21 October 2018 – 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
In the classic work of C.S. Lewis, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” Aslan offers his life in exchange for the life of the young Edmund who is guilty of a transgression (supposedly betrayal). The witch cites the deep magic from the beginning of time.
Then, just as all seems lost, Aslan rises from the dead with the power of the deep magic from beyond the beginning of time, which the witch did not know of. His laying down his life freely empowers him to take it up again.
This is a beautiful story of a person who offers himself as ransom to save the life of another person. It is presumed that the one being ransomed is precious enough as, or even more precious than, what is being used as ransom.
There are two other characteristics of ransom that I wish to highlight. One is the sacrificial nature of such a ransom, i.e., it is a self-offering done in complete freedom which “sanctifies” the offering. Two is a type of ransom that goes beyond human logic—the deep magic from beyond the beginning of time—into the realm of the nonrational and the transcendent.
In exchange for salvation
This is the ransom that Christ talks about in today’s Gospel, the nature of his own service and perfect offering: “…the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He offers himself in exchange for our salvation, to open for us a way to eternal life with the example of his own life, passion and death as the means—the only means—to be blessed with the ultimate grace of Christian salvation.
He dies that we might have life, “and live to the full.” He is our ransom who is more precious than any and all of us left to ourselves. As many spiritual writers and scripture put it, our salvation, our freedom, was bought at a great price. This is what makes it a sacrifice that is once and for all.
The sacrificial nature of Christ’s offering done in complete freedom is the perfect sacrifice, because it was and is continuously offered in perfect freedom, the freedom to love and love greatly. There is no greater freedom than the freedom to love and love greatly.
This great love is what gives the sacrifice, the ransom, its transcendent value, its “deep magic from beyond the beginning of time.”
The other day, I had a conversation with one of our former Ateneo students. He worked in a department that was then under my office’s supervision. In his life’s journey, I somehow became part of his life’s milestones.
Our conversation went back to the basics: Is the life he is living now the one he had always wanted to live, making a difference in the world, making it a little bit better? One of his questions was, how does one live such a life?
My own journey
The question made me recall my own journey, to the time when I faced a similar question. I was then studying theology while helping take care of my mother who was sick.
After suffering from poor health for two years, she died in 1988 and I left for regency, two years of our seminary formation where we would work full-time, normally in a Jesuit high school.
I was returning to my first love, teaching and high school work, while recovering from the stress of the two years. It was rebooting and returning to the core inspiration of my mission and vocation.
I remembered the dynamics of my prayer and reflection then, where I renewed once more the offering of myself to God’s will and mission for me, the same inspiration that made me say “yes” to teaching and later on to becoming a priest.
In the spiritual “high” of offering my life again, God re-accepted and seemingly told me, “Good, very good, now prepare your lesson plans, prepare well for your classes, check your papers, etc.”
It went back to St. Mother Teresa’s description of their work—“do little things with great love.”
Our mission and offering are lived in the day-to-day, in the little things done with great love.
Christ himself lived his mission the same way. He got up early to pray. He gave up rest and recreation time to respond to pleas of the people for healing and to satisfy their spiritual thirst. He empathized with Martha and Mary, with the widow who lost her only son, with the crowd who were “like sheep without a shepherd.”
In these “little things” he nurtured and developed his ability to serve and to love with a great love, and when the moment came, he was able to offer himself as a “ransom for many.”
As in all things God asks of us, it is our freedom that gives value to our “yes,” our offering. It is the freedom to do all things—little things, big things—that allows us to do them with great love. It is what makes all that we do a ransom for many, a life lived in the day to day with love, always with great love. —CONTRIBUTED