Making sense of human existence

When we read the papers today, we take what is reported about this politician, this big-wig, these warring factions in Congress, the grab for power and money, the wrong directions our government is taking, status symbols of both society women and men who would rather bare their bodies than be dressed properly, who appear as greatest when they can model the latest fashion (and what modern fashion). Then this flaunting of celebrity love affairs and the big news of pregnancy outside wedlock and what the world considers scoop news reports of depraved morality and every imbalance one can think of in human existence.

These disorders of human existence can be defined more precisely as imbalances much like the person who is "cuckoo." It is a "cuckoo" situation we are all in. This situation is not merely made up of imbalances in the physical organism. But here, we are thinking of existential imbalance. It is like a whole structure thrown out of joint. We can determine two main directions in which the imbalance takes place, though both may well be present together in a single person or in a single society, in different regards. These disorders arise from reluctance or refusal to accept generally, the limitation of human existence, and also from the desire to have a superhuman or godlike existence, free from the restraints that are inseparable from a genuinely human life.

There are disorders such as sensual indulgence, insensitivity to others, despair and irresponsibility. These disorders proceed from pride. This pride we recognize in people who become intoxicated and bewitched with a sense of their own power. We know pride as the root of all evil, from the time our first parents committed the sin of pride which was the fall of man.

The model of imbalance is best described by Jesus’ denunciation of the ostentatious behavior of the Scribes and the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. In them perhaps we see human existence at its most disordered; and yet they were during their time the intellectually, religiously elite stickers in the Old Law of Moses and supposedly taking his place.

"The Pharisees and the Scribes have taken the seats on the chair of Moses… do not follow their example. For they tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces and the salutation ‘Rabbi’ (Mt. 23:1-7). Such is the basic disorder of human existence which can carry anyone further in the direction of despairing about man and concluding that his existence cannot make sense.

Jesus has only one Word of grace which does "make sense" of human existence, which alone can bring order into it while helping to overcome frustrations, fulfilling the possibilities of a person. Existence fulfills itself in selfhood. An authentic self is a unitary, stable and relatively abiding structure in which the polarities of existence are held in balance and potentialities are brought to fulfillment. ‘As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’. You have but one Teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one Master; the Messiah. The greatest among you must be the servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted" (Mt 23:8-12). That now, according to the Word of God today is "making sense" for the Kingdom.

Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Matthew 23:1-12.