By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Jr.
There was a father and a son who worked at a summer camp each year. Their family had run the summer camp for years and they had a large dog named Ivory. One day as the father and son were walking out of the camp office together, there was Ivory grinning her silly smile, as she expectantly thumped her big tail against the wall.
The father challenged his son to a test, saying: “Let’s stop here and find out who Ivory really loves the most. You go north to the road, and I’ll go east to the woods. Whomever she follows will show her true allegiance.” The son reluctantly agreed to the father’s challenge. The father was confident the dog would follow him because of how faithfully she always followed the dad each day.
They both agreed not to look back until they had walked to our respective spots. As the father walked the 75 feet to the woods, he expected at any moment to hear the sound of Ivory’s steps behind him. He held off looking for as long as he could. Reaching the woods, he stopped, and looked over to his son. He had also stopped at his spot, the same distance from their starting point.
But to their surprise, Ivory had followed neither of them. There she sat right where they had left her, anxiously looking back and forth from one to the other. She excitedly wagged her tail and moved her front legs as if to go to one of them. Then she resumed her looking as if she was saying, “Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe….” As they approached each other, Ivory left her spot and ran to them, arriving just as they met.
“No servant can be the slave of two masters.” Jesus doesn’t give a third alternative. There are only two paths in life, one that leads us closer to Christ, or the one that leads us away from Him. In other words, we cannot be morally neutral in life. We can’t sit on the fence. Either we live selfishly (this is symbolized by what Christ calls “mammon,” or worldly riches, which enable us to exercise selfish desires), or we live for Christ. If we live selfishly, we actually contribute to the culture of selfishness; we extend the kingdom of money and follow the lord of selfishness — Satan.
If we live for Christ, on the other hand, we help build up His Kingdom of justice and love — the eternal Kingdom. Those who pretend to stay neutral are fooling themselves.
At the same time, Jesus reminds us that we don’t make this choice just once. Every day, in “small matters” and “great ones,” God gives us chances to exercise our love for Him, or our love for self. The Christian life consists in an ongoing series of decisions in which we reinforce or undermine our basic choice to follow Christ.
We have all squandered the gifts God has given us, because we have all sinned and been affected by sin. And sooner or later we will have to face the music — we will die and face judgment. But in the meantime, we have a golden opportunity to put our lives and talents at the service of His Kingdom, instead of at the service of self. When we serve the wrong master, or when we try to serve two masters, being followers of Christ on the inside and followers of worldly fashions on the outside, we end up living a divided, frustrated life.
You may remember the book, To Kill a Mockingbird. It was made into a movie with Gregory Peck in 1962. It has rightly made its way onto the short list of American classics.
The story takes place in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s, where relations between blacks and whites were still marked by racism. The drama centers on the attorney Atticus Finch, a widower with two school-aged children. The county judge has assigned him the unpopular task of defending in court Tom Robinson, a black man who has been falsely accused of crimes against a white woman. The whole town resents the fact that Atticus Finch, an upstanding white citizen, accepts the assignment. They think it is beneath his dignity to defend a black man accused of such crimes.
Atticus takes the case anyway, in spite of warnings and threats. Not only does he suffer for it, but his children do too. The reason he gives for doing the right thing regardless of the risks is very interesting. He puts it concisely in a conversation toward the end of the book. He says:
“I can’t live one way in town and another way in my home.”
That’s what it means to have an undivided heart. That was the secret to his integrity, his strength of soul, and his peace of mind.
Jesus wants us to have undivided hearts, strength of soul, and peace of mind. He wants us to serve only one master — the right one. Today’s culture, however, strongly encourages us to live lives that are self-centered instead of Christ-centered. To serve mammon instead of God.
There have been periods of history in which the popular culture was actually Christian, when the current of culture actually helped people be true to their Christian mission. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a period like that anymore. We live in a culture that disrespects the ways of God and the Christian heart.
Jesus often reminds us of the need to be “trustworthy in the small matters” of life, so that we can be trustworthy in the great ones. In order for this to happen, we have to make a conscious effort to serve only one master, THE MASTER! We have to remember that the small choices we make each day, either draw us closer to Christ or push us away from Him. If we get sucked into a gossip session, we are weakening Christ’s Kingdom. If we go the extra mile to help a relative or a colleague in need, we are strengthening it. The key is to remember, to create a habitual mentality that sees daily life as an arena in which we are battling for or against Christ.
Another word for that habitual mentality is faith. Our Catholic Faith is more than just a list of beliefs; it’s the way we see the world. Since faith is a virtue, we can help it grow by exercising it. And one of the best ways to exercise it is by developing a disciplined prayer life. Taking even ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night to speak with Christ about what is important to Him and what is important to us does wonders for keeping our faith in shape.
Today, let’s ask Christ to strengthen our faith, so that we can serve Him better, and let’s promise Him that this week we will do our part to keep our faith in shape.
A Taste Of Heavenly Sweetness
In closing we pray the prayer, Adoro Te Devote:
O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee, Who truly art within the forms before me; To Thee my heart I bow with bended knee, As failing quite in contemplating Thee. Jesu, eternal Shepherd! hear our cry; Increase the faith of all whose souls on Thee rely. Sight, touch, and taste in Thee are each deceived; The ear alone most safely is believed; I believe all the Son of God has spoken, Then truth’s own word there is no truer token. God only on the cross lay hid from view; But here lies hid at once the manhood too; And I, in both professing my belief, Make the same prayer as the repentant thief. Thy wounds, as Thomas saw, I do not see; Yet Thee confess my Lord and God to be. Make me believe Thee ever more and more; In Thee my hope, in Thee my love to store. O Thou memorial of our Lord’s own dying! O living bread, to mortals’ life supplying! Make Thou my soul henceforth on Thee to live, Ever a taste of heavenly sweetness give.
O loving Pelican! O Jesus Lord! Unclean I am, but cleanse me in Thy Blood! Of which a single drop, for sinners spilt, Can purge the entire world from all its guilt. Jesus, whom, for the present, veiled I see, What I so thirst for, oh! vouchsafe to me; That I may see Thy countenance unfolding, And may be blest Thy glory in beholding. Amen.
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