The Psalmist, most likely David, declares in Psalm 117, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” He continues, “This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” (23-34).

In confronting the priests and the Pharisees, Jesus refers to these words of David and proclaims that he is that stone (Matthew 21:42-46). In other words, Jesus will be the ruler of a new religion and the cornerstone will be essential in building a new Church that will unify Jews and the Gentiles. Hearing this and understanding its implications outraged the priests and Pharisees who wanted to kill him but feared the people who regarded him as a prophet.

Three important points can be derived from this parable. The first is that God has been rejected. In Acts 4:10-11, Peter cites Psalm 117 when addressing the Jewish leaders, declaring that Jesus, whom they crucified, has become the cornerstone of salvation. Paul refers to the same Psalm in Ephesians 2:19-22, describing Jesus as being the cornerstone of the Church and that “will be a dwelling place for God in the Spirit.”

The second point is that the new Church Christ established will be a sign of contradiction. The City of God and the City of Man will always exist on different planes. The Church of Christ will continue to be a sign of contradiction to the secular world. Although man is ‘in the world,” he is not “of the world.” His great temptation will be to conform to the world.

The third point is that something that has been rejected by the world can be used to great spiritual advantage, even as a path to spiritual development. A contemporary example dramatically incarnates this point.

A video shows Joe Mazzulla, the head coach of the NBA-champion Boston Celtics, slowly walking across the famed parquet floor of the Boston Garden. He is praying the Rosary on beads that are greatly over-sized. They are much larger than usual beads because they are specially made from pieces of wood taken from the former floor of the Garden that has been discarded. How does a coach unify a group of young multi-millionaires with sizeable egos into a unified and cohesive term? It is through love, as Mazzulla’s players will attest. The video follows Mazzulla to his home where the viewer notices on the window sill a wood plaque of the Holy Family created by Michael O’Brien.

Mazzulla and O’Brien are spiritual brothers. In an open letter to writers and artists, O’Brien strongly urges them not to conform to the world: 

“I beg you, I beg you, I beg you not to bow before the spirit of this world, no matter how benevolently and reasonably it presents itself to you. Over the years I have watched so many gifted young people lose their gifts when they succumbed to the false success-failure scenario.”

When O’Brien, mainly known for his religious artwork, first conceived of writing a novel, Father Elijah, he went to his parish church and consecrated the “impossible unpublishable” dream to the will of God. He prayed before the Blessed Sacrament every day for the eight months required to write it. Oddly, he confesses, the book was the easiest thing he ever wrote. 

Father Elijah was a great success and several other novels followed. O’Brien is currently “artist and writer in residence” at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Ontario. He has followed God’s path and has sedulously avoided the deceptive path to material success.

O’Brien’s work as a religious painter follows in the footsteps of another spiritual brother (they lived, for a time, close to each other in Canada), William Kurelek. In his autobiography, Someone with Me, he recounts his life story from a near-suicide, to converting to the Catholic Church, to becoming Canada’s most popular painter. His mural, devoted to the Ukrainian pioneer decorates the walls of the Parliament building while Canada Post has honored four of his paintings as postage stamps. 

The centerpiece for the Niagara Falls Art Gallery is Kurelek’s series of 160 paintings, illustrating each phrase of the Passion according to St. Matthew. Prayer and fasting were an essential part of his life. Fame held no interest for him whatsoever. Thus, despite his success, he remained a puzzle to the outside world.

His inspiration to do everything for Christ was a mystical experience he had while traveling in the Arizona desert. He was sleeping under a road bridge and awakened by a man in a long white robe urging him to “Get up, we must look after the sheep.” At that moment the desert seemed flooded with sheep. Kurelek took the figure as Christ and, throughout his life was most generous in feeding the poor through sales of his paintings.

The way of the world is not the Way of Jesus or the way of the Church. God is the stone rejected by the builders, but the stone that is the cornerstone holding the Church together and illuminating a path to spiritual development. 

Those who take this path will need to refrain from worldly pursuits and can expect misunderstanding and ridicule. Yet, their work, whatever it may be, in the final analysis will be God’s work. And God provides a treasure of blessings that the world cannot give.