That heading may seem somewhat harsh, inaccurate even.
But Fr Leon Pereira OP's fascinating sermon below explains why it is good not to be needed by God.
Reproduced here with the kind permission of
Torch.op.org
It's Nicer Not To Be Needed
- As a student friar one of my jobs was being the sacristan. One summer I
returned from a month-long pastoral placement to find the sacristy a complete
mess. A mountain of unlaundered purificators awaited me, along with other bits
of cloth of unknown origin the brethren had resorted to using rather than
washing and ironing those designated for that purpose. Chasubles and stoles lay
everywhere, strewn and creased.
As I took a deep breath and counted to a hundred again, my student master
tried to console me. 'At least you know you're wanted and needed.' It didn't
work.
Genuine consolation, I think, is found only in truth. Often when I am tempted
to take myself too seriously, when what I ought to do is laugh at myself, I
repeat my consoling mantra: 'God does not need me'. Why is that consoling? Well,
if God does not need me, then why am I here? Because he loves me.
Like everything else in creation, I am not necessary, and the fact of my
being, that I exist, shows only one thing: that God wants me to be, that
his love brought me into being and holds me in existence.
If God does not need us, then it is also true that we cannot do him any
favours. Only he can do us favours: loving us, gracing us, giving us himself. An
idea that plagues religious people is that we can do God favours, as though we
can give him something he does not have. In reality God is, as the liturgy says,
the 'Giver of the gifts we bring'.
One attempt to do God a favour is the illusion of returning to a 'pure
Gospel', to a time of apostolic purity before the Church fell away into human
traditions. Today's Gospel which criticises the hypocritical Pharisees in
Moses's seat is too often and too readily reapplied to the Church's shepherds
who sit in Peter's seat.
This may seem like pessimism regarding the Church, but it is actually
pessimism about God. It is doubting God's faithfulness to his Church, for he
promised he would be with her always and that the gates of Hades would not
overcome her. But true religion, Christianity, is not about what we can do for
God, but about what he wants to do for us.
Our faith is God's gift, and it does not remain extrinsic to us. St Paul
commends his hearers because they
accepted [the Gospel] not as the word of men but as what it really is, the
word of God, which is at work in you believers.
What is alien to Christianity, then, is any system of measuring religiosity
by accidental features: the presence or absence of a foreskin, or facial hair,
or sideburns, or headdress, or by the observance of a particular diet. The word
of God dwells in us, and we cannot do God any favours, yet he gives us
grace.
Nor does Christianity measure religiosity according to religious garb. We
have nuns in wimples, and priests in clerical dress, and prelates in cassocks
and mitres, with or without colours and piping and the rest, but none of this
indicates piety. They only distinguish consecration and purpose. It is a rare
and foolish Catholic who will confuse lace and birettas for holiness.
Our religiosity cannot be like that of the Pharisees:
They do all their deeds to be seen by men.
The honours of the world are pointless. Jesus tells us that we have one
Teacher---the Holy Spirit, and one Father---the Heavenly Father, and one
Master---Jesus Christ. We do not obey God's new and eternal covenant to win his
favour or to be seen by others and win their approval. Rather, God, in his
graciousness, draws us into his inner life, the life of the Blessed Trinity. We
cannot do God any favours, but he does them all for us, in us.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be
exalted.
Only when we accept that we are his humble servants, servants he makes into
his children, can we enjoy the tri-personal love lavished on us by the Trinity.
Now that's true religion.
