A Commentary and Reflection on the Readings for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Wisdom 7:7-11, Hebrews 4:12-13, and Mark 10:17-30.
The Liturgy of the Catholic Mass Transforms, Empowers, and Directs Our Desires
The pedagogical method of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass is to rhythmically guide us in desiring the good through persistent prayer and patience. The liturgical rhythms of prayer, confession, standing, and sitting are formative participatory themes in the divine movement that escalate to the holy sacrifice and communion with Him who loved us and desired complete union with us even before we knew Him. He who was patient with us in our rebellion against Him, us forms our hearts through the liturgy to desire nothing less than Him. In other words, by cultivating a yearning for holiness, the divine choreography of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass profoundly shapes our innermost desire. Through the ebb and flow of confession, thanksgiving, and sacrificial offering, we are drawn into an intimate and transcendent dance with the Divine.
Within the body of the primordial questions of ‘Who am I,’ ‘Where did I come from,’ ‘Where am I going,’ ‘What is my purpose,’ and ‘Why is there something other than nothing,’ there is a sixth question that asks, ‘What should I desire?’ Jesus answers this question by saying, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”[1] The Sursum Corda prayer in our liturgy forms us to answer this sixth question as Christ Jesus would have us answer it, with the Priest celebrant commanding us in exclamation, “Lift up your hearts!” and we rising to his challenge to dare say, “We lift them up to the Lord!”
All virtues, gifts, and fruits from the Holy Spirit are good desires and with His breath of life, God has endowed each of us with the capacity to be filled with all that is good from Him. Yet, according to each man and woman’s vocation, temporary station, and condition of their wound, we may desire one or more virtue, gift, or fruit from God over the others. This divine longing is intricately woven into the fabric of our being, urging us toward a sanctified existence.
For example, the author of Wisdom in today’s First Reading for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B wrote in 7:7-11, “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.” The virtue of prudence and the gift of wisdom guided King Solomon to discern the righteous path amidst life’s complexities. These divine endowments enabled him to make choices aligned with God’s will, thereby leading a life marked by holiness and grace.
Then, in today’s Gospel Reading from Mark 10:17-30, a young man ran up to Jesus, knelt before, and expressed that the one thing he desired more than any other was to inherit eternal life, saying, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He then affirms to Jesus that his true desire has been aligned with his actions, promising that he has kept the commandments of honoring his mother and father and against murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and defrauding since his youth. However, although the man desired eternal life in his mind, he did not yet treasure it in his heart. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”
This young man has always held a special place in my recollection because I identify with having a body of actions and a heart that are not always well aligned. When I think about him, I always hope that he sold all his property one day and returned to follow Jesus. I like to believe that he was the young man mentioned in Mark who was following Jesus but was so destitute that the text says, “Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.” What an incredible joy it would have been for that young man to have truly lost everything, even the shirt off his own back, as the cost and reward to treasure following Jesus.
If his young man’s heart did turn to treasure nothing greater than God, then the teaching from today’s Second Reading from Hebrews 4:12-13 would have been proven to be true for him as it has with everyone who has opened their heart up to be healed by God, “Indeed the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.”
As we journey through the divine liturgy, our hearts are transformed to desire what is holy and pure. The sacred rhythm of the Mass not only aligns our actions with our deepest yearnings but also invites us into a profound communion with the Divine. Each verbal and bodily response in the liturgy becomes a participatory step in a transcendent dance, guiding us toward the ultimate treasure that is God Himself. Jesus Christ, who Himself is the essence of the liturgy of the Mass, is the choreographer who teaches us to learn to lift our hearts above all that is temporal and the fleeting so that we might desire more greatly to embrace all that is eternal and unchanging. Let us then, with hearts lifted high, carry this divine transformation into our daily lives, allowing the grace of the liturgy to illuminate our path and our purpose.
This is just one way the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us on how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
[1] Cf. Matthew 6:21.
