ASKING A GOOD QUESTION

Monday, 27^th Week in Ordinary Time    

            Today’s gospel reading revolves around the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Pardon me for saying this…Correct me if I am wrong…Most of the young people today do not even consider this question. Due to the influence of secularism, young people (even adults) are indifferent to this most important question.

            It seems that much of our life revolves around the question: “What must I do to have a prosperous life?” And what we mean by that is financially and materially prosperous life – with high-earning job or highly profitable business, enabling us to enjoy the best things money can buy. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Is this not supposed to be the question that, above all, we should also be seriously asking ourselves?

            The question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” can be paraphrased in these terms: What must I do to make my life filled with grace and allow myself to share in God’s life? What must I do to make sure that I will enter, by all means, the kingdom of God?

            Essentially linked to the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” is the follow-up question of the scholar of the law in today’s gospel: “And who is my neighbor?” In answer to this question, Jesus directs the attention of the scholar to the Sacred Scriptures. And the Scriptural answer is: Love God and express it by loving your neighbor. The parable clearly indicates that a ‘neighbor’ is anyone who needs help. However, for Jesus, the correct approach is not to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” but, rather, to ask, “How can I be a neighbor to someone who needs help?”

            The questions we should be asking will help us set our priorities, correct our wrong sense of values, and eliminate the things that hinder us from becoming the kind of person God wants us to be. So, may these questions lead us to doing things that will make our life filled with grace…that will empower us to follow Jesus more freely…that will allow us to enjoy the fullness of life…that will enable us to enter the kingdom of God. May these questions lead us to perform the works of mercy and to manifest the kind of love we have – which is love that works.