29 September 1991
Paris, France

My dear Sisters,

When Jesus Christ was a young boy living in His home at Nazareth and learning about the religious and political history of His nation, Mary and Joseph would certainly have told Him much about Moses. Moses was one of the great characters in the religious history of the Israelite people. The lesson must have impressed itself very deeply on the mind of the young Jesus, for you will recall how, after His resurrection, in walking on the road to Emmaus, He began to explain the whole religious history, starting with Moses. "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them all the scriptures concerning Himself." (Lk 24:27). Moses was a great leader. He was great in action, but he was also great in mind. You will notice how in today's first reading a young man told Moses that there were other people prophesying in the camp and, when even Moses' assistant, Joshua, asked Moses to stop these men from prophesying, Moses replied: "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets. Would that the Lord might bestow His spirit on them all." (Nm 11:29). Moses was secure in the knowledge that all gifts come from God. Moses liked to look up; lesser men liked to look down. To be a prophet is to be God's messenger. Lesser men around Moses felt threatened because their leader was not the sole proprietor of God's word.

In today's Gospel St. John is disturbed by the fact that another man, who was not among Jesus' disciples, was casting out devils. Jesus is serene and undisturbed and advises John and the other disciples to take a broader view of God's saving activity: "He who is not against us is for us." (Mk 9:40).

Both in the first and the third reading, there would seem to be evidence of jealousy. Moses' assistants and Jesus' disciples would, in all likelihood, have denied it. They would have said something like this: "We don't really mind, but all the same, good order demands," and so on. Envy and jealousy have a way of seeming to be very reasonable virtues. Envy and jealousy use a lot of cosmetics to conceal the ugly green of their faces.

Envy and jealousy are like cancer. The primary site of the cancer is in the heart, but it will metastasize into speech and action. It was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that at the center of all envy and jealousy lies sadness and that sadness is sinful. When we indulge in sadness at the success of another, the joy that Jesus Christ prayed would be in us, the joy that He shares with His Father, suffers frostbite and dies. It was St. Thomas, too, who noted that we are not jealous of those who are removed by time and distance from us. The disciples of Moses were not jealous of the patriarchs, nor Jesus' disciples of the prophets of the Old Testament. We are envious and jealous of those who are our contemporaries or who are younger than we. Jesus Christ was sent to His death by the envy of His contemporaries: "Pilate perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered Him up." (Mk 15:10). Envy and jealousy continue to wound the body of Christ which is His Church. Envy and jealousy are holding back the coming of the kingdom of God. Envy and jealousy are a scandal, that is, an obstacle to the growth of God's kingdom on earth. In today's Gospel Jesus Christ speaks in very hard terms of those who place obstacles in the way of the coming of God's kingdom.

The radium that can cauterize the cancer of jealousy is the grace to rejoice with those who rejoice. To rejoice and share in the joy of the success of another will not mean a diminishment of ourselves, however much we may feel that that is so. To enter into the joy of another whose success has been greater than our own, to be generous in measuring out our words of congratulations on their success, is to reflect the mind of Jesus Christ in today's Gospel. "May Our Lord," prayed St. Vincent at the end of a conference on envy, "grant us the grace to let us see and detest this accursed vice so contrary to charity. I beseech the Divine Goodness that the words of blessing I am now about to pronounce may be operative in your hearts and mine, so that the evil sin of envy may be driven out of them forever." (Conf. Eng. ed., 24 June 1654, p. 631).

If that grace of which St. Vincent speaks, is given to us, my dear Sisters, the joy of Christ will be able to enter our hearts and with His joy the peace that surpasses all understanding.