Dear People of God, last week in our readings, Jesus had
sent out the Twelve on a mission, and told them that, if any town or village
refused to hear them, they should shake the dust of that place from off their
feet, in testimony against it. Well,
this week we are told that, on their
return to Jesus:
Told Him all they had done and taught. And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves
to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat.
There we have a lovely example of Jesus’ solicitous care for
His Apostles: ‘Come, let us go to some “deserted place” where we will be alone
and you will be able to find refreshment for your souls, light and
understanding for your minds, peace and joy for your hearts.’
It was necessary for the Apostles to return to Jesus not
only to learn more from Him but also to be
with Him alone, in order to refresh their ‘Jesus -contact’, that
they might be able to continue to proclaim Him
alone: love of Him, knowledge of His teaching, in all their preaching and
teaching. Otherwise, they could so
easily descend to preaching either themselves or whatever people might want to
hear: before ultimately adopting the worldly attitudes and aspirations of those
to whom they had originally been sent as guides in the ways of Jesus, thereby
meriting a share the condemnation of the pastors mentioned in our first
reading:
“Woe to the shepherds who
destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture” declares the LORD!”
These words of Jeremiah, People of God -- chosen by God’s
providence and the abiding wisdom of Mother Church -- are, obviously, of the
utmost importance for our modern society, for they tell of a “scattered flock”. Look around you today, People of God, and see
how many of Jesus’ former Catholic flock are now scattered, thanks to the solicitations of blatant
evil encouraged in modern society. But Jeremiah
went on much further and used words referring no longer to the people falling
off, but as pseudo-innocents, having been driven away” by their leaders
-- prophets and priests of those times --
their teachers of God’s Law and guides
for right living for all faithful Jewish members of God’s Chosen People.
All that is part of our history, for our Christian roots
are soaked in Jewish, Israelite, religious experience, indeed they go even
further back in historical knowledge to
God’s very first P/personal dealings with man, that is with Abraham our father in faith. And that is why Jesus’ words to us this day
have a resonance of thousands of years which
must be heard to fully appreciate Jesus’ own words of ultimate salvation.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness
and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may
eat of it and not die. (John
6:48-50)
Jesus alone is the bread of life; and He comes to us in two
ways: through His Word, and in His
Eucharist.
He answered and said, "It is
written, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God.'" (Matthew
4:4)
I am the living bread that came
down from heaven. If anyone eats of this
bread, he will live forever. And the
bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. (John 6: 51)
That spiritual fulness of bread -- the Word of God and the
Eucharist -- is our ultimate intention when we pray for to our heavenly Father
every day:
Give us this day our daily
bread.
What then if God’s People, coming to Church on a Sunday, are
not given the bread God Himself is calling them into His presence to
receive? That is the real meaning of
those words:
You have scattered My flock and have
driven them away, and you have not attended to them.
Behold I will attend to you for your evil deeds, says the Lord.
That type of thing is done when, instead of the Gospel
message and the Church’s teaching, political correctness is preached,
when current interests are allowed to obscure or take precedence over from
Catholic teaching, or when the sins of the people are passed over in
silence or even excused in order to avoid trouble or court popularity (Mark
7:7-9):
This people honours Me with their
lips, but their heart is far from Me. In
vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments (traditions) of
men.
In this regard we should remember that, today, such ‘clinging
to human tradition’ does not refer to
the traditional teaching of Mother Church, the authentic spirit of Christianity
over the ages struggling, suffering, and dying, to proclaim the Gospel in a
pagan world, nor to the teaching of acclaimed
saints and doctors of Mother Church who
dedicated their whole lives to the proclamation of the truth of Jesus -- but to modern, glib and oh-so-smooth popular
words, attitudes, and practices designed to adapt Jesus and His Good News in
ways that would facilitate easier relationship with practitioners of evil and allow
ample opportunities for ‘sample-tasting’ of the delights offered by the world.
To continue with our Gospel passage, we are told that the
people followed Jesus and His Apostles, with the result that:
When Jesus disembarked and saw the
vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without
a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.
Do please, People of God, notice the form Jesus’ compassion
took:
He began to teach them
many things.
That is what must happen today in our society. Jesus alone can heal us (Mt. 11:28- 30):
Come to Me, all you who labour
and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My
burden is light.
Therefore, Jesus has to be preached, His teaching has
to be given, in season and out of season.
However, this is far too often done only partially when, for example, such
words as those “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest” are repeatedly acknowledged and commented on because they are
beautiful words, recognized and admired by all; but Jesus’ subsequent words:
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me”, may be heard, but are not often
praised or commented on. There, so-called
teachers stop short because they want to present religion and faith – and, of
course, themselves -- in a popular light.
Likewise, there are many ‘hearers’ who also want to stop short there,
because they do not want to hear talk of a yoke of any sort, let alone feel
obliged to take one up. And so, essential
Catholic teaching can be so easily omitted, whilst the seeds of consolation
such as those words “Come to Me all you who labour” are carelessly thrown on
the soil of souls already overgrown with worldly weeds. The result is that the word of God is choked,
and a pseudo-religiosity takes its place :
“God is good, He rejects none ; there is no need to go to Church to find Him,
to be accepted by Him ; there is no need
for sacraments, especially confession, just say an occasional prayer if you
have time and God’s great goodness will do the rest for you” There, indeed, you have worldly, even devilish,
weeds that choke Catholic spiritual life.
St. Paul told us in the second reading that Jesus:
Reconciled us with God through
the cross (that is the yoke) and He came and preached peace to you who
were far off and peace to those who were near (that is the teaching),
(and) through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Through Jesus -- the Jesus Who died on the Cross and Whose
yoke we must take upon ourselves, a yoke which He will make light for us --
through that Jesus we have access to the Father, in the Spirit Who
brings to our mind all that Jesus taught and Who enables us to keep His
commandments. Through that Jesus alone do we have
access to the Father.
People of God, be innocent not foolish; be wisely ignorant
of the ways of the world and truly wise in the ways of God; try to do what
Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, advises us:
Enter by the narrow gate; for wide
is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many
who go in by it. (Matthew 7:13)
On their return from proclaiming the Good News Jesus called
the apostles aside from the crowd to a desert place where they could be alone
with Him. After a week of Christian
witness in the world He still calls His disciples aside – apart from the world
-- to be with Him, every Sunday at Holy Mass.
Like the apostles in our Gospel passage, we are meant to be one with Jesus in our Sunday
gathering. ‘One with Him’ can then mean
two things: all one in faith before Him as living members of His Mystical Body;
and all – individually and personally -- alone with Him in the devout attention
of our minds and the pious love of our hearts.
That Church-oneness-of-faith in Jesus realized at Sunday
Mass is proclaimed by the beloved disciple John when he says:
Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
