“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes.” – Mark 9:47
Jesus’ words in today’s gospel seem intense and are meant to make us uncomfortable. But they need to be taken very seriously. He is giving us insight into what we need to bar ourselves from in order to enter the Kingdom of God. It’s a sort of road map to heaven, where we should all desire to go.
The Lord gave us the gift of free will from the moment we were created. He is not a puppeteer controlling our every move. Because he loves us so much, he wanted to give us the freedom to make our own choices and encounter him out of true desire.
The beautiful thing about free will is that we have a choice to work towards heaven or hell. Our decisions in this life affect that. It may seem like a lot of responsibility. Eternity is a very long time and there is a lot riding on the things we do today.
Luckily, we don’t have to make those choices on our own. We can have an intimate and personal relationship with Christ who is our guide. He presents us with teachings like lessons in today’s gospel, as well as the opportunity to receive him in the most intimate way humanly possible through the Eucharist, so we can go out and be imitators of him. We have been given other Christian brothers who can keep us accountable and help us on our journey. And when we mess up, we can be forgiven through the priesthood he established to be in persona Christi.
In short, nothing is so important that it should keep us from following the way of Christ and entering the kingdom of God. We are called to be so rooted in Christ, that we have to have detachment not only from sin but from our very selves. It’s better to strip away the things that are not in alignment with God than keep them. It is better to chop off our own hand, as Jesus says than to allow it to keep us from him.
But separating ourselves from those things that lead us to sin is hard. We have worldly desires. We desire things that pollute our bodies, our families, and our relationship with God. We like how sin makes us feel.
With Lent beginning very, very soon, we have an opportunity to reflect on this gospel call from Christ to make an examination of conscious and commit to following through on removing those things during the 40 days.
What gets in between you and following Jesus? What are the things that you need to cut out of your life? Is it a toxic relationship? Is it a bad habit? Is it a particular prayer that you have brought up in confession on numerous occasions?
In prayer, ask Jesus to be a divine surgeon for you as you sift through what needs to be amputated from your life and for the courage to follow through. Tell Jesus how much you desire to enter the kingdom of God and recognize that you will not be able to embark on the journey by yourself. Ask him to be your strength and your guide. And thank him when those near temptations come your way but overcome them regardless.
Contact the author at hannah.m.crites@gmail.com.
Hannah Crites is a native to Denver Colorado and a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville. She has written for numerous publications and blogs including the Chastity Project, Washington Times, Faith & Culture: The Journal of the Augustine Institute, and Franciscan Magazine. She is currently working in content and digital marketing for a small web development and digital marketing agency. Connect with her through Twitter (@hannah_crites) and Facebook. Check out more of what she has written at https://hannhcrites.com/.
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