22nd Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27)

 

Today’s Gospel revealed how ‘deadly’ serious Our Blessed Lord was when calling upon His disciples, then and now, to take up the Cross and follow Him.     So serious is that Gospel message that, in order to help us appreciate something more of it, I propose to re-order today’s short reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, putting first what was last, and what was last, first, changing the word order slightly, but not the meaning, nor any of the words.

 

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.

 

We can thus appreciate more clearly the nature of our spiritual worship of God.  It is TRULY CHRISTIAN: that is, it is both human and divine.  Human, by our endeavour to renew our minds by discerning and doing the will of God in our physical pilgrimage through life; and divine, in so far as, having thus been perfected by the Spirit of Jesus, we have become able to offer the living-and-dying sacrifice of ourselves in the truly spiritual worship of loving commitment to, and total trust in, God.   Oh! dear People of God, how utterly important it is for us to thus:

 

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, popularly approved, morals and manners … so many non-believers today pride themselves on doing that!!   No, we Catholic Christians are called to know (through our Catholic Faith and the Scriptures) and love (whole-heartedly by the grace of God’s most Holy Spirit) the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and in Him, to learn how to know and love God the-Father-Who-sent-Him as our own Father, now calling us to walk in Jesus as His adopted children.

 

Our Christian faith is, indeed, a call to personal love of God, and how ironical it is that the adulterous and evil world of today likes to understand its boasted faithlessness likewise as a gateway to ‘modern expressions of emotional commitment’ – promiscuous, of course, to benefit all its votaries dedicated to  adventures and discoveries along the highways and byways of such ‘loving’ – so much better adapted to modern ‘man’, they claim, than the Christian vocation of love which -- being divine -- is able to embrace and ultimately totally transfigure what is human and temporal, into what is divine and eternally fulfilling; in one word, into something Christ-like, through a discipline that requires but obedience and humility from man!!

 

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.

 

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 regarded such words 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 a sublime example of St. Paul’s inspiring exhortation today, ‘Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God’.   As Jesus Himself said:

 

Father, the world has not known You; but I 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 and by His Spirit,  to that humble ‘discernment’ which St. Paul had in mind.

 

How we are to be thus transformed, and how our mind is to be thus renewed, 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.

 

Thanks to the liturgical wisdom of Mother Church -- using old treasure to reveal what is new and sublime -- we are given the essential elements for such spiritual renewal in today’s responsorial psalm (63):

 

            My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God!          SEEK, LONG FOR. GOD.

            Your kindness is greater than life; my lips shall glorify You.   THANK HIM.

            You are my help, and in the shadow of Your wings    ASK FOR GOD’S HELP.

               I shout for joy.                                                                  and REJOICE IN HIM.

            My soul clings fast to You.           PERSEVERE, BE PATIENT and FAITHFUL.

               Your right hand upholds me.                                  and CALMLY CONFIDENT.

 

Dear People of God, you have there, in that one psalm reading, a compendium of spiritual guidance fit for a saint or a soldier of Christ: one, that is, chosen by the Father to give Him grateful thanks by witnessing to the holiness, or fighting for the glory, of His Son’s Name among men.