19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 7th August 2016)
You are called to reach the heights of love, heights of joy and the heights of happiness– (Luke 12: 32 – 48)
Our Gospel this week is very much dealing with the issue of time and spending our time wisely. One of the false attitudes that we hear loudly in our world today is that we should spend our time putting ourselves first, looking for what we think will make us happy, be it power, pleasure or money.
As I write this I am at World Youth Day in Krakow in Poland with Youth 2000 Ireland. Being here, it is so clear to see that the attitude of ‘put yourself first’ is so false. At World Youth Day there is an attitude of amazing joy, happiness, laughter and peace. Why? Because young people around the world are here to worship Jesus, to love Him, adore Him and to sing with their full voices in the streets of Krakow that Jesus is their Lord, their Saviour and the One in whom their ultimate happiness is found. In Him alone is our true happiness.
So let us listen to the words of today’s Gospel and not waste our time. The greatest happiness in life is to know and love the Lord and to know in return that He loves you personally, as you are in this moment. We come to know this more and more by spending time with Him in Adoration. In His eyes, you are unique and He has given you gifts and talents so that you can make a difference in this world by making His name known in a way that only you can.
One of the highlights of World Youth Day so far for me was getting the chance to pray at the relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. This was a young man who lived today’s Gospel to the full. He was a young man ready for the return of the Lord as he used the unique gifts and talents that God gave him to live a life of love as he gave himself wholeheartedly to service Jesus in the poor. Blessed Pier Giorgio himself tells us in his own words “We, who by the grace of God are Catholics, should not waste the most wonderful years of our life, as unfortunately do so many unhappy young people, who are preoccupied with enjoying the good life, which does not result in good, but which brings the fruit of immortality into our modern society”.
One of Blessed Pier Giorgio’s famous sayings was “to the heights”. He loved mountain climbing but this saying meant more than that. In this saying is a call to reach the heights that a personal relationship with Jesus brings and what follows is the heights of love, the heights of joy and the heights of happiness for ourselves and others. Let us aim for these heights today.
Fr. Jaimie Twohig, S.A.C.