23rd Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20)

 

Dear fellow Catholics and Christians I must make clear for you today that our Gospel reading was written by St. Matthew for his Jewish-Christian community of the first century.  The general guidance given there is for all Christians; but the detailed and specific procedures quoted by St. Matthew were given by Jesus to Jews who, as a nation, had been prepared by God for some two thousand years in order to be able to understand and practically appreciate that teaching.  Such formal details were not intended by Jesus -- indeed are hardly possible and most certainly not obligatory -- for Catholics and devout Christians in our modern, sinful and adulterous, societies.

Let us first of all have a look at what I have just called the ‘general guidance’ for all Christians and basic to Christian morality:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

Such was Jesus’ consistent attitude in such matters: don’t let things fester, have it out in the open; if possible, put it right without delay, with all honesty and humility.  

Such an attitude and such a solution was possible for meticulous former Pharisees or Sadducees – Matthew’s suggested Church congregation – who’s emotions were closely geared with their legal minds; and Scripture gives us the supreme example of Saint Paul literally following Jesus’ teaching by openly rebuking Saint Peter for dissimulation (Galatians 2:11-15)!

Nevertheless, for today, when people’s emotions are much more free-ranging and for immediate self-expression, it is not likely to be a generally accepted or acceptable procedure.

Jesus, however, had a much more comprehensive teaching than that specified by St. Matthew for his Church congregation; it is a teaching that Jesus committed to Saint Peter for the future Church of which he, Peter, would be the chosen head; a teaching which totally eliminates grudges nourished or retaliation planned for harm thought to have been done:

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your  Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15;  cf. 18:22-35)

That truly radical, unique, and even still today, most astounding, demand of Jesus as regards fraternal charity among His disciples, made in those words for St. Peter’s personal  guidance, develops teaching first mentioned in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: revenge is not allowed, and if cherished is unforgiveable, for all believers in Jesus.

Think on that, dear People of God, for all gangs feed on revenge; even world-wide religions allow their supporters to practice, and pride themselves on, vengeful justification of their faith; and ‘little men’ and ‘poisoned women’ of our modern world, like to think of getting-their-own-back for offences real or imagined.

Today’s words of Saint Paul -- our Blessed Lord’s gift-to-the-nations --  are most relevant here:

            Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.

For Christian society, such love is  both the foundation and the fulfilment of the Christian way of life, as  St. Paul teaches the nations:

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function; so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. 

Love is the fulfilment of the law.  (Romans 12:4-5; 13:10)

I cannot now go on to talk with you about the nature and beauty of that  Christian love, but nevertheless we have already, dear People of God, revealed a panoramic view of the wonder of our Catholic (for precision’s sake!) faith: the power and strength, the beauty and holiness, the life-bestowing goodness and soul-cleansing truth, of God’s fatherly love for us in Jesus!

Before closing, however, let me just take-up for you that expression ‘fatherly-love’, because our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel told us of God insisting on a moral duty for Ezekiel himself that concerns all Christian parents.

As Christian parents whose marriage is dedicated to God, any children they may have are regarded as gifts from God to be loved, nurtured, and brought up for His glory and their ultimate salvation and blessing.  For that purpose Catholic and Christian parents have authority over their children which is God-given and which no government can negate; an authority before men which also begets a responsibility before God, because He has appointed them as watchman for the house of God which is their Catholic and Christian family home.  May their exercise of that personal God-given authority and power-for-good be for them a most loving work, joyful privilege, and life-long cause of heart-felt gratitude.

22nd Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27)

 

Today’s Gospel revealed how ‘deadly’ serious Our Blessed Lord was when calling upon His disciples, then and now, to take up the Cross and follow Him.     So serious is that Gospel message that, in order to help us appreciate something more of it, I propose to re-order today’s short reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, putting first what was last, and what was last, first, changing the word order slightly, but not the meaning, nor any of the words.

 

I urge you brothers, by the mercies of God, do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect; (thus, may you be able) to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.

 

We can thus appreciate more clearly the nature of our spiritual worship of God.  It is TRULY CHRISTIAN: that is, it is both human and divine.  Human, by our endeavour to renew our minds by discerning and doing the will of God in our physical pilgrimage through life; and divine, in so far as, having thus been perfected by the Spirit of Jesus, we have become able to offer the living-and-dying sacrifice of ourselves in the truly spiritual worship of loving commitment to, and total trust in, God.   Oh! dear People of God, how utterly important it is for us to thus:

 

Be transformed by the renewal of our mind, that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

 

Our ‘good life’ is not to be a mere living-out of generally accepted, popularly approved, morals and manners … so many non-believers today pride themselves on doing that!!   No, we Catholic Christians are called to know (through our Catholic Faith and the Scriptures) and love (whole-heartedly by the grace of God’s most Holy Spirit) the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and in Him, to learn how to know and love God the-Father-Who-sent-Him as our own Father, now calling us to walk in Jesus as His adopted children.

 

Our Christian faith is, indeed, a call to personal love of God, and how ironical it is that the adulterous and evil world of today likes to understand its boasted faithlessness likewise as a gateway to ‘modern expressions of emotional commitment’ – promiscuous, of course, to benefit all its votaries dedicated to  adventures and discoveries along the highways and byways of such ‘loving’ – so much better adapted to modern ‘man’, they claim, than the Christian vocation of love which -- being divine -- is able to embrace and ultimately totally transfigure what is human and temporal, into what is divine and eternally fulfilling; in one word, into something Christ-like, through a discipline that requires but obedience and humility from man!!

 

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.

 

Just recall Our Blessed Lord in last Sunday’s Gospel.  Having previously heard Bartholomew (Nathanael) call Him ‘Son of God’ and ‘King of Israel’, He had regarded such words as being too much based on too little; on the other hand, however, when He heard Peter declare ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ He immediately, without the slightest hesitation, recognized His Father speaking in and through Peter, and totally committed His own life-and-future- death’s work in obedient response to His Father’s recognized involvement.

 

That, dear People of God, is a sublime example of St. Paul’s inspiring exhortation today, ‘Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God’.   As Jesus Himself said:

 

Father, the world has not known You; but I have known You!

 

And Jesus’ whole desire and prayer is that we -- though weak and ignorant human beings of ourselves -- may, as His true disciples come, in His Church and by His Spirit,  to that humble ‘discernment’ which St. Paul had in mind.

 

How we are to be thus transformed, and how our mind is to be thus renewed, can only be learnt by humble discipleship from the font of traditional wisdom contained in the teachings of Catholic spirituality.  It is not something we can do of ourselves, for it is a precious gift of God; but it is something for which we can dispose ourselves to receive from the goodness of God, by entering upon the ways of traditional spirituality distilled for us over two thousand years.

 

Thanks to the liturgical wisdom of Mother Church -- using old treasure to reveal what is new and sublime -- we are given the essential elements for such spiritual renewal in today’s responsorial psalm (63):

 

            My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God!          SEEK, LONG FOR. GOD.

            Your kindness is greater than life; my lips shall glorify You.   THANK HIM.

            You are my help, and in the shadow of Your wings    ASK FOR GOD’S HELP.

               I shout for joy.                                                                  and REJOICE IN HIM.

            My soul clings fast to You.           PERSEVERE, BE PATIENT and FAITHFUL.

               Your right hand upholds me.                                  and CALMLY CONFIDENT.

 

Dear People of God, you have there, in that one psalm reading, a compendium of spiritual guidance fit for a saint or a soldier of Christ: one, that is, chosen by the Father to give Him grateful thanks by witnessing to the holiness, or fighting for the glory, of His Son’s Name among men. 

 

21st Sunday Year A, 2023

(Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20) 

 

Simon Peter, speaking in the name of all the Apostles had answered Jesus’ question, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ by a characteristic, and categorical, statement:

            You are the Christ the Son of the living God.

Now Nathanael from Galilee had earlier been quite decisive when Philip told him about Jesus, by saying, ‘Can anything good come from Nazareth?’; and when -- on meeting Nathanael -- Jesus Himself had showed no hesitation in saying most decisively, ‘Here is a true Israelite.  There is no duplicity in him.’

Nevertheless, when, at that their very first meeting, Nathanael then went on to say to Jesus:

            Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the King of Israel,

 Jesus did not think Nathanael had been inspired by His Father even though his words were very much like the words Peter would subsequently use.  Indeed, Jesus would seem to have thought that Nathanael believed too much, too easily; for He somewhat casually said, ‘You will see greater things than this’.

Perhaps I can say that Jesus ’saw’ Nathanael (Bartholomew) with the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, but at the critical junction of Peter’s ‘confession’, Jesus saw and recognized Peter with the eyes of the Incarnate Son of God, instantly and supremely aware of, and responsive to, His Father.

Jesus, immediately recognizing a revelation by His Heavenly Father behind Peter’s typically enthusiastic and decisive words, therefore most solemnly declared:

And so, (because of My Father’s revelation to you) I say to you, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

People of God, the ‘rock’ supporting Jesus’ Church is Peter-confessing-Jesus-as Son-of- God and that is Peter’s supreme function in Mother Church, as leader of Jesus’ chosen Apostles:  to proclaim Jesus.  Nothing must be allowed to detract from, or overshadow, that function for which Peter was chosen by the Father and confirmed by Jesus as leader for His future Church: to confess and proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and Saviour of mankind, to all the world.

The Pope is not meant to be a model for, or the chief of, do-gooders, nor is he meant to be afraid of, or succumb-to, the modern ‘woke’ people who, though they have no need of God in the ‘simplicity of their hearts’, nevertheless pretend to do such good for our world: a ‘good’ tailored to give the majority status and enjoyment … ‘enjoyment’ is so very necessary for appreciation in their set-up!

‘Do-gooders’, new-age ‘woke-ones’, proclaim their version of goodness for our world today; Peter – the model for all Popes -- proclaimed Jesus, Who in turn proclaimed His Father’s will for the world, as the only sublime and saving goodness for mankind.

Our Pope is meant to be Peter for the Church today, not an acclaimed ‘do gooder’, but rather a hated (‘if they hated Me they will hate you also’) witness to Him sent by His Father to  save mankind from its servitude to sin; to decisively proclaim Jesus as the Son of God and promote the rule of His Spirit in the hearts of men as did Peter in his own unique way.

The history of Eliakim shows what could hinder any Pope’s fulfilment of his office.  Eliakim’s elevation brought honour for his family; we are told the Lord said:

            I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honour for his family.

It was then that the trouble began:

On him shall hang all the glory of his family: descendants and offspring, all the little dishes, from bowls to jugs.

The family began to take over the man: relatives of all sorts came to him with their requests and needs and, in that way, the family began to gradually smother the public servant authorised by God:

On that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg fixed in a sure spot shall give way, break off and fall, and the weight that hung on it shall be done away with; for the Lord has spoken.

The Old Testament examples of Shebna and Eliakim thus enable us to espy something of the wisdom of God of which St. Paul spoke in the second reading, a wisdom that never ceased to astound him the more he considered the wonders of God's saving Providence:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways!

For, despite the vagaries and duplicities of, the hidden and dark corners to be found in, the human mind and heart, the Gospel shows us a new ingredient, so to speak, which will transform the peg of the Old Testament into the Rock of the New Testament: that is, Jesus’ Personal choice of Peter and promise of the Spirit to His future Church, made in totally loving and obedient response to His Father.

The new, transforming, ingredient is to be found in the fact that Peter was given authority ‘in the name of Jesus’: since Peter -- inspired (in-Spirited) by the Father -- had proclaimed his faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of the Living God, Jesus would build His Church on that Rock of His Father’s inspiration of Peter’s faith and confession.    Jesus and the Father are thus to be seen behind Peter and the Spirit with him.

Therefore, People of God, our readings today help us see clearly just who is the supreme head and ultimate leader of the Church: it is the heavenly Jesus.  True, Peter is the head of the Church on earth, he is the visible head called to proclaim Jesus as Son of God and Saviour, and called also to strengthen his fellow apostles in their proclamation of the Gospel, thus making Jesus’ Church truly one on earth; but Peter is only able to be that visible head, because Jesus is the heavenly, ultimate, Head Who prays unceasingly for Peter that he may – despite some bad Middle Ages and Renaissance popes -- continue through time to fulfil the rock-like function of prime proclaimer of Jesus on earth.

As proclaimer of Jesus as Son of God and Saviour the Pope is not called to be a specialist in liturgy, or one given to philosophical considerations concerning the Gospel, he is not necessarily an ethicist responding to mankind’s moral dilemmas and errors as he sees best.  No, although great Popes may and indeed have been thus talented over the centuries, their essential Petrine calling supersedes all such talents.  Our Gospel passage shows with supreme clarity that Peter -- every Pope -- should strive to be, first and foremost, a proclaimer of the Person, the truth and the beauty, the inspirational glory and power, the saving love and compassion, of Jesus.  Any failing in the desired fulfilment of that unique vocation, even when done sincerely for love of another aspect of service in the name of Jesus, can open the way for, even bring, dissension and doubt into the Church.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, dear People of God, let us therefore today whole-heartedly pray for our present Pope Francis that in all his many needs and great trials, but also in his deepest personal aspirations, he may seek and prove to be the man of Jesus’ choice for His Church’s needs today.