Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
In the great pastoral constitution of the Second Vatican Council Gaudium et Spes, the Church offers a fundamental insight into the nature of the humanity as it declares that the human person “cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” Accordingly, in order for the human person to realize his full potential, he must go beyond himself and give himself firstly to God and then to his neighbor on account of God.
However, although the language used by the council fathers might be a refreshed presentation, this understanding of the human person goes much further back, even to the very sources of the Christian message. In today’s Gospel, Jesus acknowledges and proclaims that same message, as he announces, “whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” Paradoxically though it may seem at first, Jesus astutely reveals that those who are preoccupied with their own satisfaction will never be able to find satisfaction; however, those who give of themselves out of love for God and their neighbor find salvation and the fulness of life.
Therefore, as we apply the words of Jesus to our own lives, we may consider how the Lord is asking us concretely to give of ourselves in a more sincere and complete way. Similarly, we may ponder how we are being called to direct the gaze of our hearts beyond ourselves to focus upon the ever-greater God and our neighbors made in his divine image.