THE WORD
1 Pt 1,10-16 / Mk 10,28-31
Peter began to say to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and (the) last will be first.”
IN OTHER WORDS
Mark’s version, which is similar to that of Luke’s, has Peter simply state the fact: “We have given up everything and followed you”. Matthew’s version, on the other hand, adds a question to Peter’s statement: “What then will there be for us?”
This question of Peter is often echoed by many of those who give themselves to God’s service or to the Church’s mission. What do we receive in return? This question arises from a mistaken perspective, namely, that one follows the Lord in order to fulfill one’s dreams. The correct perspective, rather, is that one follows the Lord in order to help fulfill HIS dream. The former inevitably leads to seeing service to God or the Church as a sacrifice or a burden. The latter understands it as a privilege and a gift.
As St. Joseph Freinademetz, the first SVD missionary to China, wrote in one of his letters to his family: “Thank God ... that the Lord has given us the grace of having a missionary in our family ... I do not consider this as a sacrifice that I offer to God, but as the greatest gift that God is giving me”. Again from China he wrote: “I cannot thank the Lord enough for having made me a missionary in China .... The most beautiful vocation in the world is being a missionary.”
Or as Pope Francis says in Evangelii Gaudium (cf. 1-13), every genuine encounter with Jesus is an experience of joy. The Gospel therefore is an invitation to joy. Thus, proclaiming the Gospel is also an experience of joy. In mission, the Pope says, “God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us.” (EG 12)
This is the hundredfold that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading – the experience of the joy of the Gospel, the gift of serving God, the privilege of sharing in God’s mission, the grace of having the “most beautiful vocation in the world.”
- Fr. Antonio Pernia, SVD | DWIMS, Tagaytay City
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
