Thought for the Week, September 14, 2025

 

When the artiste Gaise Baba sang “No turning back”, he used lyrics emanating from the story of martyrdom of Nokseng, a Garo tribesman from Assam, now known as Meghalaya in India. As Nokseng faced death for professing his Christian faith, he declared: “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.” 

Considering contemporary reduction of religion to entertainment, and the turning of entertainment into a religion, Gaise Baba’s musical rendition of those words is such that today’s GenZ, dancing to its rhythm, may be oblivious of the easier-said-than-done character of the declaration. But those who reflect on the teachings of Jesus know that it is difficult to follow Jesus.

No one knows the intentions of God. No one can delve into the mystery of his will except the one to whom God reveals it. But God, in his love and mercy, unveils his will to us. His will is his goodness for us. He reveals his will to us so that we may know how much he loves us, and his love unfolds before us. Life itself is an unfolding of God’s love. God reveals the mystery of his love that we may know something of it. But we have no perfect understanding of his perfect will. That is why difficulties we face in life may provoke doubts in us, and the doubts may bring dark clouds of unbelief in some minds. Such is the challenge and adventure of a life of faith.

A life of faith is a life of trials. But in the darkness of doubts, God shows us mercy by shedding the light of his wisdom into our hearts. He sends his Holy Spirit into us so that we may learn his intentions and understand his ways. There is no time God leaves us. Even when we fall into the temptation to leave God, he wisely surrounds us with his love beyond our understanding. The long road of life may be rough. But God reduces its stress with his love.

Jesus came to teach us how to attach ourselves to the wisdom of God, the wisdom needed to navigate the rough road of life. He himself is the Wisdom of God, teaching us in the Gospel that we need to be detached so as to be attached to him who is Wisdom, that attachment to him who is Wisdom is wise, that we must prefer him, the Wisdom of God, to no other thing, and to no other person. 

When Jesus said, “If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple,” he spoke words that clearly point to the risk that goes with being a disciple of Christ. It is the risk of detachment. Yet, Jesus the Wisdom of God is teaching us to take this huge risk by detaching ourselves from all that we possess and cherish so as to possess what we do not see. It is the risk of wholehearted devotion to Jesus by detaching ourselves from worldly wealth and possessions, from family and from our former way of life. It is the risk of attaching oneself to God even if and when God seems to be absent when we need him most.  Following him is to journey on the way of the cross, the way to the cross.  This is the point that today’s populist preaching and religion of entertainment miss.

The things we love in life are visible, beautiful and desirable. But they are transitory. They have their sunrise and their sunset. Attaching ourselves to them is attaching ourselves to what does not last. That is why Jesus is inviting us to a new way of life in which we focus on our relationship with God more than we focus on our desires for things that are transitory even if they are concrete, tangible, visible and beautiful.

It takes wisdom that comes from spiritual maturity to embrace this new way of life into which Jesus is calling us. It is a way of life that will be achieved when, in the words of John Cassian, “dead with Christ to the elemental spirits of this world, we focus our affections as the apostle says, ‘not the things that are seen but those that are unseen, for what is seen is temporal but what is unseen is eternal.’  It will be achieved when in our hearts we leave this temporal and visible house and turn the eyes of our mind toward that in which we shall live for ever; when, though living in the world, we cease to follow the spirit of the world in order to fight for the Lord, proclaiming by our holy way of life that, as the apostle says, ‘our homeland is in heaven’” (Conferences, 3).

To be wise is to get our priorities right. Even as we need material things in life, the priority of a disciple of Christ must be the attainment of spiritual maturity that makes us see God as our greatest need, the maturity that makes us desire God above all the good things of this life. We shall not deny their goodness—the goodness of wealth, of possessions and pleasures, of family ties. But when we attain the spiritual maturity of a disciple of Christ, we learn to love them not absolutely but relatively. We begin to love them in God and not without God.

When God is our greatest desire in life, we are able to pass through all experiences, pleasant and unpleasant, because of the strength that comes from the very fact that we desire to live in God more than we live in wealth, in pleasure and in power.

Jesus leads us into the depths of God’s wisdom. He leads us to know the intentions of God. He reveals the will of God to us because he who is Son of God knows the intentions of God. If we wish to know the intentions of God, if we wish to understand his ways, let us be attached to his Son Christ Jesus. For to be attached to Jesus is to be attached to the wisdom of God.

Jesus is present in the holy sacrifice of the Mass so that we may be attached to him. His presence is the presence of the God who has put in us a desire for himself. The God we desire is already here with us in word and in sacrament.

Let us pray for the deep spiritual insight we need to see him, to hear him, and to bear witness to his presence in the world by the kind of life we live. This is not about spirituality that makes us unconcerned about the things of this world, about matters of justice and development. Rather, our attachment to God in Jesus is what gives us the inspiration and strength to make the world a better place.

Father Anthony Akinwale, OP