What's being left behind?

Good News ReflectionFriday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary TimeNovember 13, 2009
Today's Memorial: Saint Frances Xavier CabriniPray for children to be protected from games that are violent or occultic:http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/FrancesXavier.htm
Today's Readings:Wisdom 13:1-9Ps 19:2-5abLuke 17:26-37http://www.usccb.org/nab/111309.shtmlUSCCB Podcast of the Readings:http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/09_11_13.mp3
What's being left behind?
Are you ready to leave behind whatever is hurting your holiness?
Jesus says in today's Gospel reading, "Wherever the carcass is, there the vultures will gather." I witnessed a graphic illustration of this metaphor when I visited a parish that had little life. It noticeably lacked soul-stirring energy in its liturgies. It's ministries weren't growing, the youth program was hardly spiritual, and adult faith formation was practically non-existent. A parish thrives only when the Holy Spirit is allowed to blow life into the body.
As I entered that church, I noticed that perched on the steeple's cross were a couple of actual vultures. I couldn't help but recall these words of Jesus.
Although today's Gospel passage teaches about the Second Coming of Christ, we can also understand it in terms of our lives here and now. Some people "will be taken" into a life of holiness while many around them are left behind. Noah was taken aboard the ark while others drowned in their sinfulness. Lot was rescued from the evil in Sodom while others were destroyed by it.
And you are being taken to higher levels of spirituality and a closer friendship with God, but sadly, you've had to leave behind some of your family members and friends who have refused to put much energy into the call of holiness.
When there is no striving for holiness, there is destruction, deterioration, and eventually spiritual death. The road of holiness is a very challenging life. It's far easier to get pulled into the downward spiral of sin and addictions.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, Jesus said. We're trying to be our own savior when we lie (it's an attempt to protect ourselves) or cheat (to give ourselves an unfair advantage), when we choose the pleasures of marriage without the commitment of a sacramental marriage (we take the relationship on our own terms rather than by Christ's sacramental presence), when we make up our own rules based on what feels good, and so on.
In other words, we sacrifice our eternal souls for temporary solutions.
Whoever forfeits their lives will keep it, Jesus said. Losing our lives in God means surrendering our attempts to be God and letting him take charge. Only by accepting that his ways, his rules, his examples of love are better than our own can we find God's life of peace in the midst of difficulties and temptations.
Noah forfeited a normal life to build a crazy ark far from any ocean, and he forfeited his home and land and friendships to go into the ark. Lot likewise forfeited everything to leave Sodom. What are you being asked to forfeit? What are you still clinging to that you need to leave behind before it's too late?
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