Limitations and Compensations
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13 October 1991
Paris, France

My dear Confreres,

The Gospel this morning is one that centers on youth. St. Mark at the beginning of the passage seems to emphasize the rich man's youth, for he comes running up to Jesus. He is not only rich and young, but he also has high ideals. With utter sincerity he tells Our Lord that he has observed all the commandments, and St. Mark notes that Jesus loved him. At the end of the Gospel we have the young Peter who has left all things and followed Jesus and is anxious to know what he will have. Our Lord spells out to him the reward that comes to all who leave all for Christ.

Whenever I read the Gospel and encounter Peter, I find myself reflecting that in Peter we find the history of our own vocation. First, Peter was generous. He leaves everything to follow Christ. We think of our own years when we made big sacrifices to enter the Community. Then a little later we find ourselves asking, as Peter asked in this morning's Gospel, "what shall we have?" We look back on our early years in the Community or in the priesthood, marked by great generosity, and those years are followed by years in which we become more calculating. Our minds seem, perhaps, more intent on what we will get from the Community than what we can give it. There are also Peter's moral failures, and none of us would dare to throw any stone at Peter. In one way or another, we also have failed and denied the Christ whom, as young men, we left all things to serve.

How many years are on our shoulders! We may not have the same physical strength, the same enthusiasm for the cause of Christ that we had when we first entered the Community. I do not think, however, that we should let our minds dwell too much on that. The fact is that we have persevered in our vocation, even if we have had ups and downs. The fact is that God has kept us in life and, as long as He leaves us in life, He has work for us to do. Perhaps in the last years of our lives the scope of our activity may seem very narrow. We find that we are compelled by diminishment of strength to be passive rather than active. We may even regret that we wasted the energies of our youth. Whether that be true or not, I like to think that the final years of our life may surprise us when in the vision of God we will see the entire panorama. St. Paul remarked in his letter to the Corinthians that when he was weakest, then he was strongest because the power of Christ was at work in him. Old age has great limitations, but it also has some compensations. Only age can bring a clearer vision of what is really essential in life. All of you here are given by Our Lord a fresh vision of the value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass. Whether the world recognizes it or not, it is through the Mass that all good things come to humanity. If God has left you in life, it may be for no other purpose than to celebrate or assist at the Mass of each day. In that way, with Christ and through Christ and in Christ, you will be giving all honor and glory to the Father from Whom all good things come.

Let me end this little reflection by quoting one of my favorite passages from the writings of St. Vincent. It is his reflection on old age:

All our life is but a moment which flies away, disappears quickly. Alas, the seventy-six years of my life which I have passed seem to me but a dream and a moment. Nothing remains of them but regret for having so badly employed this time. Let us think of the dissatisfaction we will have at our deaths if we do not use this time to be merciful. Let us then be merciful, my Brothers, and let us exercise mercy towards all in a way that we will never find a poor man without consoling him, if we can, nor an uninstructed man without teaching him in a few words those things which it is necessary to believe and which he must do for his salvation. O Saviour, do not permit that we abuse our vocation. Do not take away from this Company the spirit of mercy, because what would become of us if You should withdraw Your mercy from it. Give us, then, that mercy along with the spirit of gentleness and humility. (Coste XI, Fr. ed., p. 342).

Yes, may that spirit of mercy, gentleness and humility be given to us all here and to the Congregation throughout the world.

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