(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.
