St.
Paul, speaking in our second reading today:
reminds
me very much of our Blessed Lord Jesus’ words recorded by St. John in his
Gospel (16:33)
In the world you will have
tribulation; but TAKE HEART; I have overcome the world.
Actually, the two Greek words translated in the one case by ‘We are always of good courage and in the other by ‘take heart’ are very closely related, so we do well to understand the dictum of St. Paul in accordance with those words of Jesus, because Paul was a Personally chosen disciple of the Lord, and he most certainly did on many occasions – more indeed than any of the other apostles -- suffer for Jesus with great courage. His faith and trust in the Lord urged him to ‘take heart’ in whatever adverse situation he might find himself; and that faith and trust, that ‘taking heart, is most certainly what Paul wanted to teach and encourage in his converts, who were being called daily – in accordance with the words of Our Lord quoted above -- to face up to the pagan power of Rome and give witness to the Lord Jesus as true and faithful disciples.
I
will not speak of wars and rumours of wars, of which there are many that
are serious; nevertheless, I do want to
highlight the tribulation in the hearts of so many Catholics and Christians,
all of them with so much potential for good as disciples of Jesus, but, of
whom, far too many have sadly been turned aside from ‘being of good courage’ in
Jesus by the solicitations of that despair which abounds in our world
and which is at the heart of all the excitement and lust for immediate pleasure
and power, and the blatant evil so easily accepted in our days of religious
indifference..
Today,
change – even disintegration -- is continual and seems to have ever-greater
momentum, sweeping aside what had previously seemed established and inviolable;
and, as a result, many find it extremely difficult to maintain a reliable, trustworthy,
life style, let alone an abiding faith in an unseen God.
In such circumstances the temptation is great -- especially for the young and the needy -- to grasp, seize, what the world offers here and now, before it disappears, before it is lost without their having tasted of it.! And how alien such a world portrays our Christian religion and Catholic faith which teaches us to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to, and learn to find our total joy and peace in, promises given by Jesus, which seem to be only empty, pie-in-the-sky promises, for those denizens of our brave, new, world unable to even conceive of spiritual blessings!
Dear People of God, when power and influence can be, and frequently are, bought by money; when multitudes are swept along by popular tides of mindless enthusiasm when rights are proclaimed -- many of them quite ludicrous -- and responsibilities ignored; when might is right and popularity cannot be challenged; when people are cajoled and led astray by preachers of holiness-without-commitment, and addicts of faith-without-obedience; THEN, would-be-disciples of Jesus find it difficult to hear and recognize the soul-calming voice of the unseen, but all-seeing and all-powerful God Who created us. And in such a situation, it is vitally important for us-who-believe to hear, and take heart from, the concordant voices of our Lord Jesus and His most faithful disciple St. Paul in today’s readings:
These things I have spoken
to you, that in Me you may have peace. Be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world.
We are always of good
courage, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away
from the Lord.
The believer - Paul went on to say - is confident by reason of his faith: he trusts in the goodness of the God he already knows; and is well-pleased, to look forward to and hope for, the promises of ‘the Friend’ he serves, the Lord and Saviour he seeks to please, and longs above all to love, wholeheartedly:
We walk by faith not by
sight, and we make it our aim to please Him.
For we
must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ
The kingdom of God is as if
a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by
day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.
The
sower does not know how the planting he has made develops to fruition: he continues
to play his part, however, by waiting for the Lord and trusting in Him,
before ultimately reaping the resultant harvest.
Dear People of God, too few supposed ‘sowers’ of God’s word, too few such preachers of Jesus’ Gospel, seem to know how to wait for the Lord and trust in His word! So many ‘high-ups’ -- for example, in the ‘intellectual’ German Church corrupted by power-pence and personal pride -- want to ‘adapt’ Catholic traditional, centuries-long Apostolic teaching, to the ‘needs’ of certain ‘modern’ and most-important members of the flock of their pasture -- the providers of their ‘power pence’, the Deutsch Mark! -- who apparently find themselves in moral situations never before known, experienced, thought of, or even imagined, before the German hierarchy ‘discovered’ their proliferance.
Dear People of God, what, moral, sexual, situations were not experienced in pagan, all- powerful, world capital, Rome; were not thought of in homosexual Greece and Athens; have not been imagined by exotic potentates all over the world and throughout the ages?? Why are today’s so learned German leaders (said, by the way, in a popular dictum , to go down deepest but come up dirtiest!) so willing to accept those modern situations supposedly unknown to, and unforeseeable by, the Lord and Saviour of mankind, Our Lord Jesus Christ!!
Jesus gives special emphasis to trust in and contentment before God in His second parable, where He no longer speaks of ‘scattered seed’ but of one single mustard seed, the smallest seed of all. Telling us that, the initial apparent insignificance of any work intended for God’s glory and His people’s well-being is NO HINDRANCE to the final realization of God’s plan; that a seed so very tiny can indeed grow into the biggest shrub of all; and that what Jesus requires in all those who would serve Him is patient humility.
So, there we have Jesus’ teaching for all who would serve Him in today’s almost disastrous world: just two little, complementary, parables, recommending two absolutely essential virtues, life-qualities, for all who aspire to be His Christian and Catholic disciples today. Do what you can – however small it may seem; wait patiently, trustingly, confidently, humbly, for the most Holy Spirit, God’s GIFT, to bring about – in His time – that work of God you want to see effected.
Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. (Psalm 37:3-7)
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.
I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But TAKE HEART, I have overcome the world. (John 15:19-20 & 16:33)
