Failed building project

In many places recently, years of a real estate and construction boom came quickly to an end, leaving the landscape littered with half-built structures that stand as ugly monuments to failure.

So it was also in ancient times, as we hear in today’s first reading (Genesis 11:1-9) which tells of the world’s first failed construction project: the tower of Babel.

The most fundamental failure of this project, however, was not the half-built tower, but the focus on material accomplishment at the expense of a relationship with God: which meant that even if the project would have succeeded, its builders would have fundamentally and eternally failed.

In today’s Gospel (Mark 8:34-9:1), our Lord asks the key question:

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?