2nd Sunday of Lent 2023

 

2^nd. Sunday (A), of Lent           

  (Genesis 12:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Matthew 17:1-9)

  

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, how God cherishes us whom He has, today, called into His own presence!  And how long, how carefully, and at what great Personal price, He has prepared the way for our being able to come here rejoicing in love – His love for us and our love for Him – and looking to Him for strength to resist the sin abounding in the world around us and wanting to sneak into our own lives, and for the life that will grow into eternal blessedness as members of Jesus, the Saviour He has sent us.

(He) called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

After the fall of Adam, God the Father longed to save from the deceits of the devil those He had originally created – in His own image and likeness – free; and in the intimate beatitude of the Most Holy Trinity, His very own Son -- loving His Father with humanly-incomprehensible love -- willed to become one of us, so that He might overcome the devil and death for us. It was His intention that, by thus suffering for us as one of us, He might enable all who would become His disciples to embrace freedom anew, and learn to exercise it, in and for, love of the Father He Himself loved so wondrously.  As Saint Paul told us in our second reading:

He abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

Dear friends in Christ, notice for how long God had been preparing the way for our redemption!

Abraham (BC c.2000?) is known to us as our father-in-faith, (Romans 4:16-17) and:

The Lord had said to Abram: “Go forth from your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.  I will make you a great nation; I will bless you.

That blessing was for the nations:

            In him (Abraham) all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 18:18)

Moses (BC c.1500?) later spoke in the name of God to the Chosen People of Israel, whom he had led out from slavery to the Egyptians, saying:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to Him. (Deuteronomy 18:15)

However, that promised one was not to be just another prophet, because His words would be the very words of God Himself, and those who might refuse to listen to His words would have to answer for that to God Himself:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put My words in His mouth, and He will tell them everything I command Him.        If anyone does not listen to My words that the prophet speaks in My name, I Myself will call him to account.”   (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)

When Moses had been speaking with God on Mount Sinai, we are told that, unknown to him, his face had become radiant.  Likewise here, when the disciples Peter, James and John, were with Jesus on the mountain, we read that:

(Jesus) was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. (Matthew 17:2)

However, whereas the Israelites were afraid to approach Moses because his face was shining, we -- the true Israel -- are exhorted, on the contrary, to fix our eyes upon the transfigured and glorified face of Jesus, by St. Paul who tells us (2 Corinthians 4:6):

God, Who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Jesus was totally transfigured on that mountain top: “was transfigured” is the Hebrew way of saying: “God transfigured Him”: for Hebrew tradition did not allow common use of the name of God, and so, words were always phrased in the passive voice:  “Jesus was transfigured” leaving “by Jahwe” unspoken but understood.  The glory of divinity enveloped the whole body of Jesus.  This should have been the normal state of Jesus’ humanity in His life among  us, but as St. Paul tells us, for our sake He set aside this glory and allowed Himself to be seen as an ordinary man:

Being in very nature God, (He, Jesus) did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.   And being found in appearance as (an ordinary) man, He humbled himself (yet further) and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!  (Philippians. 2:6-8)

Today, however, we worship, and with wonder and awe think of, Jesus-in-glory, for such is the true and eternal Jesus; and we are filled with gratitude as we realise that, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our weak human flesh can be taken with, in, Jesus the Christ, as members of the Body of which He is the Head, into heaven.  Our weak, human flesh can, in Jesus, embrace, share and rejoice in, the glory of the omnipotent and all-holy God;   indeed, we can come to share in that very love for the Father that initially led God’s own Son to become Jesus on earth.  

Last Sunday we heard of Jesus being taken to the top of a very high mountain and being shown and offered the glory of the whole world if only He would bow down and worship Satan.  There Satan promised a false and fleeting glory; in today’s Gospel reading, however, we hear of Jesus being enveloped in the true and eternal glory of God:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them.

Jesus was led by the Spirit, called by the Father, to the mountain top as the beloved Son, before His Father as of right.  Notice that He took with Him chosen disciples, not all of them.  He did this to teach us that no office, no function, no calling, not even the calling of an Apostle, can lead human beings into the Father’s presence: only Jesus’ Personal love and choice bestows such a privilege!  And notice also, that He took the three chosen ones into the proximity, not into the immediate presence, of Him Whose voice they heard speaking to them from the cloud.  That proximity is as and how He will lead us too at the end of our days into the Father’s house, as His adopted children.

This is My Son, Whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!

And there was Jesus alone, transfigured before them: His face shining like the sun, and His clothes gleaming white as the light. 

People of God, this vision is a God-given consolation for us Catholics and our  Orthodox brethren, to the end of Time, because the words of Jesus echo down the ages in Mother Church, who does not even think of changing the teaching words of Jesus to suit modern man.  We can this very day listen to Him because He Himself said to His Apostles:

When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.  He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.  He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”  (John 16:13-14)

By the Holy Spirit -- Jesus’ parting Gift to us -- His truth would be known to His Church for all time; and that truth is made known, even in our devil-tempted world of today, to all those wanting to hear and to obey the words of God that lead to life, real life, blessed and eternal life, through the teaching of the Apostles:

He who listens to you listens to Me; he who rejects you rejects Me; but he who rejects Me rejects Him Who sent Me." (Luke 10:16)

Those who listen to the Son throughout the ages are being drawn into that final gathering together of God’s chosen People which is being brought about by the Spirit of God, and that process is going on among us, dear People of God, here today.  As with the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, we too hear the words and teaching of Jesus and are urged by Mother Church to obey the voice of the Father and “listen to Jesus”.  Mother Church -- in the power of the Spirit given her by her Lord -- will teach us how to obey Jesus, how to rightly love Him; and she exhorts us to have total confidence in Him Who alone, can and will share with us His glory, and lead us and all His faithful disciples into the home of our heavenly Father, to be welcomed by Him as His children, loved in the Beloved, and only-begotten, Son.         

1st Sunday of Lent Year A 2023

 

1^st. Sunday of Lent (A),

(Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12:17-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

 

 

‘In the beginning’ the Serpent, speaking to the woman in the Garden of Eden but targeting the man – Adam -- who had been warned by God against eating fruit from the forbidden tree, directly contradicted God’s words:

You will not die.  For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

In today’s Gospel passage however, when speaking to the second Adam -- Jesus sent by His heavenly Father to be our Lord and Saviour -- the ‘Adversary’ of mankind, Satan, considered it wiser not to openly contradict the words spoken by the Father at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan:

 This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased, (Matthew 3:17-4:1)

because he was not sure with Whom he was dealing.  And therefore, being somewhat hesitant, instead of directly contradicting what the Father had said, he tried to insinuate some seed of doubt into the mind of this challenger from Nazareth:

            If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

Jesus’ period of testing in the desert had gone on for a full forty days and nights, and the devil apparently thought that a few carefully chosen words of his at the end of it, when Jesus was physically close to exhaustion, might cause Him to wonder whether His visionary experience at His baptism by John in the Jordan had been as real as He had first thought.  Satan hoped that Jesus -- having been very much alone for forty days and nights and now feeling very weak from starvation -- might seize an opportunity to both satisfy His hunger and bolster up His morale, so to speak, under the pretext of showing him, Satan, to be mistaken and wrong

However, Jesus had no burgeoning doubt to assuage, no clamouring hunger demanding satisfaction as soon as possible; He had nothing to prove to Himself, and He had no intention whatsoever of giving Satan the satisfaction of an answer to his question.  Jesus, therefore, made it supremely clear where He found His true nourishment:

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.' "

Jesus, the Son of God, sent, as Messiah, to save God's People from their servitude to sin, was being tempted as the early Israelites had been, when they were being led through the desert towards the Promised Land under the guidance of Yahweh their God and the leadership of Moses their prophet.   On that journey, Israel of old -- sinful children of their sinful mother Eve -- had behaved as she did: they would not to trust God and, on beginning to feel the pangs of hunger, they complained bitterly against Moses saying that God was planning to kill them in the desert.  They openly expressed their longing for a return to the slavery of Egypt where food was plentiful.  Later on Moses reminded them of their behaviour saying:

Remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.  So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger.  Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness.      (Deuteronomy 8:2-3; 9:7)

Jesus, on the other hand, had shown Himself to be in no way subject to that over-riding solicitude for self which is characteristic of fallen humanity: suffering and trial could not lead Him either to suspect His Father or abuse His gifts.  Satan therefore turned his attention from Jesus’ human make-up, to His divine mission: he homed in on Jesus’ desire to be recognized and accepted as the Redeemer and Saviour of Israel.

Satan had noted Jesus’ reference to the Scriptures and so, continuing his attempt to find out just Who Jesus might be, he took Him to the Holy City, Jerusalem, set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said: ‘Here, on this pinnacle of the world-famous Jewish temple is just the spot to prove yourself and win your people.   Here, you can do something that would resound throughout Israel and it would be fully in accordance with the Scriptures You quote so lovingly; it would be something whereby the whole Jewish nation could easily recognize that the Lord has chosen and appointed you, therefore:

If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'

Jesus,  unmoved, replied:

            It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'

Now we, who have -- as St. Paul says -- ‘the mind of Christ’, know that Jesus had not come among men for His own human aggrandisement or satisfaction, nor had He entered upon His divine mission for the well-being of Israel alone: He had come, He had been sent by His Father, for the salvation of the whole of mankind.

Satan, however, knew neither Jesus nor His Mission fully, and his temptations were only diabolically cunning shots-in-the-dark.  He seems to have disdainfully thought that any human-being could be tempted successfully provided that the stakes were high enough; therefore he made one further attempt to derail Jesus’ Mission:

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.

At that moment Satan -- in the fullness of his maniacal pride and ambition -- overreached himself, and Jesus, no longer tolerating his presence, responded by a manifestation of His own authority, before adding the words of Scripture:

Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'

‘Away with you, Satan!’   Words cannot express the loathing, revulsion, and anger of Jesus’ reply … but we can recall that years after, at the very end of His mission,  He relived once again -- and once more rejected with startling vehemence -- this desert experience when Peter tried to persuade Him to follow an easier path than that of the Cross (Matthew 16:23):

He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."          

In the temptations of Jesus in the desert we recall, as I have mentioned, Israel’s trials in the desert of Sinai on the way to the Promised Land, in particular the occasion when Moses told the Israelites:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him.     (Deuteronomy 6:10-14)

Now Jesus sums up, and fulfils, in Himself the history and calling of Israel, the Chosen People; but He also prepares for the future world-wide People of God, the Church that would be His Body and Bride, the Church whose Head and Saviour He would be.   Therefore, these temptations of Jesus in the desert are to be understood in all the fulness of their purpose and meaning: they are for mankind’s salvation and for the  instruction and confirmation of all who would be His disciples.

We can recognize ourselves in the first temptation of Jesus, for violent people say so often these days, “I, we, had no alternative”, “we have to bring the world’s attention to this matter”, “we have to register a protest”.  These people always find themselves obliged, driven, to do what is otherwise inexcusable.  Let us learn from Jesus, People of God, starving after 40 days and nights in the desert, He would in no way abuse His divine gifts to get earthly satisfaction.  Nothing can oblige, or allow, a Christian to do what is against God’s teaching.

Again, in all three temptations of Jesus, Satan endeavoured to stir up suspicion of God’s love and providential care.  How many Christians, today, succumb to this temptation!  They fall away from God because they begin to doubt that He is with them, they are not sure He is hearing them, they are unaware of His helping, guiding, hand in their lives.  “I don’t feel anything; He makes no sign.  If only I could be conscious of His presence, if He would only answer, I would be satisfied.”  In some such way they begin to demand a sign from God, a sign to convince them that His Providence is with them; and some,  on receiving no such sign, turn away from the true Faith and seek refuge in religious sects which provide them with all sorts of pseudo-divine signs.

Still others try to stir up signs for themselves by rashly setting aside faith and reasonable behaviour and pushing themselves to become neurotically excited and disturbed.  You will see some of these in popular churches doing all sorts of strange antics or excessive practices, and how many pseudo-Muslims worship their god because he allows them to cherish and seek, seek, seek, revenge.

Many Catholic, however, complaining that God is silent in their lives, simply fall away from the Faith; and, as it were returning to Egypt's slavery, turn aside to enjoy the pagan life-style of the surrounding society, trying to forget their conscience in a maelstrom of worldly endeavours, comforts, pleasures, distractions, and inevitable worries.

Finally, in the third temptation of Jesus we have the situation of those who do indeed set out to do the work of God – proclaiming Catholic teaching, and trying to explain its truth and show its beauty -- but allow themselves to become discouraged at little result or apparent failure.   They then resort to making just a few slight compromises and minimal accommodations acceptable to popular tastes, done with the apparently laudable aim of recording success where previously there had only been what seemed failure.  Thenceforth, however, all the high aims and loving purposes still being avowedly pursued are increasingly subject to their too human desire for results, good results, successful results, above all, acceptable results.  The ultimate end for such victims of the devil's deceits is that, far from worshipping God as they started out, they end up worshipping the devil in his very best clothes!  They worship him who gives them humanly appreciable and acceptable success in God's works!   They both distrust and fear the humility, the waiting and trusting, the hoping and praying, involved in worshipping God whole-heartedly, and then leaving the  results to Him alone.   

Our evangelist, however, would have us never forget that, when Jesus had successfully overcome His trials:

            The devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

And we too, now turn to God’s abiding Gift, with us in Mother Church, and in us, through true faith and the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus, and trustfully beg Him to lead us, strengthen us, in the ways of Jesus, that we may -- in life and death -- give glory to God our Father, forward the salvation of all those of good will, and in the life to come, find our own ultimate fulfilment as children of God able to sit at the festal table of God’s heavenly rejoicing in His heavenly Kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7th Sunday Year A 2023

 

7th. Sunday of the Year (A)

(Leviticus 19: 1-2, 17-18; First Corinthians 3:16-23; St. Matthew 5:38-48)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, those opening words recalled by Jesus are somewhat blood-chilling to our ears:

 

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’’

 

However, they were actually intended, we are told, to keep the instinctive desire for personal revenge/retribution -- which the Law condemned, as you heard in our first reading, Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people – within publicly appreciable and containable limits, so to speak.

The propensity to unbridled and endless revenge, so very common to fallen mankind in general, and which even to this very day so bitterly afflicts peoples living and suffering in middle-eastern regions, was thus opposed by divine revelation from the beginning,  and that is why Jesus Himself said repeatedly:

 

If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.  (Matthew 6:14-15)

 

Last week I mentioned that Matthew’s Gospel was meant for his own congregation of former Jewish believers and synagogue worshippers, now converted, or perhaps in the process of conversion, to Christianity; and in today’s Gospel reading Matthew presents Jesus as enforcing that original divine opposition to revenge, by urging His hearers to most carefully avoid any actions that might provoke retaliation.

 

When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well.

 

Jesus then went on to declare the same in a yet more decisive manner:

 

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

 

Now, there is no O.T. biblical text that commands hatred of one’s enemy; which shows that Jesus was relating to, and quoting, current words and popular attitudes, which He then went on to correct by proposing the only suitable attitude for His followers in such situations;  He was not prescribing detailed procedures to be carried out literally in His name.

Notice also that Jesus’ words are adapted by Matthew for his own particular congregation when He continues:

 

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?   Do not the tax-collectors do the same?  And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that?  Do not the pagans/Gentiles do the same?

 

Former Pharisees and practicing Jews would feel at ease with such references to very old adversaries!  And Jesus’ last quoted words here are ideally suited for a former Jewish and newly-Christian congregation:

                            So be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect;

 being easily acceptable -- and to a measure more readily understandable -- for those who had previously sought for perfection under the Jewish Law.

So, People of God, we must be aware that Matthew In his Gospel was trying to help former Jews/Pharisees to truly understand their Christian faith; and we, for our part, must not in any way allow people of our times -- who no longer have any Catholic /Christian faith and have acquired, adopted, lots of edge against it and opposition to its propagation -- to suggest that Jesus in today’s Gospel passage is wanting to make us into Christian Pharisees: do this action and you will get that spiritual reward!

Jesus later on, when Himself addressing the Rich Young Man who wanted to be perfect, said, again according to St. Matthew (19:21):

 

If you wish to be perfect (same word as earlier), go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, FOLLOW ME.

 

Perfection for Christians is a gift, it is not the result of a transaction, nor is it an  acquisition:  it is a gift given by the Father, through the Spirit, to those whosoever – be they perhaps former tax collectors or even pagans cum Gentiles -- now humbly loving and obeying the Person of Jesus in His Church, working for the redemption of mankind and the glory of God.   As St. Paul said:

             Everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas (that is, the Church),                 or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you,              and you to Christ, and Christ to God.