What is your spiritual risk tolerance?

What is your risk tolerance?  Do you know this expression  “risk tolerance?’  Your financial advisor before charting your investment strategy will ask your “risk tolerance.”  Conventional wisdom has it that the older we get, we should get more conservative with our finances and protect our assets.  Certainly with the finances of the Church, we have a low risk tolerance.  Financially we are conservative.

Does the same logic apply to our spiritual life?  What is your spiritual risk tolerance?  There is a side of us that wishes to be very conservative.  We wish to preserve the great tradition that has been given to us as Roman Catholics.  We are a Church that is apostolic -- that is say, we are a Church built upon the apostles’ faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

We also need to look at our spiritual risk tolerance in the light of today’s Scripture readings – the parables of Jesus.    “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”  That does not sound like a conservative strategy when one finds the pearl of great price.    It is more like a riverboat gambler willing to risk everything in the process of acquiring this pearl of great price. 

In the spiritual life, my hunch is that you don’t see yourself as that much of a risk taker.  What is Jesus’ message to us in this parable?  It sounds like the message Jesus gave the first apostles.  “Leave everything behind;  come follow me.”  Jesus is looking for more than part-time discipleship.  We are very, very generous when we tithe 10% of our time, talent, and treasure.  But the thing of it is, Jesus is looking for the other 90% as well.

In your faith life, what is your pearl of great price, and what are you willing  to sacrifice in order to acquire this pearl of great price?  I know that I need to pause a bit in reflecting on the meaning of this parable in my life?  Is my pearl of great price when I was appointed the pastor of this beautiful faith community?  Was it the day I was ordained a priest 46 years ago by Bishop Sheen at Sacred Heart Cathedral?  Was it the day I was baptized at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church and received for the first time the life of Christ Jesus within my spirit and became God’s beloved son.

I suggest for all of us the day of our baptism was the day we received this pearl of great price.  We became God’s beloved sons and God’s beloved daughters.  The sacrifice we are to make is a daily sacrifice in which Jesus calls us each day to aware of who we are – God’s beloved – and each and every day we are called to witness to His love in the way we live our lives.

How today are we willing to sell everything we have to deepen the life of Christ Jesus that is within us?  St Paul in the second Scripture reading in his letter to the Romans says something rather dramatic:  “Brothers and sisters:  we know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”  Nothing happens by accident.  When we see with the eyes of faith, all that happened in your life, both the peaks and valleys, work together in fashioning your salvation story, fashions the working of God in your life.  Both the crosses and the joys of life are part of God’s plan in calling you to Himself.  As we sell everything to acquire the pearl of great price, we pray for the grace to recognize the presence of God in all of life.  There is no part of your life that God is not present.  For example, in coming to terms with illness, the death of one you have loved deeply, in coming to terms with a relationship in your life that is a challenge, we seek the grace of knowing God is present to you and you always and everywhere are God’s beloved.