By: Cardinal Thomas Collins ©
“To you, O Lord”
Jesus said to [the young man], “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:21-22)
I love the response in some of the Eastern Christian tradition of liturgy where at certain points, we simply sing together, “to you, O Lord”; and so, we give our life to the Lord God himself.
We say, Take me, Lord, to you, O Lord. And that is a kind of a focus we need to have. We need to keep and focus our attention on the Lord our God, whom we love with heart and mind and soul.
And as we do that with the Lord, we also need to do that with one another as well, to pay attention to other people. Do you ever get the feeling sometimes someone is speaking to you, but their mind is on something else? It’s very easy.
I remember once I was at a meeting of Catholic educators, and during a break in the meeting, all of us pulled out our little telephones, and all of us were absent of those who were present and present of those who were absent.
We were totally distracted. No one was paying attention to the people right there. So easy to do and made easier by some of the technology.
To you, O Lord, we focus our attention on the Lord, and we keep it focused. And we do the same with one another. We pay attention.
Pope Saint John Paul II
But just for a few moments, very few, he looked at me and I said, “Thomas Collins from Hamilton Diocese”. And he said to me the immortal words:
Hamil-ton, Hamil-ton. . . .
And then he went on. I often think, what did he mean by that?
But for that moment, though, he wasn’t looking over my shoulder. He was looking right at me. And for only a second or two, I had the complete attention of the Vicar of Christ on earth.
- So we need to be attentive to God.
- We need to be attentive to one another.
- We need to keep focused and not be always drawn hither and yon.
The important thing is not just to be focused, but to keep the focus on the Lord God as the one point of our life.
The Rich Young Man
There we have our Lord calling a young man, and the young man has kept all the commandments. He’s done all the good things. And the Lord says:
. . . sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow Me. (Mark 10:21)
He doesn’t simply say keep the commandments.
He says, follow me personally. Focus your life on Him. And the man walked away sadly, for he had many distractions, many possessions that fuzzed up his focus and let him here, there, everywhere.
Heaven knows what he was focusing on in a moment or two when he came to the end of his life.
So for all of us, we need to be focused, attentive to you, O Lord, my Lord and my God.
