+ Our readings today have to do with commitment and renunciation. They have to do with saying
“Yes” and saying “No” - and sticking to it! In the first reading young Elisha
follows Elijah the prophet after he is selected by Elijah to be his disciple. Elisha
says “Yes” and he sticks by his decision. In the gospel passage, referring to
the rather indiscriminate practice of “swearing the truth to just about anything
at all” – a practice that is still indiscriminately used today, Jesus says to
“make good to the Lord all that we vow” – and let the subject matter be
serious, let it comes from the fountain of love in our hearts!
There are two kinds of vows
that come to mind: the vows of marriage, and the vows of religious profession.
The first is made to the spouse to bind the couple together in mutual love and
fidelity til death do they part. In essence, they are utilitarian vows, a means
to an end, the end being life forever in God, not as a married couple, but as
brother and sister in Christ, who were coupled by God to give value and meaning
to their lives on earth, to bring into existence more brothers and sisters for
God’s predetermined family, and to mirror the relationship between Christ and
his Bride – his Mystical Body, the Church – whom he will marry one day – when
the last trumpet sounds.
The other major vows are those
taken by religious men and women when they commit themselves to following the
evangelical counsels of “poverty, chastity, and obedience” as they live their
lives with a particular group of men / women who have their sights solely fixed
on God, and who allow him to use them in an outward apostolate in keeping with
the charism of the group: for example, teaching, nursing, helping the poor,
aiding the poorest of the poor. These men and women are exemplary in the heroic
amount of self-renunciation they make, so that can be as pure an instrument as
God wishes them to be for others.
For us, this means, that we
must say yes to all our rightly intentioned vows, either as married persons,
professed religious, or committed single people in the world, “vowed as it
were” to praising God by doing our jobs well, and helping as many people as we
can in our everyday lives, and stick by them, and say no to every other kind of
justification that we want to “feather our own nest!” In the end, we must
realize that as baptized Christians, confirmed and ordained Catholics that our
lives are not our own – we are meant to be instruments of love, day in and day
out – let us vow ourselves to this project that is entirely God magnificent
work – and spend the day radiating light, joy, peace and hope to all
others. Amen.
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