22nd. Sunday of Year (A)
(Jeremiah
20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27)
I
urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to
offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your
spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed
by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what
is good and pleasing and perfect.
Perhaps it will be clearer if I were
to re-position the two sections of that paragraph from St. Paul’s letter to the
Romans in this morning’s readings:
I urge you brothers, by the
mercies of God, do not conform yourselves to this age but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will
of God, what is good and
pleasing and perfect; (thus, may
you be able) to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing
to God, your spiritual worship.
In that way, there is no danger of
any modern fanatics -- who abound on every hand -- thinking they can present
themselves as Christians whilst committing suicide and the slaughter of
innocents for political ends, and for a diabolically- misunderstood idea of the
‘glory of God’. Moreover, we can thus see more clearly the nature of our
worship and love of God: that it is truly Christian – human and
divine – first, by our trying to discern and do the will of God in our
physical pilgrimage through life, that we might then – having been perfected by
God through that loving obedience to His will in our life – be able to
offer the living and dying sacrifice of ourselves in the truly spiritual
worship of sincere love of, and total trust in, God.
Oh! dear People of God, how utterly
important it is for us to:
Be transformed by the renewal of our mind, that
we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.
Our good life is
not to be a mere living-out of generally accepted and, of course, popularly
approved, ethical propositions and standards … so many non-believers today
pride themselves on doing that!! No, we Catholic Christians are
called to know (as best we can) and to love (whole-heartedly) the
Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and in Him, by His Gift of the Holy
Spirit, to learn how to love God the Father Who sent Jesus, as our own Father now calling us to Himself as His adopted children in Jesus. Our
faith is, indeed, a calling to personal love of God, and how ironical it
is that the unbelieving world of today likes to understand its acknowledged
faithlessness as a gateway to acceptably promiscuous (in both form and
content!) human adventures in physical ‘loving’, as distinct from the Christian
vocation of love which, being divine, is able to embrace and ultimately totally
transfigure what is human and ephemeral, into what is divine and eternally
fulfilling, in one word, into something CHRIST-LIKE.
Just recall Our Blessed Lord in last Sunday’s
Gospel. Having previously heard Bartholomew (Nathanael) call Him ‘Son of
God’ and ‘King of Israel’, He had gently ‘smiled that off’ as being too much
based on too little; on the other hand, however, when He heard Peter declare
‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ He immediately, without
the slightest hesitation, recognized His Father speaking in and through
Peter, and totally committed His own life-and-future- death’s work in
obedient response to His Father’s recognized involvement.
That, dear People of God, is the most
sublime example and model inspiring St. Paul’s exhortation today, ‘Be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the
will of God’; and oh, that we might attain to some sharing in such love and
discernment! As Jesus said:
Father, the world has not known You; but I
-- man Myself -- have known You!
And Jesus’ whole desire and prayer is
that we, though weak and ignorant human beings of ourselves, may, as His true
disciples, come, in His Church, to that humble ‘discernment’ of which St. Paul
speaks:
Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that
you may discern what is the will of God.
How we are to be thus transformed,
and how our mind is to be thus renewed, however, can only be learnt by humble
discipleship from the font of traditional wisdom contained in the teachings of
Catholic spirituality. It is not something we can do of ourselves, for it
is a precious gift of God; but it is something for which we can dispose
ourselves to receive from the goodness of God, by entering upon the ways
of traditional spirituality distilled for us over two thousand years.
The essential beginnings for such
spiritual renewal are given us in today’s psalm:
My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God!
ASPIRE TO GOD.
Your kindness is greater than life; my lips shall glorify You.
THANK GOD.
You are my help, and in the shadow of Your wings
INVOKE GOD’S HELP,
I shout for joy. AND REJOICE IN HIM.
My soul clings fast to You; BE
FAITHFUL, PERSEVERE,
Your right hand upholds me.
CALMLY
CONFIDENT.
Time is now, as in so many ways
throughout life, pressing upon us, but for all who sincerely begin to search
for their spiritual renewal on the basis of today’s teaching, there is no doubt
that God will notice their efforts and will not be found slow in coming to meet
them as did the father embracing his prodigal son in Jesus’ unforgettable
parable.
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