In our readings today, dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
we are reminded of the fact that, in the course of our life decisions --
difficult and even decisive -- have inevitably to be made:
If it is evil in your eyes to
serve the LORD, choose this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, or the
gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my household, we will
serve the LORD.
Many of (Jesus’) disciples
turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want
to go away as well?"
God the Father made such a decision when He allowed His only-begotten
Son to take human flesh in order to free us from the tyranny of sin and death; and
therefore, would-be-Christians -- appreciating that ‘unimaginable token’ of God’s love for us -- must be
prepared to make a reciprocal decision when embracing His offer of salvation.
With God, His decision is perfectly final and decisive; we,
however, are weak beings hindered by our sinfulness and ignorance, with the
result that any seriously binding decision of ours has to be repeatedly
re-affirmed and renewed if we are to live it out to fulfilment; and therefore, any
such decision can be made only on the basis of sincere Love motivating
the choice, and persevering Commitment enabling us to sustain and
ultimately fulfil our original decision.
Commitment and Love are the two qualities St. Paul
had in mind when giving his converts guidance with regard to the Christian
institution of marriage; guidance which envisages eternal fulfilment, not simply
earthly happiness:
Submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ.
Wives submit to your own
husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ
is head of the church … so wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her.
Jesus seriously required commitment in His disciples – their
submission to His teaching -- as you
heard in the Gospel reading:
It is the Spirit who gives
life, the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life. But there are some of
you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not
believe and who it was who would betray Him.
After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.
So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
Jesus would have none of those disciples who would like to
re-negotiate, so to speak, their allegiance to Him after each and every
difficulty that might arise for them in His teaching; their commitment
had to be total:
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know, that
you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus, for His part, as St. John tells us (John 13:1)
embodied such commitment:
Before the feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the
Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
Commitment and love are what St. Paul had in mind when he
told his converts who were entering marriage:
Submit to one another out of reverence for
Christ.
In that context of ‘out of reverence for Christ’ such
submission is, of course, called for in the
important, not each and every trivial, decisions of family life … and also to
be given in the framework of mutual love and respect between the spouses.
The future is not, for us Christians, something totally
dark, hidden, and unknowable: we believe in God, a God Who is good and has
created us for a ‘purpose’ … He indeed has a purpose for each of us … a purpose
that will serve for His glory, our
individual salvation, and the ‘social’ fulfilment of mankind as a whole. Human
beings, made, as we Christians believe, in the image and likeness of God, are
called to guide their lives towards a goal being offered them by God, revealed
and promised to all believers by Jesus, and being realized in them individually
-- if they co-operate – by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, we Christians and Catholics believe that
the future is essentially knowable, desirable, and attainable for all who
believe in Jesus, and are willing to commit themselves to His promises, and to the
Holy Spirit of Truth and Love He has bequeathed us. This attitude of self-commitment is so
essential to Christianity that we believers have been given, as our mother, she
of who it was said:
Blessed is she who believed,
for there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. (Luke 1:45)
In our Gospel reading we heard that many of His disciples
found Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist a
‘hard saying’ and, like the Jews earlier, they too grumbled among themselves. Jesus then, as if to confirm His teaching,
went on to say:
What if you were to see the
Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
You are My disciples because you like My parables, you
admire the wonders I do, you even have your own ambitions -- King of Israel – for Me; but when I give more
serious teaching about what is above
your line of vision and beyond your earthly imagination, you find it ‘hard to
accept’.
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending
to where He was before?
Jesus has come down from heaven, and His words, consequently,
are no ordinary words but spiritual words, and therefore He added most
seriously:
It is the Spirit who gives
life, the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life.
People of God, in the first reading Joshua put clearly
before the Israelites a choice they had to make. We are in a like situation today, for, in our
society, Christianity is largely derided and the Catholic Church is, not
infrequently, hated.
Our Christian faith in Mother Church calls us to a life -- empowered
by the Spirit -- of self-commitment, willing subjection of self, to
something greater than self: a subjection, a commitment, a devotion, to
God, to His purpose-for-us, to the fulfilment He has planned for mankind in His
heavenly Kingdom.
Our Christian faith
and Mother Church urge us to a commitment, to a selflessness, which, by a
process of spiritual osmosis, will inevitably show itself in the ordinary
things of our everyday lives: in marital love and life-long commitment, sincere
and lasting friendship, unfeigned neighbourliness, and penetrating down even to
our most mundane social obligations, such as doing an honest day’s work and
living as a good and responsible citizens.
In making life’s
choices, we must never forget the truth expressed in the words of Joshua:
If it is evil in your eyes to
serve the LORD, choose this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, or the
gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my household, we will
serve the LORD.
Whatever we choose, we will always be servants, because that is our nature. If, however, we make the right choice, we will be serving a Lord Who is so good that He intends -- after our faithful service here on earth -- to give us share with Him in His heavenly glory. His word is true, His promise is sure, and His Way is straight; indeed, His beloved Son chose to walk it before us, and the Spirit of His Son will be with us in all our endeavours to keep up-with and close-to Him on our way towards that home where the Father now awaits us, and will embrace and reward us as His own adopted, and specially privileged (Our Lady is Queen of heaven), children in His heavenly Kingdom.
