23rd Sunday of the Year (B) 2018

             23^rd. Sunday of the Year (B)                  

(Isaiah 35: 4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37)

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Jesus was in a region – the Decapolis, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee – where a sizeable Jewish population lived; they were, however, influenced by the alien culture prevalent in those 10 cities (‘Decapolis’ is a Greek word meaning ten towns or cities) whose citizens lived in a Greek-style society with Greco-Roman government, and whose laws and religious beliefs – especially when taken together with their moral standards and practices -- were regarded by devout Israelites as ‘heathen‘.

There was sufficiently close contact between Jews and Greeks to support business activities and also to enable the ‘Greeks’ to acquire some awareness of and acquaintance with Jewish customs and religious practices.  Jesus had recently healed the daughter of a pagan Syro-Phoenician woman who, you will surely remember, had said that even the dogs were allowed to eat scraps from the children’s table. On that occasion Jesus had healed the daughter at a distance, her mother having come alone to beseech Jesus’ help.

Here, however, there was a crowd of expectant people, probably Jews who, we are told:

brought to Jesus one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  (Mark 7:32)

Jesus, you will notice, did not seek out this man any more than He had sought out the young girl whom He had healed because of her mother’s importunity despite His own apparent unwillingness to do such a healing.  On this occasion, however, it was a crowd, probably most of them members of the Chosen People to whom alone Jesus had been sent, who “begged” Him to lay His hand on this deaf and speech-impaired man.

People of God, recognize that this episode might well have brought a certain joy to the heart of Jesus.  The pagan woman had come to Him for the sake of her natural daughter; here, there is a crowd of people united in the faith of Israel asking for the healing of a fellow believer.  They did not, most probably, observe their faith with sufficient care -- living and working, as they did, side by side with pagans -- but for all that, they still kept firm hold of a most important characteristic of their Jewish background, care for each other.

That is something we should note, for it is very important for each and every one of us to have friends who know how to invoke Jesus’ blessing on our behalf!  Surely none of us here are among those arrogant and puffed-up people who think they don’t need anyone’s help, who are quite confident that their lives are good enough to withstand even the gaze of God.  Such people think that way, of course, because they have a low idea of God, being totally ignorant of His infinite holiness, imagining that they could look Him in the eye, so to speak, without even any embarrassment, let alone any fear and trembling.  For us, however, who are aware of the sublime holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity and of ourselves, we should notice how often in the Gospel people are blessed and healed through the intercession, help, of personal friends, and of those personally close to Jesus, such as the Apostles. Dear People of God, it is very, very important that your children understand the blessing of having good friends.  Criminals have ‘friends’ who they call good friends because they won’t tell on their mates; drug addicts too have so called good ‘friends’ who won’t betray either their suppliers or their customers.  Your children, dear People of God, need, should have and should appreciate, good friends who are good-living friends.

You will be aware, in this respect, of the difference between a Catholic funeral -- with the Church filled with friends beseeching, in the Name of Jesus, God’s mercy for their friend and loved one -- as compared with a funeral service replete, not with prayers to God in the name of Jesus but, with very human praise for the one departed, and with no little self-display by those singing such emotional praises. 

It is faith alone which prepares for and can appreciate what is holy; and so, Jesus’ healing was not to be done openly before a somewhat motley crowd of observers made up of far-from-fervently-practicing Jews, with a sprinkling of others hoping to see, and ready to gawp at, some display of pagan magic.  Moreover, Jesus would not only speak His word of healing, He would also use His human flesh to touch the man, and so we are told in our Gospel reading that it was only after having taken the deaf and speech-afflicted man aside from the crowd that Jesus then:

Put His finger in his ears, and spitting, touched his tongue, then He looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’!

People of God, we should clearly recognize and appreciate that Jesus uses human nature still: we Catholics do not pray to a God who is just “up there”: we pray to, we turn to, we love, a God Who is with us also here on earth, a God Who is with us in His own flesh and blood in the Eucharist; indeed, in so far as we are true disciples of Jesus, in so far as we live in His Body by His Spirit, we are all “flesh of His flesh, blood of His Blood”.  Because Our Blessed Lord deliberately continues to use His Body for mankind’s salvation through the instrumentality of His Church -- His Mystical Body and His Chosen People -- He thus deigns to use us, His disciples, in His work of redemption even today.  Our Christian vocation in Mother Church is therefore clear: as loving and obedient disciples of Jesus – the Son of God made flesh for men -- we are called to become, each in our degree, willing instruments for His continuing work of salvation: by our Catholic prayer and worship, by our Christian giving and loving, indeed, by the very way “we live and move and have our spiritual being” in Him.

Finally, notice those words:

He looked up to heaven and groaned.

We have the same mention of such a sigh or groan in the next episode of St. Mark’s Gospel when, after miraculously feeding the four thousand:

The Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him.   But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation." (Mark 8:11-12)

That ‘groan’, that “sighing deeply”, expresses the deep compassion felt by Jesus all mankind suffering so much under the burden of sin, as St. Paul tells us:

We know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now.   Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.  Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.             (Romans 8:22-26)

However, His sighing deeply, His groan, is also the result of His immense indignation that His Father’s creation, originally so good and so beautiful, should have become so deformed and ugly, thanks to the Devil’s lies and our complicity.  This is why, People of God, we should, indeed why we must, hate sin for dishonouring the Father of glory, for bringing such sorrow to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and for the degradation and grief, the pain and loss, it continues to bring about in the lives of all men and women, children, and even those still in their mother’s womb.  

Make no mistake about it, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to hate sin; but also, as Christians, we must still love the sinner; that is, we must convict sin (‘do good-ers’ cannot do that) yet without condemning the sinner.  As ever, the devil seeks to be equal with God, he seeks to portray himself as holy and so he parodies Christian love in this matter.  The world, at the devil’s instigation, says that in order to love the sinner we should forget about, pass over, the sin: for example, Christians should, they say, have such understanding for the pregnant girl or woman in difficulties of whatever sort that we should think only of helping them, not about the evil or the horror of abortion.  Again, how many parents are persuaded to keep peace – and, of course, make things easier for themselves -- by saying nothing about their children’s faults, failings and sins?  

And yet, People of God, only those who have never known anything of or about those sighs of Jesus could adopt such supine and self-serving attitudes; only those who have no awareness whatsoever of the honour due to the Father; and, indeed, only those who do not, in fact, care anything about the ever increasing sufferings of mankind, could possibly persuade themselves that such ‘love for the sinner’ is in any way Christian: Christian love is only for the sinner possibly turning toward Jesus, not for sinners deliberately turned away from Him. 

Jesus is in our midst to heal the world because His loves us to the extent that He gives Himself entirely to us and for us.  He wills that we, His People, have a like love for our neighbour, and that we share in His saving work for the whole world.  That love and that work demand that we, with Jesus, hate sin, in all its forms: for what agreement can there be between the God of holiness and the father of lies, between Him Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the one who, through sin, injected death into the life-blood of mankind.  St. Paul tells us explicitly:

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?  And what accord has Christ with Belial?   (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)

That true love of neighbour which calls for our hatred of sin is the only way whereby the vision and prophecy of Isaiah, heard in the first reading, can be fulfilled; in Jesus and by His Spirit of Holiness working in and through His Church:

Be strong, do not fear!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God (which includes, hating and destroying sin); He will come and save you."  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.   Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing.  For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.   The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.   A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.  The unclean shall not pass over it. (Isaiah 35:4-8)

                                                                                                                  

           

22nd Sunday of the Year (B) 2018

22^nd. Sunday of Year (B)

(Deut. 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark: 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

Our readings today are centred upon what one might call the art of living in the Church.  We are shown the good things God gives us and does for us, and also how mankind – even those who are sincerely religious -- can distort and disfigure those blessings.  In the words of Fr. Faber, it can happen that: “We make His love too narrow by false limits of our own, and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own.”

In the first and second readings we were reminded of the great blessings God bestowed, first of all, on Israel, and, subsequently upon the whole of mankind, both Jews and Gentile

Be careful to observe (this Law) for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'

Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. … Therefore, receive with meekness the implanted word (the Faith) which is able to save your souls.  But, be doers of the word and not hearers only.

We should recall that, in the first place, the Law given to the Israelites in the desert had come as a gift from God; the People of Israel had not somehow managed to produce it of themselves.  And likewise, the land they were about to enter would not be won by their own might or valour, but would be yet another gift from God.  That is why Moses told them: 

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 

For us too, the Faith that we have received is not of human origin; as Jesus made abundantly clear when He said, as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel reading:

            The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63-64)

It was Peter who – inspired by the Father – gave the only true response to such words, not only on behalf of all the Apostles, but in the name of all true Christians and Catholics:

Lord, You have the words of eternal life.  Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (John 6:68-70)

And it is that same spirit to which you heard St. James give expression in our second reading:

Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls, (and) be doers of that word. 

Therefore, we must cling firmly to the teaching of the Faith: not only by defending it in our words but also by practicing it in our daily living.  And in order to do those things we must, above all else, learn to truly appreciate and love the Faith which God has so graciously bestowed upon us:

            This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 

All this may seem clear and sound simple, but such impressions can prove misleading, because at times our own unruly thoughts, imaginations, and feelings, will tempt us to follow their urging; and their very unruliness will make it difficult for us to appreciate, and consequently more difficult to obey, the Faith we acknowledge to be both God-given and true.

Such difficulties, however, are due simply to the fact that the Faith has been given us in order to change us from what – from who -- we are, into what – who -- God wants us to become. The Faith has been given us to re-form us, not in accordance with the maxims and examples of the world around us, nor for the fulfilment of our own personal preferences and ambitions, but after the pattern, and according to the will, of Him Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, preparing a place for us to live there with Him for all eternity. 

However, in addition to such difficulties which arise from our very nature and are therefore the common experience of all disciples of Jesus, there are other difficulties we experience that spring not so much from our common human nature as from our own personal character and that of others with whom we have dealings: especially from the attitudes and teachings of others in positions of prominence and authority.  We saw an example of this in our Gospel passage:

The Pharisees and scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?"

To which words, Jesus answered most vigorously, saying:

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.   And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.  And He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.”             

The traditions of the elders to which the Pharisees and Scribes were so devoted were originally practiced -- and subsequently handed down -- as a means of helping and protecting true devotion among the people of Israel.  And there were undoubtedly some in Israel who had profited and would continue to profit from their observance.  The trouble was, however, that the zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes for such traditions and for the letter of the Law, led them, at times, to disregard or even reject God’s Personal commands and His broader spiritual teaching given through the Prophets of Israel.

Jesus said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” 

Moreover, this excessive and misplaced zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes pushed them further, even, indeed, to assert that everyone in Israel should be bound by their traditions.  This amounted, Jesus said as He quoted the prophet Isaiah, to them:

Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

In that condemnation you can recognize how zealous Jesus was for the honour of God: men’s commandments were in no way to be compared with the commandments and doctrines coming from God.

Now, In Mother Church there are those in positions of authority that entitle or at times require them to give advice and guidance to the People of God.  Most frequently that guidance – because the authority behind it stems from learning, experience, and above all, from the acknowledged and invoked guidance of God’s promised grace – requires obedience at times, and always merits respect and thoughtful attention.  No one can totally ignore or disregard such guidance.

Nevertheless, we must always realize that we have been set free by Jesus Christ to serve God in Spirit and in Truth, as living members of the Body of Christ in response to the guidance of His Holy Spirit living and working within us; and that no human guides can ever be allowed to cut us off from that personal response to God so long as we remain in Jesus by keeping His known commands, and following His general teaching mediated to our conscience through the Gospel proclamation of Mother Church.  St. Paul makes this absolutely clear in his first letter to the Corinthians (3:21-23):

Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come -- all are yours.  And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 

As we go through life, striving to listen ever more carefully to God and follow Him ever more closely, we are always advancing to what is -- for us – new and unknown territory so to speak.  Therefore, it is indeed good and necessary that we should have the help of guidance from Mother Church, for on her alone did Jesus bestow the fullness of His Spirit, and to her alone does He recall all that Jesus taught and did.  Nevertheless, after personal prayer to God, after listening to His Spirit whispering in our conscience and abiding in Mother Church, after acknowledging our own inclination to sin and God’s wonderful goodness to us,  it is up to each of us, personally, to decide finally which way to go, because such responsible commitment is the hall-mark of a personal relationship with God intimately known and loved in our heart and life, it is the glory of a Christian which we should not yield, and certainly never abandon, to another.

Jesus once declared to His disciples:

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you. (Matthew 10:19-21)

Jesus might have said, ‘the Spirit of My Father will guide you’, but no, He actually said, ‘the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you’ will help you.   As it were obliterating Himself, Jesus shows us how closely He wants His disciples to be united to, one with, His Father, and it is for that end He gives us His Spirit at baptism and renews His Spirit within us every time we rightly receive Holy Communion. Oneness with the Father, in Jesus, by the Spirit, that is the culmination, crowning and fulfilment, of all Christian life and holiness.

Nevertheless, never at any stage in our life can we presume that we have heard, understood, and responded aright, without regularly checking -- as we proceed further -- that we are, indeed, not only within the parameters of the Faith, but also walking in the direction of, and in a comforting conformity with, the life-thrust of her who is both the unique Bride of Christ and also our own Mother.  And this constant longing for, and looking to, God; this unceasing watchfulness for the motions of His Spirit within us; this abiding awareness of personal weakness and ignorance together with an ever growing awareness of and reliance upon God’s goodness to us, … all these endeavours and experiences gradually build up in us an ever deeper confidence and abiding joy in Mother Church, together with an ever more humbling and grateful experience and awareness of the presence, power, and goodness of God in our individual lives.

The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God: the things which God has prepared for those who love Him; things which God has revealed to us through His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

           

21st Sunday of the year (2) 2018

21^st. Sunday of Year (B)  

(Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69)

Our Gospel passage today, People of God, refers to the Eucharist, and Jesus is there addressing certain Jews who, quite understandably with their background, found the thought of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus as repulsive and unacceptable.  Jesus said to them:

Does this offend you?   What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

In today’s Mass, however, the Gospel has been joined with a passage from St.  Paul who has become a “bête noir” for modern feminists who regard his teaching as being degrading for women.  But then, those feminists themselves, what sort of women are they:  women of the world or Christian, Catholic, women?  The devil’s sin is pride, and the easiest and most acceptable way of leading human beings astray for him is to give them a shot or two of pride into the arm, so to speak, and consequently we Catholics need, at times, to beware of those who make themselves prominent, and be careful whom we follow.  

Let us, therefore, considering today’s reading from St. Paul who, as St. Luke tells us about the Apostles in general (Acts 5:42):

            Never stopped (both) teaching and proclaiming the Messiah, Jesus.

notice first of all that here, we have his proclamation, his advice, not a command in the name of Jesus:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord: as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands. (Ephesians 5:22, 24)

Today’s feminists say, of course: what woman could accept that?

Paul had never been put off, dismayed, or disheartened by the pride of pagans disputing with him or setting themselves up against him:

I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a constraint on you; I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by God’s mercy is trustworthy. (1 Corinthians 7:35, 25).

And Paul’s advice was not like that of any other person however learned and/or experienced, for Paul could most truly say of himself:

We have the mind of Christ.  (1 Corinthians 2:16)

St. Paul then continued his proclamation of Christ, the Messiah, and went on to say:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her, nourish and cherish (them), just as the Lord does the Church.

This time, it is the lads around us, the boys, who respond immediately with: what man would want that?

The feminists hate what they see as the humiliation of woman in Christian marriage, while the boys hate the bondage and responsibility that Christian family life would thrust upon them.

In all this where does Our Lady stand?

Feminists, as a whole, pay her little attention; if they refer to her at all, they certainly have little admiration for her lowliness:

My spirit rejoices in God my saviour, Who looks on the lowliness of His handmaid.

As for the boys … few of them would be ashamed to say they admire, perhaps even love the Virgin Mary, above all as Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Church (if they are still ‘practicing’), and as their Mother …  but, they might add with genuine humility, that she is too good for them, somewhat in the style of St. John of the Cross who, as a little boy, dirtied by playing outside and, if I remember correctly, struggling in some water, did not want that lovely lady (Mary) who appeared to him, to grasp hold of his dirty hand.

Mary has always been seen in the Church as a litmus test for adventitious doctrines in their relationship with the Person of Jesus and His teaching.  Now the modern ‘boys’ have no doctrines, whereas the feminists do most certainly have doctrinal practices (e.g. contesting and doctoring the Scriptures) and life-changing attitudes very closely aligned with those of abortionists; as a result of such divergent attitudes ‘the boys’ are known as poor Catholics, but our modern feminists – on the whole – are not easily recognizable as Christian or Catholic at all.

If those views – of the feminists and the ‘boys’ -- were the only possible interpretations of St. Paul’s teaching it would be very difficult indeed to understand how it has come about that Christianity has raised the status and dignity of women immeasurably more than any other religious faith.  How could a religion preaching the so-called humiliation of woman in marriage have lifted up the status and confirmed the dignity of women, above all in the love, ‘worship’, and subjection she willingly and gratefully gives to the Virgin Mary as the mother of her Lord and Saviour?  On the other hand, if the bondage of responsibilities and chastity were so objectionable and unsatisfying for men -- as the boys say -- how could it be that Christian family life has shown itself to be the bed-rock of Western, indeed world-wide, democratic society?

As you can see, so much depends on how you look at things.  That is why we heard in the first reading that Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after Moses, said to the assembled people, “Make up your minds”:

Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt.  And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  So, the people answered and said: "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods.

Our troubles today are largely the fault of people who publicly say they don’t want to forsake the Lord, but who, in their hearts, neither hold Him in fear, nor are they willing to discipline their bodies so as to serve Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus, in the Gospel reading, knew some such people who found His teaching hard because they were unwilling to commit themselves entirely to Him:

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?   It is the Spirit Who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  

What if you see the Son of Man ascending to heaven?  Can’t you understand where I am leading you?  You will see Me ascend as your leader to the place where I am to prepare a place for all who will follow Me.  I am not preparing My disciples for a mere seventy or eighty years’ life in this sinful set-up; I have been sent to help you become children of God, able to live for ever in an eternal home prepared for you in My Father’s Kingdom; but for that, you have to be willing to trust Me.

Just as there are many rooms in the Father’s Kingdom where Jesus is preparing to receive His faithful disciples, so too, here on earth, there are many ways of learning discipleship and some, indeed, are better than others, as both Mary and Martha learnt; but all acceptable ways involve loving God and one’s neighbour, serving and following Jesus by obeying His Spirit in the Church. 

Whatever way we choose, the whole of our life as Christians is a time of preparation for our heavenly home, a preparation whereby we are gradually purged and cleansed of our sins and formed in the likeness of Jesus by His Holy Spirit.  It is not a time for the pre-eminent pursuit of worldly pride or pleasure, nor is it a process we can monitor and appraise for our own satisfaction.  The progress of life on earth for a disciple of Jesus is a spiritual work, a work carried out by the Holy Spirit; and it is a faith work, a work that can only be done for those who live by faith in Jesus Christ and in that way open themselves up to His Holy Spirit and allow Him to work in them.

And so, marriage -- the Christian life-sharing and potentially child-bearing relationship between man and woman -- is a most important relationship for the training of God’s heavenly children.  It is not, and cannot be, a relationship which is private to the two concerned, for that would be a mere a free-love association, whereas Christian marriage is the union of man and woman offered to Jesus, to be lived in accordance with His teaching and guidance handed down to us by His Apostles and Mother Church: it is a preparation ground, a human relationship offered to God for His glory and for Him to guide so that it serves the salvation of the spouses, helping form them for His heavenly family.  Every blessing comes to us through the Cross; consequently, in all Christian living, including marriage, there is experience of the Cross of Jesus; but as we see in Jesus, the Cross is ultimately something which a Catholic disciple can learn to embrace with his Lord for love of the Father, something which can lift us up from this earth to heaven.

Just to put it briefly in answer to the feminists and to the lads: Christian marriage is meant to help a Christian man and woman grow in humility on the one hand, and in true love on the other hand, both of which demand total, responsible, self-commitment and willing self-sacrifice.  To enable them both to achieve this, the Christian bond of marriage bestows a share in divine love, a gift of grace which gives those who want to receive it strength to live in a way which is more than human; and that is precisely why the feminists and the lads cannot understand Catholic marriage and Christian love, because it is for those destined for heaven, not for those satisfied, or hoping to be satisfied, with whatever renown, success, satisfaction, or pleasure, they can win or grab for themselves in this largely pagan world.

In all this, however, argument is of limited value, for as Jesus said:

Therefore, I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.

That does not mean that the Father denies anyone the opportunity or the ability to come to Jesus, but simply that He will not force it upon anyone; while those who do come to discipleship, must realize that it is a gift of God, not their own work.

In His days in Palestine, Jesus’ message displeased many:

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

Contrary to the impression given in these our times by some of His disciples both high and low, Jesus does not depend on human backing, He does not find it necessary to count “bums on seats” -- as the saying goes -- before He can trust His Father; for, just as of old:

He said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?",

even so today, He looks and listens for those true disciples who can wholeheartedly repeat and confirm those words of Peter:

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 

                                                              

20th Sunday Year B 2018

                 20^th. Sunday of the Year (B)                               

 (Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58)

Today we learn to what lengths Jesus went to in order to make people think about, pay attention to, what He was saying.  Jesus avoided popularity with the majority of people, but He did, most passionately, want those initially drawn to Him by His Father to hear with a measure of understanding the simple words with which He addressed them, that thus they might begin to gradually appreciate His teaching, and hopefully even to modify their lives and purify their aspirations in accordance with it.  

In the gospel reading He declared:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.

As you heard, and as you may well understand, the Jews were outraged at such words, and murmured among themselves:

            How can this man give us His flesh to eat?

What did Jesus do?  He went on to say something yet more difficult for those ‘pious’ Jews even to hear let alone accept:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

For a Jew, that last statement was absolutely outrageous because it seemed quite contrary to the command God had given Noah and his sons in the beginning:

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.  But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” (Genesis 9:1-4)

This same command, moreover, was most emphatically confirmed in the Law itself given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Leviticus 7:26-27):

You shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast.  Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.

What then is the significance of the blood?  Let us learn more from the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy:

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)

Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat.  The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, and you shall eat the meat. (Deuteronomy 12:23, 27)

Why, therefore, did Jesus speak so provocatively to the Jews by first of all saying, “eat My Flesh” and then following it up by the even more provocative and objectionable words, “drink My Blood”?   What was He trying to express that was so important, so sublimely important, that He felt the need to go to such lengths in order to make His hearers give close attention to, and think deeply about, what He was saying?

The reason is that here we are given a startlingly clear picture of the uniquely Christian awareness of the extent and the nature of God’s love for us, as also of the divine humility of Jesus.  For, although Jesus’ blood -- the Blood of the God’s only begotten Son -- was most sinfully poured out by us, yet, St. Paul (Ephesians 2:4) assures us:

God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us

turned that supreme evil into a supreme blessing.  Since Jesus poured out His blood so willingly for us God allowed us to use that blood for our spiritual benefit!  In the light of the Christian revelation and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we learn that, being allowed to drink the Blood of Jesus we are thereby enabled to imbibe life -- eternal life -- and ultimately a share in the sonship of Christ Himself!   As Paul (Ephesians 2:5) continues:

Even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ.

How great is the Father’s love for us, People of God!   The blood of all creatures pertains to Him alone; how dear beyond all measure, therefore, is the blood of His only-begotten Son-made-flesh?  How unimaginable is the humiliation which Jesus so willingly and so lovingly undertook out of obedience to His Father and compassion for us: pouring out His own, His Most Precious, Blood willingly for our sins, and so for our use, our benefit, our profit, and our salvation.

How sublimely, then, is that text of Leviticus thereby fulfilled:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it (the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb of God) to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul (because it is the Precious Blood of the Risen and eternally living Son-of-God-made-Man). 

People of God, we live in evil times, we live in a society which condones, and indeed admires, all sorts of excesses and contradictions (death penalty/abortion!!): a society which, too often, teaches its children to get, not give; to experience pleasure rather than practice discipline; to use others, not to serve them; to seek advantage and success rather than to strive for honour and integrity.

We however -- as disciples of Jesus and in response to God’s wondrous love -- must, as our first reading said:

Forsake foolishness that you may live and advance in the way of understanding.

And it is here that we can appreciate another, essential, aspect of Jesus’ insistence that we eat His flesh and drink His blood.

In our world money is supreme, and most of it -- and consequently most of the world’s advantages and benefits -- go to those who are top-dogs or already rich, the important ones, the famous and the popular; while the underdogs, the poor, the insignificant and the unpopular, have to be satisfied with what remains over.  Jesus saw it all and warned His disciples:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. (Matthew 20:25)

Jesus knew that such a situation was the expression of sin’s presence in the world, and having become man in order to conquer sin and bring redemption for mankind, He therefore went on to say:

It shall not be so among you.

To that end, therefore, Jesus insisted repeatedly that no one could be saved by his or her own native genius or power of whatever sort.  Personal salvation cannot be won by personal endeavour using natural talents, it can only be received as a gift subsequent on a personal encounter with, and spiritual response to, Jesus:

            If you do not eat My flesh and drink My blood you do not have life in you.

In Jesus’ Church, and in preparation for the coming Kingdom of God, everyone thus starts once again on an equal footing (1 Corinthians 10:16-17):

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?  For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.   

That one bread and the one cup are the source of all grace and blessing for us, and on receiving them we encounter Christ, the Risen Lord, Himself; and, in that encounter we are in the presence of, and alone with, Him: there is no one else listening to our conversation; we are free to say, ask for, what we want, totally free to be ourselves with Him Who knows, and what is much more, appreciates, not only what we are but also what we want to be.  St. Paul puts it this way:

Now you have known God, or rather are known by God. (Galatians 4:9)

My dear People, the natural gifts each of us may have were not given to directly further our personal salvation, rather they have been bestowed upon us for our earthly benefit and the benefit of the society in which we live, and indeed, in exceptional cases, of the whole world.  Eternal salvation, however, comes to us as the result of our correspondence with the – perhaps unnoticed, unthought of -- guidance and calling of His own Most Holy Spirit over the years; with our personal faith-awareness of, and loving response to, Christ in our daily lives as witnessing Catholics and Christians; above all, however, as a result of our personal encounter with Our Saviour Himself in our reception of the Holy Eucharist.  

As we heard in the second reading we should:

Be careful how (we) walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of (our) time, because the days are evil.  So then (let us) not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.

Indeed, giving thanks, above all, for the wondrous beauty and goodness, the infinite mercy and compassion, of God our Father, made manifest to us in and through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus His Son and our Redeemer.

We must realize, therefore, that although we are obliged to struggle at times in order to resist and overcome earthly inclinations which would lead us, through sin and self-indulgence, to death beyond the grave; nevertheless, as disciples of Jesus, our life, as a whole, should rather be experienced as, and characterized by, an ever deepening and developing awareness of the love and beauty both surrounding and awaiting us, as we learn, in Jesus, so to love our heavenly Father, that we ultimately receive -- as adopted children of God --a share in the heavenly inheritance of His beloved Son, thanks to the saving grace won for us by Jesus and bestowed upon us throughout our earthly pilgrimage by His Most Holy Spirit.

To the One God, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.