Reading and meditation on the Word of God on Thursday of the 22nd week in ordinary time, September 3, 2026, Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church.
Our meditation today has the theme: Right of Ownership. A person who recognizes and declares his right of ownership is first of all to claim the right to own himself. If you scratch your itchy head or body, it's very natural that it's your own body. If you bathe and beautify yourself, it must be so because it is yours. With regards to wearing clothes with preference color and size either a bit tight or loose, it depends on one's choice and freedom. In short, right of ownership is one of the basic human rights.
We also have rights to recognize the environment and circumstances around us as the possessions belong to us. The chair on which you sit, your room, bed, clothes and other personal belongings, all are yours. Your spouse, children, friends, co-workers, subordinates, family, community, village, city and country, of course, belong to you. Gos is our highest ownership because we were first recognized by Him. We always pray with confidence in this way: O my Lord, or O my Jesus.
Why do we need to make such a convincing claim or statement of having right of ownership? It has been just said earlier that it is natural that we have basic human rights. Another reason that many people may not be aware of is that every one of us wants to be part of someone or something, because this is the way he can find strength and support. Through this way, he will experience a life that is complete. You can imagine, if someone gives up all his properties or belongingness and decides not to have anything at all, he will become a very miserable human being and has no meaning of life.
From this common perspective of ownership, God intends to transcend this kind of possession, with a possession that is completely independent from the world. The ownership of God is a heavenly ownership or possession. The point is, if all that man has is no other that God Himself, then man actually has all things that belong to God. And so, the first reading today from the first Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians says in this line, that all that we have belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. So all of us together with Christ belong to God, the almighty Father.
What more interesting is that when Jesus asks us to become His disciples, we need to obey the fundamental condition, namely we must leave everything that belongs to us and to the world. Yet every thing indeed belongs to God too. This actually means, we leave everything, then what we have is actually God Himself, and God actually owns every thing that we have left behind. In other words, all and every thing that exist belong to God and we must use it as God's possession that we must not abuse them or take them for granted.
Let's pray. In the name of the Father ... O Lord, make us true stewards and keepers of everything that is yours, and to use them for the goodness of our lives. Our Father who art in heaven ... In the name of the Father ...
