7th.
Sunday of Year (B)
(Acts of the Apostles 1:15-17, 20-26; 1 John 4:11-16; St.
John’s Gospel 17:11-19)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I want to help you – as best I can – to appreciate the role the Word of God has in our lives as Catholic Christians, and to show you why we should not only reverence but really treasure it and, indeed, come to whole-heartedly delight in it.
In His priestly
prayer to the Father Jesus, as you heard, said:
I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of
the world any more than I am of the world; consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, so I sent
them into the world. And I consecrate Myself
for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
And there, straightway,
we have a very hard saying for too many in the Church today who are afraid of
those words:
I have given them Your word and the world has hated them.
People of God, too
many of prominence in Mother Church today cosy-up to the world, so to speak, by
trying to soften, adapt, or even expunge from the Gospel -- by forgetting or
omitting -- what is feared, because it might cause offence to modern ears. And yet, Jesus’ own proclamation of the
Gospel was always challenging because He never ‘tailored’ His teaching to please
human expectations:
I did not speak on My own, but the Father who sent Me commanded Me what
to say and speak, and I know that His commandment is eternal life. So, what I
say, I say as the Father told Me.” (John 12:49–50)
That is why He
always looked for faith in His own Person and obedience to His words of
salvation before bestowing any gifts or offering any promises. As even His most ardent enemies acknowledged:
Teacher, we
know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but
teach the way of God in truth. (Luke
20:21)
Yes, dear Friends
in Christ, let us wholeheartedly proclaim today what even Jesus’ own Personal
enemies, the scribes and chief priest, did not dare to deny:
You teach the way
of God in truth;
I
HAVE GIVEN THEM YOUR WORD.
Now, that Word is to
be found not only in the Holy Scriptures, but supremely in Jesus Himself, for
He is Personally the Word-of-God-made-flesh for us; the Word Who -- in
order to ‘give them Your word’ in the fulness of divine charity -- also gave
Himself up to death on the Cross because He recognized and embraced His
Father’s love for us:
Father, the
hour has come. Give glory to Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify You, just
as You gave Him authority over all people, that He may give eternal life to all
You gave Him. Now this is eternal life,
that they should know You, the only true God, and the One whom You sent, Jesus
Christ. I have glorified You on earth by
accomplishing the work that You gave me to do. Now glorify Me, Father, with You,
with the glory that I had with You before the world began.
I am the
Good Shepherd and know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me
and I know the Father and lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep also that are not of this
fold; I must bring them also. For this
reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it
again. (John
17:1–5; 10: 14-17))
The Word of God in
the Scriptures is one with the Word of God Whose life we share in the Eucharist
and through the Sacraments. They cannot
be separated, because:
What God has joined together, let
not man separate. (Matthew 19:6)
Let me recall those
words of Jesus I quoted earlier:
I have
given them Your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the
world even as I am not of the world.
Jesus has given us
His Father’s word to be our battle standard and our protecting shield against the surrounding miasma of the world’s pride – ‘there is no God’ – and hypocrisy – ‘we
do so much good’ --; and therefore the world hates all who believe that Word
which, in its fulness, is God’s TRUTH.
For those who love that truth, however, Jesus ‘sanctifies, consecrates,
Himself’ so that they may be sanctified in Truth.
Jesus sanctified
Himself, consecrated Himself to God, by dying in the Cross of Calvary for love
the Father of all Truth, and that is why He is able to sanctify all who are
willing to consecrate themselves with Him for the glory of God by a life of
obedience to and love for His Truth, by giving us a share in His own fulness of
the Spirit of Holiness and Truth, the eternal bond of love between Father and
Son.
Mother Church has
been given the deposit of faith and treasury of grace, and Jesus is still
making the Father known to us under the guidance and protection of the Spirit
of Jesus given to her that He should abide with her throughout time for
mankind’s salvation:
I tell you
the truth. It is to your advantage that
I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I
depart, I will send Him to you. And
when He comes, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment. I still have many things to
say to you, but you cannot bear them now; however, when He, the Spirit of Truth
comes, He will guide you into all truth.
(cfr. John
16:7-13)
What joy the Spirit
of Truth brings to those who let Him guide them into all truth!!
That all is
meant, first of all, for Mother Church who is to complete and fulfil Jesus’ Personal
mission on earth for the whole of mankind.
But that all can also mean for us as individual members of Mother
Church and disciples of Jesus, that He, the-Spirit- dwelling-in-our-mind-and-heart
by the sacraments of Mother Church, can
guide us into all truth necessary for our own personal salvation and also into a
full and appropriate understanding of that truth for our own personal
relationship of love for the Father, in the Son our Saviour, by the Holy Spirit of Love and Truth bonding all together in the
beatitude of God’s family and heavenly Kingdom.
Dear People of God,
what wisdom it is that leads anyone to listen lovingly to, and hear humbly and obediently, that voice of God! What commitment and
courage it takes to take the necessary measures to cut out the world’s noise from
the Spirit’s temple in the secret depths of one’s own dedicated mind and
heart!!
