February 4: What Do You Want?

Jesus was starting to become very popular, at least with the ordinary people. They had seen how he had cured the sick and cast out demons. The gospel has one unusual sentence about those demons: Jesus did not let them speak “because they knew who he was.” (Mk 1:34) Apparently, the demons would have identified him as the Son of God. Jesus knew the people would not understand this and try to proclaim him as their king. Jesus had no intention of living as a worldly king, in comfort and riches. In fact, he came to free people from needing wealth and power.

Popularity and wealth do not interest St. Paul, either. When he preaches the gospel, the good news of Christ’s resurrection (and ours), he needs no other recompense. (1 Cor 9:18) All he wants is to share eternal life. He specifically refuses to be paid for his preaching, to show that he will be rewarded by Christ.

So what do you hope for; what is your goal in life? Do you only feel secure when you have saved enough money and invested it wisely? Do you need other people to make you happy? Or at least a few hundred Facebook friends? Or are you like Job in the first reading: having no hope of escaping a life of drudgery? He eventually found that only by trusting God can anyone be happy, even when things go wrong.

We can follow Paul’s example of love for all people no matter who they are. Paul’s love was not to make others like him. He genuinely wanted to bring the good news to them: by his love for them, Paul showed that God loves them even more. He knew the gospel requires a change of heart, so his love for others helped them to be more open to change. Let us ask the Lord to fill us with his love, so that we can help each other to hear the good news.

Tom Schmidt