5th Sunday of the Year A 2023

 

5^th. SUNDAY of Year (A)

(Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16)

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               You are the salt of the earth.

With those words, Jesus wanted to impress upon His disciples an awareness of their dignity and responsibility.

You, He says – not the official representatives of the Jewish Synagogue – You who are following and hearing Me, You who are perhaps beginning to order your lives according to My words and not according the traditions of the Pharisees and their Scribes,

            You are the salt of the earth.

Salt was, in those days, obtained from evaporated pools by the shore of the Dead Sea, or from small lakes on the edge of the Syrian Desert which dry up in the summer.  This salt crust, dug from the soil, contained various impurities which, when the salt was dissolved and removed, remained as useless refuse.

Could that be the possibly double meaning of those mysterious following words of Jesus:

But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot;

a reference perhaps, on the one hand, to the obvious fact that once the original clod of salty earth had lost its salt content nothing but useless refuse remained; while, on the other hand, hinting at possibly disastrous consequences if disciples were to lose their purified saltiness.

Those disciples whom Jesus was addressing as ‘salt of the earth’ were actually following Him around and gladly listening to His words; and they, Jesus was saying, could be purified from their earthy contagions and become pure salt for His, and for God’s, purposes; if, that is, their following Him were to become obedience to Him, and if their hearing of His words were to develop into appreciation and understanding of them, and ultimately, to faith in Himself.

Disciples who are true lovers of Jesus, dear People of God, can never be artificial, overly delicate, characters.  No!  They are of-the-earth, ‘gotten’ from the basic humanity created by God, and found originally ‘good’ in His sight’  As such, thanks to Jesus’ saving Death and Resurrection. they can be cleansed of supervening sin and become fully and most truly human, indeed, salt of the earth in the way we commonly mean the expression, by the washing of Jesus’ Gospel which, even now in our days, is still to be heard in Mother Church, and can be accepted through repentance, and embraced in the power of His Most Holy Spirit, still available through her sacraments.

            Now, you are clean by reason of the word I have spoken to you. (Jn. 15:3)

 

Jesus then went on to tell them:

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

The picture of a city on a hill- or mountain-top, stems from the message of the Old Testament prophets (cp. Isaiah 2:2–3) concerning the future rule of God:

In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills.  All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: “Come, let us climb the LORD’S mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.”  For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And in today’s Gospel passage we hear Jesus saying to His disciples:  

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden   Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

The light of this city of God, shining, as the prophets foretold, in the darkness of the world, cannot be hidden; that is quite simply impossible, for it is illuminated by the glory of the Lord.  Jesus’ true disciples are authentic denizens of that city and so they too cannot fail to shine out -- or in more modern terms, stand out from today’s masses who glory in the light of the world, and, hope to taste all that it seems to offer them.  And so confident are they in the light of the world they are enjoying that they ‘demand’ the blessing of the Church of England under threat of otherwise losing its national appellation and prestige, or the blessing of the Catholic, universal, Church under threat of open and vicious persecution, preceded by an intellectual muddying of the waters of salvation for children yet unborn.

Notice however, that the disciples of Jesus do not have to make strenuous efforts to be seen by men; indeed, Our Blessed Lord Himself has warned them:

Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. (Matthew 6:1)

For our purposes, however, a more literal translation from the original Greek and the Latin Vulgate, puts it most pertinently:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.

Our Lord, therefore, said that, on the one hand, our light must shine in the sight of men, but He also told us to be careful not to make a show of our religion, nor of our personal piety, before men.  The light of the city of God shines out by itself, and in the same way, the light of its inhabitants – the true disciples of, and witnesses to, Christ – will not fail to shine and be seen, because they are a light set burning by God Himself, and Our Lord solemnly assures us:

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.

God lights the lamp of Christ’s disciples – by calling them to faith in Jesus --in order that it may give light to all His children in the world; and our endeavour should be that in everything we may be true to the soil from which we are dug – God’s original creation and the unity of Christian fellowship – and true to the purifying word of Christ, so that we:

(may) be found in Him, not having any righteousness of (our) own based on the Law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith. (Philippians 3:9)

 

Today, in our Western, God-denying and self-worshipping, societies, people generally only acknowledge, and children are only taught about, a ‘law’ emanating from governmental authority and supported by popular acceptance. They are societies in which people, increasingly, dare no longer publicly acknowledge a moral difference between right and wrong: avowing only what is legal, as distinct from what is unlawful and unapproved, and what is permitted, as against what is dangerous and possibly criminal, such as daring to stand silently praying even in the vicinity of an abortion clinic!!

 

Let us finally look a little more closely at those who were addressed as ‘You’ in Jesus’ words?  Crowds had come to Him and we are told that:

When He saw the crowds, He went up the mountain, and after He had sat down, His disciples came to Him.

Then He pronounced what we call ‘The Beatitudes’ speaking in general of ‘those who mourn’, ‘the meek’, even ‘those who are persecuted’; but He only became directly personal in His words when He said:

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of Me.

Those blessed witnesses to Christ are those to whom He then went on to say, ‘You are the salt of the earth.’

Today, our modern legislators, men of money and power perhaps, women of renown and persuasion perhaps, are increasingly legislators not for an equality which is impossible: undesirable for the majority, and even unviable, in a society of free-born individuals; they are becoming legislators against faith in general, and against Christianity in particular.  Above all, however, they are becoming discriminators against, even haters of, Jesus Himself:

Blessed are you when they persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of Me.

Today’s Gospel, calls upon all Catholics and Christians to hold ever harder on to  their ‘saltiness’: that is, to their native human one-ness with and love for their fellows, including even their persecutors, but above all, to the Person of Jesus the Christ, by their endeavours to deepen and strengthen their commitment to His saving Gospel, and by bearing public witness to Him, in the courage and strength of God’s abiding Gift: His most Holy Spirit of Truth and Power, ever with us and for us in the sacraments and life of Mother Church.

That was the model Paul himself gave, as we heard in the second reading:

When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I came to you in weakness.  My message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Today, dear People of God, we do not see much ‘demonstration of the Spirit and Power’; what then, is our faith as Catholics based on mere human wisdom as is the case with the modern German Church which wants to remain Catholic, but ‘different’: based not on Catholic traditional values for which countless martyrs have shed their blood over thousands of years, but on the suggestions and propositions of any Tom, Dick, and Harry, any Molly, Mildred, and Margaret keen to vocalize and promote themselves along the Synodal Pathway, and on the decisions of those choosing to be prominent and influential in an extremely rich gathering of rootless religious, nominal Catholic, but whose only stable name today is German.  Or is it really, South German??

No, dear Catholic People, though we do not today see much demonstration of Power and Spirit so necessary for the original evangelisation of unenlightened pagans, our faith today rests on the traditional teaching and practice of the Catholic, Universal, Church founded upon the Apostles whom Jesus chose, and to whom He said, ‘I have told you all that I have heard from My Father; the Holy Spirit Whom I shall send you will recall to your minds all that I have said to you’:

 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows Him.  But you know Him, because He remains with you (in Mother Church), and will be in you (personally). (John 14:16–17)

Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words; yet the word you hear is not Mine but that of the Father Who sent Me.  The Advocate, the Holy Spirit the Father will send in My name — He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. (John 14:24, 26)

I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from My Father.  (John 15:15)

Dear People of God, every week, here at Mass in the house of the Lord, we open our human minds and hearts to the Saviour Who, in the name of His heavenly Father, loves us beyond measure, that we might be enlightened by His teaching, inflamed with His very presence, and endowed and empowered by the abiding Gift of His Most Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4th. Sunday (Year A) 2023

 

4^th. Sunday (Year A)

(Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13; 1^st. Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12)

 

Once again, People of God, we have the Sermon on the Mount for our Gospel reading.  We are given it because it is indeed a compendium of the Good News brought by Christ to bring peace on earth for all those of good will.  Today, however, it is to be approached from the point of view of the accompanying readings from the prophet Zephaniah and St. Paul’s first letter to the Church he founded in Corinth.

Our reading from the prophecy of Zephaniah started with the words:

Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land who have observed His law.  Seek  righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD's anger.

‘Righteousness’ is personal to God, and “seek righteousness” means: ‘try to imitate the holiness of God’, it requires that we learn from Him what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is beautiful.  In order to “seek righteousness” we need to be prepared to gradually die to ourselves, our opinions, and to OUR own passions; it also means that we learn to fight against our weaknesses, such despondency, anxiety, and self-solicitude, in order to walk in the ways of Christ by the power of His Spirit; that, we may gradually become ever more truly children of God: true to Him Who is our heavenly Father, our earthly Companion, and ever-faithful Guide and Strength.

How great the gulf is between the translation ‘seek righteousness’ and its modern ‘woke’ versions ‘seek integrity’, ‘seek justice’, becomes clear when we realize  that the greatest sinners are often  those who are most proud of their assumed personal integrity, and of the promotion of their own versions of social justice, such as – in Canada – persuading, encouraging, the infirm needing some care, the disturbingly ill, and, indeed, the elderly generally, to agree to die-to-order!  In our own country, ‘chosen’ or  ‘designated’ words are being declared criminal, while other things such as blatant and provocative sexual display are approved: special groups allowed to be themselves and do what they want to do, while the population in general is not free to speak their normal minds.  Today, dear People of God, we find ourselves in a world where the Devil’s own pseudo-virtue is both gladly embraced and proudly promoted, as Our Blessed Lord insinuated saying (Luke 18:8):

             When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?

That is why the prophet Zephaniah declared in the name of the Lord:

I will remove from your midst the proud braggarts, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on My holy mountain.   I will leave as a remnant in your midst a  people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD.   (3:11)

And to confirm his vision of a purified Israel, Zephaniah’s prophecy ends with words evoking for us the thought of Mary:

Shout for joy, daughter of Zion!  Sing joyfully, Israel!  Be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem! (3:14)

Mary the supreme daughter of Zion and purest flower of Israel!  Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, beloved of God because of her humility!  Mary, forgotten and almost despised by today’s feminists of greatest renown, with fullest public image!!

With Mary, how far we are, indeed, from the modern understanding of personal integrity which makes the hearts of so many people today unresponsive and indeed impervious to God’s offer, in Christ, of true righteousness; because such divine righteousness can only enter the hearts of those prepared to hear Jesus’ call to repentance and be willing to respond with humility before God:

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  (Matthew 4:17)

St. Paul in today’s reading taken from his first letter to the Corinthians tells us:

Whoever boasts, should boast in the LORD;

and he insists that God wills that:

            No human being might boast before God.

God, Paul says, chose what is foolish by human reckoning: the weak, and those whom the world regards as common and contemptible.  Not, indeed, that God loves ignorance or lack of moral fibre; but rather that He wants to give us true virtue, heavenly wisdom, and divine strength, gifts that will free us from the chains of sin and allow us to fulfil our authentic selves by becoming, in Jesus, God’s true children.  In order to change the old stale water of our stagnant lives into best wine God must first of all get rid of the illusory human righteousness involved in ‘personal integrity’ and ‘woke justice’; for it is only when such modern boasts have been shown up in all their deceitfulness that God can then make us, as Paul says, members of:

Christ Jesus, Who became for us wisdom from God -- and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

People of God, observe how wisely, how lovingly, Mother Church tries to lead us to a true and fruitful understanding of Jesus in the Scriptures!  These two readings from Zephaniah and St. Paul are most helpful if we are to understand and try to live the message of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.  It is our human pride – we cannot even recognize the complementarity of MEN and WOMEN !! -- which so blinds us that we are rendered unable to recognize what is true and what is false, what is real and what is illusory, what is ours and what is of God.  The gentle, who do not fight for power, the merciful, who are unwilling to condemn, the peacemakers, who refuse to malign others, such people cannot prosper on a diet which feeds “personal integrity”, because they find it poisonous.  Neither can the worldly ‘woke’ understand what they regard as the  indecisiveness and weakness of those who are unwilling to condemn, the ‘flabbyness’ of those who, in order to preserve peace, are loath to speak ill of others.  And, of course, the worldly ones, so eager to assert and stand up for their own personal integrity, are bound to be disgusted with what they regard as the insipid and servile attitude of those the prophet so lovingly mentioned in our first reading:

The remnant of Israel will do no wrong and tell no lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths.

 The words of Jesus at the end of the Beatitudes are totally alien to those committed to this world, its standards, and its aspirations; for such people, they are not so much mysterious words, as utterly ridiculous words, depicting a despicable attitude:

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.

However, for those who have begun put on the righteousness of Christ, those words are, indeed, both eternal and true; for, as authentic disciples they have learned to recognize and to confess the truth about Jesus, together with the very first committed followers of His  -- Peter and the holy apostles -- who said of Him:

Lord, You alone have the words of life.

 

 

 

 

 

3rd Sunday of Year A 2023

 

 3^rd. Sunday of the Year (A)

(Isaiah 8:23-9:3; 1st. Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23.)

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When Jesus heard that John had been arrested He withdrew to Galilee, (and then) leaving Nazareth He went to live in Capernaum by the sea.  From that time on Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ 

Jesus -- anointed by the Holy Spirit and proclaimed by the voice of His heavenly Father after His baptism by John the Baptist in the river Jordan -- had left Judea on hearing of John’s subsequent imprisonment and returned home; not to His  home at Nazareth, but rather to Capernaum, though not without His mother’s ‘blessing’, given at the wedding feast at Cana.   ‘Blessing’? you might be thinking; yes, blessing, because she most humbly yet persistently urged Him to do that first of His miracles which His Father in heaven intended to set the tone for all Jesus’ subsequent works and words, meant to bring ultimate joy and fulfilment for all those willing to believe in His Gospel and live humbly, loving their fellows and in obedience to God’s law.

Jesus was in Capernaum, with some disciples who had come with Him from Judea … He was obviously thinking about the divine mission now taken from John’s shoulders and committed to His own burning zeal for the glory of His heavenly Father’s name and the salvation of all men and women willing to ‘repent’ on learning of the Father’s glory and goodness.

As He was walking by the sea of Galilee He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.  He said to them, ‘Come after Me and I will make you fishers of men.’

‘Come after Me’ … leave your home and family, and follow Me!!  Come! Not on some common project as equals, but as My disciples, and I will make something of you.’

Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee and looking at those He saw and, by the grace of the Spirit given Him, knowing and deciding who to choose and call to Himself!

There is no one on earth doing that today, dear People of God!  Nevertheless, the Spirit of Jesus IS still here on earth in the Body of Christ which is the Church; at work, choosing and inviting, still calling those to whom the Father sends Him whispering in their hearts and minds, ‘Believe in Jesus, and let His Word and Sacraments make something of you!  I will most certainly help you do what you cannot do of yourself … become a child of God and heir to eternal life in heaven.

How very intriguing those few words ‘Come follow Me’ must have been for the two brothers!  This was not the very first time they had encountered Jesus; they had learned of Him from John the Baptist (JB to Andrew to Peter), and at the recent Passover festival in Jerusalem they had witnessed, or at least heard eye-witness reports of, His remarkable activity and confrontations with Temple authorities.  And then, as I have already mentioned, the  subsequent marvellous happenings at the marriage feast in Cana on the way back to Galilee.  In other words, Peter and Andrew already knew quite a bit about Jesus. 

Today however, things were different somehow, very different.   Jesus was obviously starting something totally new --- His divinely-commissioned Public Ministry --- and for that He was intent on Personally choosing disciples to follow Him now, and accompany Him throughout His missionary journeys.  Such intimacy and proximity was essential, that thus they might learn at first hand His ways and His purposes, so that, ultimately, they might be able not only to continue His work in Israel but even extend it world-wide. 

                Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men!

What an ideal, perfect, call for men for men such as Simon and Andrew: few words indeed, but full of meaning, promise, and challenge!  At once, they left their nets and living and followed Him!

See, there, People of God, how imperious a vocation to follow Jesus can be, and is, essentially!!

Going further He saw James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee,

He called them,

and though we do not know what specific words of invitation Jesus used, the fact is that His words lit up a firebrand in their hearts which remained with them throughout their lives with Him and for Him, earning them the appropriate nickname of ‘sons of thunder’:

And immediately they left their boat and their father and followed Him.  

 

Now, People of God, can we, dare we, say that Jesus wants all of us -- who like to think of ourselves as disciples of Jesus -- to have something of that original spirit of absolute, unquestioning commitment manifested by those first, specially chosen, Apostles, in our relationship with Him?  Surely, I think you will agree.  Let us therefore look at what that means.

With these first-choice disciples Jesus went immediately upon an introductory mission throughout all Galilee, acquainting them with His ways and teaching them His purposes:

Teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom (‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’), and curing every disease and illness among the people.            

He wanted these chosen disciples to come to know Him Personally.   ‘Come after Me’, ‘Come follow Me’, ‘Come and see’, had been the words He used.  The two pairs of brothers certainly saw much that was interesting, remarkable, and inspiring as they accompanied Him around Galilee: devils were not allowed to disclose Him, human titles and dignities He rejected, and the people’s earthly expectations He made no attempt to satisfy.   Obedience and self-commitment were all that Jesus required of them at first.  However, a humble awareness of and responsiveness to His Holy Spirit -- inclining and gradually inspiring them to sincere acknowledgement of Jesus’ extraordinary dignity and to an ever-deeper love for His Person -- was that to which He aspired for them.

Their daily work on His mission was to help Him by finding food and lodging, preparing food, protecting Him from over-enthusiastic crowds, warding off troublesome individuals, answering simple questions of the people, and perhaps reporting to Him concerning the people’s mood and/or expectations, the variety of needs in their society, and inevitably, helping individuals taken ill, children lost etc., etc.   All very helpful for Jesus but not what Jesus had really chosen them for in the first place; not what He ultimately intended for them.

Their supreme work was to be that of themselves imbibing of His very Spirit to the utmost of their being, to the utmost of God’s gift to them, by observing not only His teaching and guidance, but His every gesture and even the tenor of His general bearing and facial emotions;  and most importantly, by always trying to get better at waiting before forming any personal opinions about what He would do, should do or had done, or about possible reasons for His behaviour.  

Dear People of God, that picture of the originally chosen Apostles setting out to follow Jesus on His inaugural public mission is a remarkable and truly inspiring model for all of us wanting and longing to give authentic witness to Jesus and help in His work today.  For that end, there is nothing better than a deep commitment to and understanding of our Catholic faith; plus a measure of spiritual sensitivity that can be determined only by the sincerity and depth of our personal humility and the infinitely wise and generous measure of God’s Gift -- His Spirit -- in our lives.   Faith in Jesus directly, mediated to us through His Church indeed, but not by her substituting for, or taking the place of, Jesus Himself; spiritual sensitivity, that is, awareness of and responsiveness to, the guidance and inspiration of His most holy Spirit working through His Church, in our lives. 

True, we do not have Jesus walking before and alongside of us; but we do most certainly have His presence with us in Holy Mother Church, in her Scriptures, especially the Gospels and New Testament Epistles, in her Sacraments, above all we have His physical Presence in her Eucharist; yet more intimately, we do have the presence of His Most Holy Spirit ‘gifted’ to Mother Church that He might all the better come to us and form us who are willing, into  ever-truer likenesses of Jesus for the glory of His Father and  the well-being and salvation of all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

My dear People, let us now, at the end of these short considerations recall, understand more fully, and whole-heartedly delight in, these words from the  inspiring psalm we heard earlier:

The Lord is my light, my light and my salvation, whom should I fear?  One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord (and) gaze upon the beauty of the Lord all the days of my life.  I believe I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord with courage; be stout-hearted, and wait for the Lord. 

 

 

2nd Sunday of Year A 2023

 

2^nd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6;  1^st. Corinthians 1:1-3;  John 1: 29-34

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Our readings for today, dear People of God,  are presented as a kind of spiritual sandwich! The first reading and the Gospel – the bread and substance of the sandwich, so to speak -- give us wonderful pictures of the Messiah as promised to Israel through the great prophet Isaiah; and then as offered to Israel before being given to the Church as the Word of God, become flesh as Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth, and prospective Saviour of mankind.

The first reading told us:

The Lord said to Me: You are My servant, Israel (the Messiah pictured as the perfection of Israel, the People of God), through whom I show My glory. The Lord has spoken Who formed me as His servant from the womb … and I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength.  It is too little, the Lord says, for you to be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel, I will make you a light to the nations, that My Salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

And in the Gospel we heard:

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and said: “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.  I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon Him,iH

          … He is the Son of God.

There we are told of the glory of Jesus and of His work as messianic Saviour of the whole world.

Next, in between those two texts, the meat, as it were sandwiched for our spiritual feeding today, where we are told how Jesus, as Perfect Man-for-our-admiration-and-imitation, lived so as to become our Saviour from sin:

Here am I, Lord; I come to do Your will.  I waited for the Lord, and He put a new song into My mouth, a hymn to our God.  To do Your will, O My God , is My delight, and Your law is written within My heart.  I announced Your justice to the great assembly.

And then St. Paul himself – adding as a perfect condiment just for today -- specified that example for our imitation:

            You who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus (are) called to be holy.

Dear People of God, the meaning and significance of human creation as a whole, and of our individual life-purpose therein, is a divine and most wonderful mystery and yet, we must recognize that God’s supreme desire when sending His very own Son to be for us the Word-made-Flesh,  was that:

            His salvation may reach the ends of the earth and take away the sins of the                 world;

and therefore, though our own individual life-purpose is mysterious – that is, holy, not blatant --  God’s salvation is nevertheless meant to reach the ends of the earth, mankind as a whole, and therefore must be both understandable, desirable and achievable, for those called.  

Humankind – alone of all creation -- was made in the likeness of God for communion with God, and because God is all Holy and True, therefore, our communion with Him must express P/personal love and enable us to share, somehow, in His eternal life.  The sins of the world, OUR SINS, must be taken away, ultimately by the Blood of the Lamb.  Holiness is the very essence of God’s being and that is why Saint Paul told his converts:

            You who have been sanctified in Christ, (are) called to be holy,

That is, God’s concern is both for the truth and integrity of present our being here on earth and for the spiritual beauty and personal fulfilment we find in heaven.

Now, all this may well, and indeed should, lead us His People to recognize that we can only come to know God’s will and follow His grace more closely by imitating more closely the examples of John and Our Lord Jesus Himself by trying to listen, pray, and reverently wait -- perhaps for even a considerable time – upon God’s great goodness before we can, humbly receive God’s blessing and enlightenment, by His Spirit, and through His Church. 

Therefore, we can’t merely seek information from the Scriptures, or admire mere logical arguments in Mother Church’s dogmatic teaching.  The historical, physical, actual, Jesus, was actually seen by John the Baptist -- but that wasn’t enough for him to recognize and believe in Him as  Saviour; for that he needed a special light, an elevating grace, from God.  And we, in our turn today, need a similar special light and grace that we might recognize, appreciate, and respond to God’s Personal love for us -- you and me individually -- in Mother Church’s Scriptures, and that we might partake fully of the divine-life-for-human-living bestowed in total profusion in her Eucharist. for this we need to have the example of our very own spiritual mother, who so sublimely appreciated Him she called ‘the Almighty’:

            The Almighty has done marvels for me, for HOLY IS HIS NAME.

Let me now, to close, draw up some of the characteristics of a Catholic Christian as learnt from today’s Gospel.

A Catholic Christian seeks peace so as to be able to listen:

first of all, to his own being which will tell him that nothing in this world can fully satisfy him;

secondly, to God, in order to find hope, meaning, purpose, and fulfilment for  his life as an individual human-being become a child of God.

A Catholic Christian is, has to be, fundamentally humble, because he knows and fully accepts that he cannot even seek salvation, let alone embrace it in Jesus, without the Gift  of the Spirit and the mercy of our heavenly Father.  No one must ever think that holiness can be got on the cheap by saying a few prayers or giving to some charity occasionally.  Holiness has to become part of our life as lived faithfully, in the community of the faithful, Catholic and Christian, before God, not before men.  And yet, God knows our weakness both spiritual (pride) and physical (lust), and therefore He looks for loving obedience, sincerity of mind and heart, and perseverance through plentiful and lean times.  Failings He is always willing and ready to forgive, but hypocrites and liars, the vengeful, and all despisers of others He hates.  

 

  

The Baptism of the Lord Year A 2023

 

 The Baptism of the Lord (A)

(Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17)

 

Our readings today began with God saying through the prophet Isaiah:

Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Chosen One in whom My soul delights!

Those words were echoed in our reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, where the voice of the heavenly Father was heard to proclaim:

            This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.

There can, therefore, be no doubt about the focal point of our celebration today: we must look afresh at, and learn to appreciate more, Jesus our Saviour, God’s chosen Servant in Whom His soul delights, the Father's beloved sent-among-us-Son. 

Notice first of all, that whereas John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to some of his disciples by telling them of the mission Jesus would fulfil (John 1:29):

Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world;

at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, however, the Father does not reveal Jesus to us by saying "this is your Saviour" or any other such words indicating what Jesus was going to do for us; far from that, and infinitely more than that, He proclaims the very Person of Jesus, and, in doing so, reveals His own Personal Self, with the words: 

            This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased!

With that proclamation the Father gives us a glimpse of the very essence of Divine Life and Beatitude in which the Father and Son are eternally One in the Holy Spirit of Love; and, by manifesting His Own sheer delight in His Son made flesh, He thereby invites us also to delight in Jesus to our utmost; not simply because of what He does on our behalf, but because of Who He is, among us: not simply appraisal, but appreciation.

Since -- in the process of canonization -- it has to be shown that candidates had practiced Christian virtues to a heroic degree, it might easily be thought that holiness consists in, is characterized by, the practice of virtues.  Such ‘holiness’, such ‘virtuosity’ so to speak, can be, however, very Pharisaic in character:  the Spirit alone can lead us along the way of, Jesus.  The spiritual life built on ‘virtuosity’, on the other hand, is dis-figured by an over-reliance on human appreciations, cogitations and endeavours, thereby projecting and promoting an impersonal, perhaps even inhumane, picture of the Christian life, so much in contrast with the life of Personal love-for-His-Father  practiced by Jesus in His earthly ministry.

In truth, Christian holiness cannot be characterized by anything other than a delighting in God, above all, and in all.  The avoidance of evil and the practice of virtues should flow freely and unconstrainedly from that transforming and transcending love, as the ‘unconscious’ fruit of a P/personal relationship which fills one’s life.

First of all, therefore, we must want, seek, and pray to appreciate the Person of Jesus shown us, given to us for us, by the Father; and then, in Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, we should try to recognize, appreciate, and respond to, the Father Himself, so that we begin to share in Jesus' own love for the Father.  Only in that way can we fulfil our calling to become disciples of Jesus, and in Him, true children of the Father, by the Spirit. 

In our endeavour to appreciate Jesus, therefore, let us turn back our attention to the prophet Isaiah who told us, in the first reading, about the Servant:

Behold! My Servant Whom I uphold, My Chosen One in Whom My soul delights!  I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

And then let us recall what Peter told us in the second reading:

You know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

Both passages clearly relate to St. Matthew’s account in today’s Gospel reading of Jesus' experience on the occasion of His baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist:

When Jesus had been baptized, just as He came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him.

Now, John had not wanted to baptize Jesus, as you heard:

John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?"

Jesus, however, insisted; He had come to do His Father's will  -- that is, "all righteousness" -- which meant that His life could not be lived in accordance with merely human standards, nor could it be thought subject to human judgements, not even those of one so holy as John the Baptist:

Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." 

Isaiah had foretold what mission the Father had in mind for Jesus:

            He will bring forth justice to the Nations.

Few words, indeed, but full of meaning, because the prophet’s "justice" means God's truth and love, God’s own righteousness, to be fulfilled in us and in our lives.

Moreover, the prophet foretold how the Servant would go about His work, and so, indirectly, gave us some idea about what sort of person the Servant would prove to be:

He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. 

He will not, Isaiah says, take advantage of simple people by bombast, nor indulge in any haranguing of emotional crowds; He will proclaim His message of justice and truth calmly, and with full respect for His hearers.

Isaiah went on to show us another engaging aspect of God's Chosen Servant, when he said:

A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.

And so, though anointed with the Spirit and with power, Jesus would be characterized, the prophet said, by gentleness and respect; and this St. Peter confirmed in our second reading when he said:

He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Nevertheless, since Jesus had been given the mission to bring forth true justice on earth, He would inevitably meet with opposition in a sinful world, and this prospect led Isaiah to give another characteristic of the Chosen Servant and Beloved Son:

He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth.

And so, though -- in His gentleness and respect -- neither breaking what was bruised nor extinguishing what might still dimly glow, the Servant’s anointing with the Spirit and with power will not allow Him to be either disheartened or crushed by His painful experience of life in a sinful world.  He will face trials similar to those we now encounter in our daily lives, and indeed others far greater and more testing than any we will ever know, but He will live through them as the Servant obedient in all things to the Lord, as the Son, in all things loving, and witnessing to, His Father.  In that way Jesus will be like us, one with us and able to understand us; and yet, for all that, He will be unique, the only One to faithfully bring forth justice and fulfil all righteousness, the One Who will neither fail nor falter in His mission:

            ‘till He has established justice in the earth.

And that, People of God, means that Jesus will never give up in His endeavours to enable us to recognize and appreciate the Father's goodness and love, and to raise us up -- by His Spirit -- to become more worthy children of such a Father.

Today there are many who try to proclaim the love of Jesus us by telling us how much He empathizes with us in our sufferings because He too has suffered; how His whole longing and aim is to bring us comfort and release, joy, peace and love, now.  And they leave it at that, being unwilling or afraid to speak of any further suffering to be borne or efforts to be made by those who want to belong to God.   And that is a travesty of the full truth: a travesty which, though pleasing to hear, is deadly in its effects, for it is a half-truth that would leave us no longer looking up to heaven but resting here on earth. 

The true Jesus, the Scriptures tell us:

Will not fail nor be discouraged ‘till He has established justice in the earth

that is, true justice in the hearts and minds, the lives and loves of you and me, and all others like us throughout the whole world who will listen to His Good News and gradually learn to fight the good fight here on earth while hoping for, and aspiring to, a new, eternal, home being prepared for us in heaven.

People of God, we are not always ready, perhaps not even always willing, to lift our eyes to heaven, because the devil both abuses our weakness and hides our ignorance so that we do not know our own needs, nor do we want to see our own failings.  But Isaiah tells us clearly in the name of the Lord:

I will appoint You (My Servant) as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.

Though we are all blind and prisoners to a greater or lesser degree, let us not -- through pride – reject, or fearfully turn away from, God's gift of a Saviour, because He intends to free us from our sins and the suffering they involve, and to enlighten our ignorance by drawing us, as the prophet Hosea said:

            With gentle cords, with bands of love. (Hosea 11:4);

or, as Jeremiah (31:3-4) told us in even more striking words:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have drawn you with lovingkindness.  Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt.

Therefore, People of God, let us resolve this very day to allow God to rebuild our lives as He seeks to draw us in the Spirit -- with bands of love -- to Jesus; in and from Whom we can learn to appreciate, and to love more and more, the Father revealing Himself to us along with Jesus, as the Gospel proclaimed:

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as He came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him.  And a voice from heaven said, "This is My Son, the Beloved, with Whom I am well pleased."