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Eglise St. Jean Baptiste

Eglise St. Jean Baptiste

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Eglise St. Jean Baptist
Rectory Address: 184 E 76th St, New York, NY 10021

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  • TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, October 10, 2021
February 5, 2023

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, October 10, 2021

Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste
Sunday, 10 October 2021 / Published in Church Reflections

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, October 10, 2021

WISDOM 7:7-11 HEBREWS 4:12-13 MARK 10:17-40

In the Gospel passage today, Jesus and his closest disciples were about to set out on a missionary journey. Suddenly, a man ran straight up to him, threw himself on his knees and blurted out, “Good teacher, what must I do to attain eternal life?” No Hello Rabbi. No excuse me. Just right to what was on his mind. This man was overly-exuberant, even verging on the rudeness that sometimes clings to people of privilege. Was he expecting a quick and easy answer to a question as deep as the meaning of life?

Jesus, taken aback by the man, immediately clipped his enthusiasm. “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” He then gave the man a quick answer to his question: “Follow the commandments.” He even went on to enumerate some of them. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t bear false witness. Don’t defraud. Honor your father and your mother. All but one of these were simple don’ts. The man proudly announced that he had “kept” those commandments from his youth. Then something interesting happened. We’re told that Jesus “looked at him.”

The verb, “to look at,” is used a number of times in the New Testament. This particular Greek word doesn’t refer to seeing. It has to do with perceiving – looking into the soul of a person. Looking at him, Jesus understood him, his motivations, his desires.

So far, life had been easy for this man but he wanted something more. He wanted eternal life. He thought Jesus could give him a simple formula to possess it.

Looking at him, Jesus perceived the roadblock that this man had come up against in his quest. It was his wealth and privilege. This man’s path to eternal life would be painful and challenging.

Lovingly, Jesus gave him the answer to his question. “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.”

The man heard what Jesus told him, but sadly wasn’t able to take that step. “He had many possessions.” He turned away from Jesus and returned, crestfallen, to his familiar life.

Jesus used this incident to teach his disciples an important lesson. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” This statement is as shocking to us as it was to those disciples. They threw their hands up in the air. “Then who can be saved?” The answer was simple – those who trust enough to offer themselves completely to God. “For human beings it is impossible but not for God.”

There’s nothing wrong with wealth. But, many times, wealth is marred by an attitude of privilege and self-absorption. Jesus’ parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man addressed the spiritual danger that can come with wealth. The rich man was so consumed with his own self-gratification that he never noticed the starving beggar languishing just outside his dining room window. Wealth and privilege can isolate a person from the totality of God’s world – a world of comfort and power and struggle and suffering and powerlessness.

Jesus showed the rich man the path to eternal life but it wasn’t the glory road the man expected. It was the road shared by the poor and suffering. It was the road of painful awareness of the world. It was the world where sacrificial love was the highway to eternal life.

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CHURCH SCHEDULE OF MASSES

REVISED CHURCH SCHEDULE

WEEKDAYS
The church will open for Prayer and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 7:00 AM
CONFESSIONS will be heard from 11:30 PM until 11:50 PM
MASS will be celebrated at 12:00 PM. The church will close at 2:00 PM.

SATURDAY
The church will open at 11:00 AM
CONFESSIONS will be heard from 11:30 PM until 11:50 PM
MASS will be celebrated at 12:00 PM
**Prayer and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will generally follow Mass until 4:45 PM. Weddings may take place during the afternoon preventing Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
The anticipated Sunday MASS will be celebrated at 5:00 PM.
The church will close at 6:30 PM.

SUNDAY
The Church will open at 8:30 AM
MASS will be celebrated at 9:00 AM
THE HIGH MASS will be celebrated at 11:00 AM Prayer and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will follow the High Mass until 3:45 PM.
MASS will be celebrated at 4:00 PM
The church will close at 5:30.