Peace be with you. Friends, how prominent
a role jealousy plays in the great literature
of the world. Think for example
of Shakespeare's Iago. Think of Melville's great
story “Billy Budd,” which focuses on the
effects of envy. Think in the Bible, the story
of Joseph and his brothers, how much of that narrative
is driven by envy. Or the story of Saul
and David in 1 Samuel. Saul's jealousy of David
drives the narrative. How often envy, jealousy
is just a powerful dynamic in human relations. Well, what is it?
What is jealousy? My hero Thomas Aquinas,
with typical pith, defines envy this way: an irrational anger
at the success of others. That's good, isn't it? As I say, typically, Aquinas
there, very to the point. Envy is an irrational anger
at the success of others. This calls to my mind Gore
Vidal, the American novelist. I think great
characterization of envy. He said, "When a friend of mine succeeds,
something in me dies." Now mind you, the subtlety
of that, the honesty of it. When a friend of mine succeeds. So it's an enemy of mine or
someone I don't even know, and when they succeed,
I don't care. But when a friend succeeds,
something in me dies. An irrational anger
at the success of others. Remember in the “Divine Comedy,”
Dante punishes the envious by having their
eyelids sewn shut. The idea is they spent
their whole life looking at other people,
looking at how they're all doing, comparing themselves
to others. So in purgatory their
eyelids are sewn shut. Now a very close cousin
of envy is ambition, and it should be clear why. If envy is an irrational anger
at the success of others, one way to deal with that
is by putting people down. The other way is by relentlessly
putting yourself up. So if you're ambitious, you're
driving yourself ahead of the pack all the time. That way you never
have to face this moment of the success
of someone else. I don't have to face this. I'm driving myself
ahead of them all the time. So envy is a close cousin
of ambition. Now notice something in our marvelous
second reading for today. It’s taken from
the letter of James. Can I recommend
—it's very short— sit down, get your Bibles out,
and read the letter of James. You can do it easily
in one sitting. Takes you ten,
fifteen minutes. James is very wise
when it comes to the practical affairs
of the world, when it comes to affairs
of the heart. James knows about that. Here's what he says. "Beloved: Where jealousy
and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and
every foul practice." Notice first he
links together properly jealousy and
selfish ambition. They're like cousins. One implies the other,
as I was saying. But where that exists,
listen, there is disorder and every foul practice. The great tradition refers
to envy as one of the capital sins,
the deadly sins, if you want. But I like capital,
from “caput,” meaning head. It means it's a
kind of fountainhead of other sins and
other dysfunctions. If I'm wracked by jealousy, I'm wracked by envy,
that's going to give rise to all kinds of
nasty stuff, isn't it? I'm going to start gossiping
about other people. I mean, why do we gossip? Well, because we want
to keep people down. We want to destroy
their reputations because they might
get ahead of us. It gives rise
to real cruelty. You know what I'm talking
about, fellow sinners. We'll do very cruel things
precisely because we don't want someone
getting ahead of us. We might be very aggressive
or we might be more subtle, like trying to
destroy someone's reputation. Yeah, envy is a capital sin
from the “caput,” from the head. As James says, there follows
disorder and every foul practice. How about ambition? Think of all the bad things
that follow from ambition. I mean, I'll step on people
if I'm driven to get ahead. I'll cause havoc around me as
I'm trying to climb the ladder. So from these flow
all kinds of bad things. But then James makes this
observation, which I think is super important. So we're talking about
these objectivities of envy and jealousy and ambition
and what they produce. Here's what he says though. "Where do the wars and where
do conflicts among you come from? Is it not from
your passions that make war
within your members?” Now he's making
a further move here. So, all these dysfunctions
caused by envy and by ambition. But where do they
come from ultimately? They come from disorders
inside of us, you see. And all the spiritual masters,
I think, agree with this. It's when there's a
disintegration inside, there tends to be disintegration
on the outside. When I fall apart spiritually
and psychologically on the inside, I tend to sow disorder
and disintegration outside. I've used before that
image of the rose window, those beautiful windows in
the Gothic churches at the center of which is always
a depiction of Christ. And then wheeling around
that center are all the different elements
of the window, connected harmoniously
to each other and to the center. Okay, that's an image of the
well-ordered soul, isn't it? Centered in Christ,
all the elements that make me up on the inside
now linked to Christ and therefore linked
harmoniously to one another. A saint is someone
who's found this wholeness, this integration, which is
why saints tend to radiate integration outside. They produce harmony and
integration outside of them. But we sinners who have fallen
apart —what does James say? There's a war within you.
That's what he means. I've fallen apart. My mind, my will,
my passions, my interests, they're disassociated from Christ and therefore
from each other. And therefore I've become a
sower of disharmony around me. That sound familiar? Fellow sinners, you know
exactly what I'm talking about. When you're especially in
a bad way on the inside, you tend to make things
worse on the outside, right? That's what he's saying. Now in light of all of this, we have to look for
the right solution, and we find it precisely in the pages of our
Gospel for today. Jesus is journeying
with the Twelve, and he's clearly laying out
his mission and his identity. He'll be rejected by men
who will kill him. And then he will rise
from the dead. In short, he's laying out
the dynamics of the Paschal Mystery, a life lived
in self-emptying love for the sake
of God's kingdom. He's implying, of course,
this is their mission too. You're my disciples.
Come after me. Walk in my path. And so you got that same mission,
by acts of self-emptying love, to bring about
the kingdom of God. Okay. What follows from this
is a scene that would really be funny if
it weren't so tragic. As he's laying out this most
profound of truth, precisely about how his life
is all about self-emptying love, the disciples commence
to argue about what? Which one of them
is the greatest. What's happening here? And we can recognize
this in a family, in a coffee klatch,
in a community, in a society,
in a culture. What's happening here is the
typical move of the envious and ambitious spirit. Who's the greatest? Which of us
should get ahead? How can I put you down
so I appear better? This is the old familiar game,
but it is directly repugnant to what Jesus has just
been talking about. His mission is about the
overcoming of all this silliness and getting on with
the work of love, getting on with the work
of self-sacrifice for the sake of the mission. They’re not listening
to a word he's saying because all they're concerned
about envy, ambition, who's ahead, what do I have
to do to get into that position. Okay. At which point Jesus does
something rather extraordinary. He takes a little child and
places his arms around the child and puts the child there
in the midst of them. Now get that scene in your mind: the disciples all gathered
around Jesus and he has his arms around
this little child. And he says this: "Whoever receives one child
such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me, receives not me but
the One who sent me.” There's a lot
going on here. First of all, a child
in Jesus' time and culture would have been at the very,
very bottom of the social ladder. What I mean is a child would
not have been taken seriously, would not have been seen
in any way as a figure worthy of attention. We're probably a little more
romantic about that, but they weren't in
the ancient world. A child was at the very, very
bottom of the social ladder. Hey, I'm ambitious. I'm envious, and
so I'm ambitious. I want to get to the top. Jesus puts in their midst
a figure at the very, very bottom of the
social ladder. In other words, let go of
this stupid envy and ambition. What else is he saying as he
puts this child in their midst? I think this. Children are capable
of being commanded. The child isn't reaching
immediately for his own autonomy. Children live in a world where
their parents command them. They do what
they're told, etc. Well, that's the right
attitude in the spiritual order. It's not my projects, my plans,
my ambitious designs. No, no. Do what you're told. Allow yourself to be
commanded by Christ. It's not your climbing
the ladder that matters, it's what you do for
the sake of the kingdom. There's this too, I think. Children have this
wonderful capacity, and parents know
about this, to get lost
in the present moment. Think of a child at play,
and it's something silly, but play is always
kind of like that. Not thinking about the past,
not preoccupied with the future, but completely caught up
with a kind of joyful abandon in the present moment. Children have got
that capacity. Sadly, we either
knock it out of them or life knocks it out
of them. But little kids
can do it. They can get lost
in the present moment. Every spiritual master that
I know talks about this in the spiritual life. What gives us joy? This capacity to give
ourselves utterly to the present moment. As the Little Flower said, what's the present
demand of love? What's love demanding
of me right now? That's all that matters. Don't get preoccupied
with the past. Envy often looks to the past
and what these people have done. And I resent this, and
I'm still mad about that. Ambition looks to the future,
right? What can I do? How can I get ahead?
Where am I going? Forget the past
and the future. But like a child,
be able to live with a kind of beautiful, joyful
abandon in the present moment. Okay, so fellow sinners,
we all wrestle with envy and ambition. We all know that
these inner conflicts, this disintegration
on the inside produces disintegration
on the outside. We all know that. We know that as we listen
to Jesus all our lives talk to us about
the Paschal Mystery, we're preoccupied
with who's getting ahead. All right, all right. I get it.
That's true. So keep this
image before you: Jesus with his arms
around this little child. That's what the
kingdom of God is about. And God bless you. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video,
I invite you to share it and to subscribe
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