15th.
Sunday, Year C
(Deuteronomy
30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our
first reading from the book of Deuteronomy we heard:
The Word is very near to you; it is
in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
Now listen to the New Testament and recognize the
difference:
The Word became flesh and made His
dwelling among us. (John 1:14)
That first reading almost all religions can
accept, for all have their own teachings which they hand down over the
generations with like encouragement: ‘the word is very near to you; it is in
your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it’. And the peoples thus shepherded do think that
they can obey the teaching they have received -- whatever it may be -- and find
the salvation promised by, for example, Mahomet, Confucius, Buddha, and others;
all following the same principle: listen, learn, do, and you will find what is
promised. And, in the book of
Deuteronomy, we heard what actually was promised in the Old Testament:
The Lord your God will make you most
prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the
young of your livestock, and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make
you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers. (30:9)
Promises were made which would attract mankind:
prosperity, children, success and security ... everyone can appreciate such
things, and most indeed want them ardently.
Such promises were given to encourage the Chosen People to do what all
religious mankind likes to think they can do: listen to the teaching, learn
from it, and then practise it in order to then receive the promised rewards.
However, the People of Israel were God’s Chosen
People and though they tried for nearly two thousand years they never fully succeeded
in keeping God’s Law, and that was the purpose of God’s Providence,
because they alone of all peoples had to learn and could learn the existential fact
and spiritual truth that sin was in the world and was indeed ruling over men:
As
it is written, ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’ (Romans 3:10)
The revelationary fact is that God was leading
His Chosen People – ultimately for the good of mankind -- to a previously
unappreciated awareness of the human condition
and the unfathomed depth of human sinfulness; and thus – most gently and gradually -- opening their
minds and hearts to an initial comprehension of the hidden presence and power
of sin in mens lives and of Satan’s personal dominion over them ... before
ultimately leading them to a stark and crystal-clear realization that their
need for salvation and the price of their redemption could only be met by the infinite
goodness, power, and faithfulness of the one true God of their fathers: ‘don’t
think you have only hear the truth and you will recognise it and be able to
practise it; you are in far, far greater need than that!’
The Word became flesh and lived among
us; and we have seen His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of
grace and truth. (John 1:14)
The Word was not just audible sounds making
instructive teaching; no, the Word was a Person, the very Person of the Son of
God, and Christian salvation would come from faith in Him, communion with Him,
and obedience to the Spirit He bestows on His disciples:
Jesus answered, ‘I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.
(John 14:6)
The promises made in the New Testament are not for
earthly joys on a bigger and grander scale, for as we learn from St. John
(1:12-13):
To all who received Him, to those who
believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God; children
born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but
born of God.
Through faith in, communion with, Jesus, we
are called -- by His Spirit -- to love God our Father as His adopted
children:
With all our heart and with all our
soul, and with all our strength and with all our mind.
And for the ultimate glory of the Father Who
loved us and sent His beloved Son among us as our Saviour and Redeemer, we must
also come to:
To love our neighbour as ourselves. (Luke 10:27)
Only thus would the ultimate prayer of Jesus (John
17:23) be fulfilled:
That they may be brought to perfection
as one, that the world may know that You (Father) sent Me, and have loved them even
as You have loved Me.
And so, People of God, let us all clearly
recognise that we are not just to hear the teaching handed down – the teaching
of Jesus and of His Church – and try to keep it of ourselves; because we most certainly
cannot keep it of ourselves and any attempt to do so would be thinking
presumptuously of ourselves and showing no true appreciation of Jesus our
Saviour. We have to aim in all things at
communion with Jesus, that is why He gives Himself to us in the
Eucharist:
Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the
truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. For My flesh is real
food and My blood is real drink. Whoever
eats My flesh and drinks My blood remain in Me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live
because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (John
6:53-57)
Through Jesus’ presence, and obedience to the
Spirit He bestows on us in the Eucharist, and through the manifold helps provided by our
sharing in the life and communion of Mother Church, we can, and must, learn to
love Him supremely Who became a human being like us, because, as St. Paul tells
us (Colossians 1:16, 20):
All things were created through Him
and for Him, and God the Father wants all things to be reconciled through Him
and for Him;
and then will be fulfilled those words of the
Psalmist:
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in
Him and He will do this: He will make your
righteousness shine like the dawn and your cause like the noonday sun. (37:5-6)
