By Fr. Glenn Jones:
We have sort of a love/hate relationship with our mailbox, or, in these days, maybe our inbox. Oh boy … maybe I’ll get some letter/email from a friend or long-absent relation whom I’ve missed, or some other good or fun news. But … then there’s the inevitable bills, taxes, periodic bad news, unexpected problem that crops up—some more often than others.
So, we often get consumed with our day-to-day concerns and problems. Indeed, we tend to magnify even the more minor things until they seem looming above us like the mythical sword of Damocles, sometimes making for toss-and-turn nights: the constant pull of work, bills, problems with the kids, co-workers, employees, friends, parents, relatives, neighbors, etc. With so much coming at us, we often have blinders to more critical and wider-ranging issues. The wider view.
We Catholics in daily Mass readings recently had recounted the very inspirational account of God offering to the newly-crowned King Solomon of Israel a gift of his choosing. Yet rather than request something for selfish benefit, Solomon earnestly asked a gift for his people: to be imbued with wisdom in which he could rule well. Such request was so pleasing to God that He gave Solomon many other things for which people normally ask as well—long life, wealth, victories over adversaries, etc. Solomon longed for the greater good for those whom he ruled: wisdom to govern them with justice and righteousness. He was willing to deny himself for the good of the many.
The giving of self for others is a foundation upon which we build other virtue; indeed, virtue itself necessarily involves goodness toward others. Can a person who isolates himself totally from others be virtuous? Even religious hermits do great service—praying to God for the welfare of the world. And though we might admire the solitary “mountain man” for his strength, hardiness and resilience, few would call him “virtuous” in the self-giving sense of the word (unless his irascibility is so pronounced that his very absence is a charity! What a sad legacy that would be).
Of course, there are myriad scriptural, historical and literary accounts of admirable offerings of self for others—even for the good of only one other—or in simply in the desire do what was right. Is not such self-sacrifice of time, talent and treasure—and even more—not offerings of human love? As Jesus said so movingly (and challengingly): “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) Indeed, Jesus is the very epitome and paragon of such virtue in giving His life for the world. But we also remember the other meaningful self-sacrifices of Ruth who refused to abandon her widowed mother-in-law Naomi, or Elisha who refused to depart from Elijah, the young Pharisee Saul/Paul who abandoned a budding promising, lucrative and comfortable career to become a wandering and persecuted advocate and teacher of truth.
In non-Biblical, more modern times, we think of Gandhi who fought for civil rights through poverty, hunger strikes and non-violent protest. MLK, Jr. in his determined—and ultimately life-sacrificing—fight for civil rights for everyone. Nelson Mandela who suffered many years in prison for his stance against apartheid. And in everyday life, military personnel, police and firefighters who risk their lives for the good of others—often unheralded, taken for granted and sometimes even despised, and yet so essential in their roles of protecting our nation and local communities.
Thus, we have before us many examples providing us with innumerable opportunities for introspection … a bit of (ruthless) self-examination to think about whether we are too absorbed (obsessed?) with self and our own little orbits when we could “get out there” and be vehicles for the good of many. We need remember the “paved with good intentions” adage, for it’s very easy to dismiss opportunities for charity, virtue and magnanimity (or just everyday ol’ benignity) with an “Oh well…somebody else will take care of that,” or “I’m planning on helping out with that. Someday.” Ah, the pervasive societal entropy of selfishness and self-absorption; if everyone said such things, little would ever get done. As is often asked: “If not you, who? If not here…where? If not now, when?”
People sometimes muse about what would have the world been like if certain persons who have instigated great evil had been prevented by fate in some way, e.g., what if the young soldier Adolph Hitler’s injuries in WWI had been fatal? What if Stalin would have finished his Orthodox seminary education and pursued a benevolent priesthood? But the flip side is the opposite: what if those who have facilitated great good have instead retreated into the security of their own little world—Gandhi focused on his law career, MLK just had a quiet little church ministry, Mandela capitulated to authorities to live a quieter life? How many people would have suffered and/or died in hopelessness if young Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) had never ventured forth from her birthplace in Albania?
We all have an almost infinite variety of opportunities to bring good into a world in which good seems so often scarce. Seek always to broaden our horizons—not limiting ourselves to the narrow view of a microscope, but stepping back and viewing the whole of the vast universe of opportunities to do good that lay before us, whether it be founding a new society for world peace, simply teaching the young the principles of “Love God, and love neighbor”.
A favorite scene in “The Lord of the Rings” is when the ringbearer Frodo is lamenting the troubles he and the world was facing: “I wish none of this had happened.” Wise Gandalf replies. “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Such Solomonic wisdom—and reflection—lay within the grasp of all.
Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.
