conscience toward God and toward men." 268 

2472 The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known. 269

All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation. 270

Questions for Reflection

1.       In what ways can I be open to being a witness of the Gospel?
2.       How do I understand spiritual poverty in fulfilling God’s will?
3.       Mother Mary lived an interior life with Her Son. How can she lead me to this end?

 Prayer after Sharing

Thank you, God, for allowing me to see the truth about my weaknesses and how it calls upon the abyss of your merciful Love.