Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 4 August 2013

Little Prince meets the Fox

18th Sunday of the Year C

‘All is vanity’ says the Preacher. Those words have figured in so many old sermons and prayer books about the spiritual life . ’Look for the things in heaven' says St Paul in his letter to the Colossians, ‘not on the things of earth!’. Frankly I disagree with that perception, because they start with a negative premise, that somehow this earth isn’t the ‘real thing’. Well maybe earth isn’t the New Jerusalem or the Heavenly City, but as Jesus says so often, the Kingdom of God is to be found in and on it!

Let’s turn those statements on their heads and try another angle. Yes, the things about us are transient and do not last because we all face that simple sister of St Francis ‘Bodily Death’, but that doesn’t mean what we do, and have, and are now, is of no consequence. How can it not be? For here, you and I become in baptism the children of God and here countless ages finds the presence of God walking with them, here the Holy Spirit is at work and faith hope and love abound!

Perhaps Paul and the Preacher are really telling us to try harder, do better, pull our spiritual and moral socks right up. That to me is a better way to see their challenge as a positive one, because heaven is here with us NOW and infinity is right at the heart of the love that is in our lives.

I love that throw away phrase at the end of the second reading, that ‘ there is only one Christ: he is everything and he is in everything’. Isn’t that the reason why our earth is so important, for it is here Christ came, here he died, here he rose again and shows us the way to salvation. The whole cosmic drama of redemption is played out on these lands and with all living things as part of the action.

In his story of the Little Prince, Antoine de St-Exupery, has the Fox saying: ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye, it is with the heart that one sees correctly’ (that is my paraphrase) but isn’t that what making oneself rich in the sight of God means? It is all about direction and attitude, seek first the kingdom, love God and Neighbour and all shall be well!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.