19th Sunday (Year C)

Nineteenth Sunday (Year C)       

  (Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-12; Luke 12:32-48)

This was the saving of the virtuous, for by the same act with which you took vengeance on our foes you made us glorious by calling us to you.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those words, from the OT book of Wisdom, which refer originally to God’s destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army in the Red Sea in order to bring His People out of slavery, find a two-fold relevance and fulfilment in the New Testament: first of all when Jesus breaks the bonds of sin and death and ascends -- in the glory of the Spirit -- to heaven, where He now sits at the right hand of the Father; and secondly when through baptism, human sins are washed away and the prospect of heavenly life restored to men by the gift of the Spirit of Jesus.  And these two distinct events – where salvation is first of all won and then allowed to exert its saving power -- are made one through our faith in Jesus.

This new life with its promise of glory is, however, but the outline, the beginning and the end, so to speak, of our salvation; the main body -- all aspects of our character and all actions of our making – must, whatever their apparent significance or insignificance, serve to make a coherent and ultimately glorious whole of our lives, and therefore must be penetrated, through and through, by that original gift of divine significance, namely, our faith.

A few words from the second reading explain why faith is so supremely important for our life in Christ:

      Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Our Christian hope is for those heavenly realities and that heavenly fulfilment put before us by Jesus in promises that resonate to the furthest depths of our being,  made -- as we human beings uniquely are -- in the image and likeness of God,  realities which cannot be apprehended by us here and now, because they transcend us, but which, in the ultimate realization of God’s providential plan, will be our sublime fulfilment in the glory of Jesus.   Nevertheless, such blessings hoped for from God, according to the promise of the Scriptures, can begin to be appropriated by us, even here and now, through faith in Jesus, in Whose divine humanity the fullness of God dwells, by the working of His Spirit in us, through the ministry of Mother Church.  We can, indeed, begin here and now, to truly appreciate such heavenly realities and really apprehend something of the fulfilment they offer through faith, because:

      Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

We must turn to the Gospel, however, to learn an aspect of supreme importance within this broad outline of our salvation.  Jesus there tells His disciples:

Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.

Now the reason why He tells them to provide a treasure for themselves in heaven is because, as He went on to explain:

      Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Because He is seeking to draw us, in Himself, to heaven where there is no gold or silver, no tight purses or secure safes, He draws attention to our heart -- the seat of human affection and attachment – for which personal love alone is the supreme and exclusive treasure. 

Likewise, when He advises His disciples to:

            Sell what you have and give alms

He is not really interested in seeing us reduced to poverty: He wants us to open our hearts, unreservedly and fully, to receive His Father’s gift of the Kingdom:

            It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom;

He wants us to unreservedly love the promise and the prospect of heaven, where, He assures us, our dearest and most precious treasure -- our heart’s treasure -- awaits us.

And so we have this outline of our salvation:

(In) the saving of the virtuous: by the same act with which you took vengeance on our foes you made us glorious by calling us to you.

By the glorious Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, and through our faith in Him, God has called us to Himself.  And we have learnt, broadly speaking, how that glorious calling is to be realised: through the prospect and promises of hope, faith leads us to open our minds, hearts, and lives to the ultimate inspiration of divine charity.  That is the way we are to finally attain ‘our treasure’, our hope, or, as Jesus put it earlier, ‘the Kingdom of God’:

Seek the kingdom of God, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Jesus spoke repeatedly of the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven; St. Paul, however, tells us that the Kingdom of God is also the Kingdom of the Son:

He (the Father) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. (Col. 1:13-14)

Why does Paul speak of the Kingdom of the Son whereas Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom of God?

First of all Paul speaks in this way because, ultimately, Jesus Himself is the Kingdom of God present in our world and in our lives.

And secondly, because the Kingdom of the Son, of which St. Paul spoke, will ultimately to be handed over to the Father, and in that way become the Kingdom of God, the Father.  Listen to Paul’s explanation:

In Christ all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order: Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  For He (Christ) must reign till He (God the Father) has put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. … Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him (God the Father) who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:22-28)

Jesus is the load-stone drawing the affection of our hearts to God by the fact that He is God-in-human (our)-flesh.  Like loves like: and our shared flesh enables us to respond most deeply to Him Who is God-like-us.  Our response to His promises, His example and call, our faith in Him and our human love for Him, will gently open our hearts to the working of His Spirit Who will then form us gradually in His divine likeness until we come to love God for His divine beauty and goodness.

From this we can see that our personal treasure will ultimately be the glorious Jesus when He returns to make the final proclamation and manifestation of His eternal glory and to hand all that is His over to the Father, so that He, the Father, might be ‘All in all’.

Now we can, as it were, ‘pull all the strings together’ in order to get a complete picture, a full understanding.

‘Treasure in heaven’ is essential, as Jesus Himself said, if our hearts are to be fully, totally attached to heaven.  Faith guides us towards the attainment of our heavenly hope, but faith is essentially commitment directly to the teaching of Jesus and only mediately commitment to the Person of Jesus; love, on the other hand, being, most accurately, the gift of divine charity, commits our whole being immediately, directly, to the very Person of Jesus.  This personal commitment to Jesus – mediated, I say, by faith in His Person and in His word, and directly attained through our sharing in the gift of divine charity -- is absolutely and supremely essential, indeed, it is the only essential, for Jesus is Himself the Kingdom for us.  And this love, being, as I said, a heavenly gift, indeed the Gift of the Spirit, our sharing in Divine Being of union in Charity, transcends our present time and this visible world and takes us into the eternity of God Himself where Jesus will, as we have heard, ultimately hand over His Kingdom to the Father and lead us -- as members of His Body in and with Him -- to love, yes, to love divinely, the Father Himself, as Jesus would have us love Him, for the Father must become, as you heard, ‘All in all’.  

Faith is the ‘substance of things hoped for’; by our faith, in our life of discipleship on earth, we can already gain some experience of what will be our heavenly fellowship with Jesus, before the Father, in the Spirit.  That experience, that fellowship, that love of charity, can and should deepen within us throughout our life on earth, but that can only come about in Mother Church, through our faith in her proclamation of the Gospel, and by the grace of her sacraments, which bestow on us the Spirit of Love and Truth Who unites and binds together Father and Son. 

And then, for all those faithful sons and daughters of Mother Church who thus grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus our Saviour, the words of the Psalmist are most beautifully appropriate and consoling:

Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.  I will deliver him and honour him and show him My salvation. (Psalm 91:14-16)

       

18th. Sunday (Year C)

18^th. Sunday (Year C)

(Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23.  Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11.  Luke 12:13-21)

Watching a news programme on the television, I saw a picture of a Mosque in Birmingham filled with men worshipping.  You can go, on the other hand, to Christian churches, even to Catholic churches, and find them half empty.  Why is this?  Because so many Christians, so many Catholics, are not living their faith today: they are living for the world, for the pleasures and advantages the world seems to offer them.  The Muslims I saw filling the mosque, on the other hand, were there because they feel themselves to be a minority under threat, and so they were rallying together round the one thing that, in a currently alien and historically Christian, society and country, most distinguishes them from others and most unites them among themselves, that is their Muslim faith.  It was like that in Ireland over a hundred years ago when Irish men and women, under persecution and oppression, held firm by rallying together round their faith, their Catholic Faith, which distinguished and sustained them in the face of their Protestant persecutors.  Even more recently the same phenomenon occurred in Poland when Catholic Poles were under atheistic Communist rule.  When oppression ceased more or less in Ireland and Poland, then the practice of the Catholic faith also began to fall in fervour as men and women, living in an apparently more friendly world, began to enjoy living in the world more than they rejoiced to practice their faith: with the world an enemy, the faith was a lifeline; when the world seems friendly, why should the precepts of Catholic faith be allowed to disturb that mutual acceptance and approval of surrounding society?

Today then, even where Catholics still appear to value their faith, many are tempted to live for the world: they do not openly or totally give in to the temptation, but, not infrequently, they make serious concessions to it.   Now, these concessions have to be justified in some way or other, because these people want to regard themselves as practicing and true Catholics, and so, they begin to talk about the need to make our faith acceptable to modern people who, they say, now have a much greater knowledge of science and a much wider understanding of other, non-Western, cultures than their forebears possessed. In this way some modern Catholics come to justify singular interpretations of the Faith by claiming that the practice of faith must be made more popular: indeed they seem to feel it their vocational calling to do all they can - watering down difficult teaching and brushing aside unwanted rules - in order to make their presentation of the Faith as attractive, as pleasing, and as easy to understand, as possible for others whom they hope to thereby persuade to accept the Catholic way of life.  People will come to the Faith it is thought and said, if, and only if, they find us nice people not overburdened with troublesome principles, if they find our message accommodating and comforting, and if the portals of our church are open wide,  welcoming and obstacle free, to all and sundry.

This is a most fundamental and insidious perversion of the Faith.  Jesus tells us quite categorically that it is the Father alone who draws disciples to Jesus:

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. (John 6:37)

The Father draws and gives to Jesus disciples who have come to know Him through the witness of Mother Church and her children, who make Jesus known by proclaiming His Truth and presenting His teaching to all who are sincerely seeking God and His salvation.  But, People of God, how could anyone come to love the authentic Jesus if His followers are intent, first and foremost, on presenting themselves as nice Jesus-people?  How can followers whose aim is to offer a popularly acceptable message, rightly proclaim the teaching of Jesus?  Their want to present their own version of the Gospel, a version adapted to modern ideas and current preferences, not the Good News of Jesus as given us in the Scriptures and proclaimed in the traditional teaching of the Church.

Now this state of affairs comes about because people all too easily think only in terms of this world, as if everything will be decided here on earth according to human judgements and expectations; and therefore our readings today, warning us, most explicitly, about this folly, proclaim that this world is not the be all and end all of life:

Here is one who has laboured with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; and yet to another who has not laboured over it, he must leave property. This also is vanity and a great misfortune.

In fact, it is but the essential preparation for what is to come, a life of either eternal fulfilment or eternal loss:

Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.   He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’    And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”

But God said to him, 'You fool! This night your life will be demanded of you; and then the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'

The currently widespread persuasion that the Good News of Jesus has to be subjected to our adaptation is an unacknowledged capitulation to modern society’s craven worship of popularity.  Therein is the root error: for popularity has neither role nor authority in matters of faith; indeed, at the best it is irrelevant, while potentially it is most harmful, in matters of faith.

There are some disciples in the Church today who follow Pilate rather than Jesus:

Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."  Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" (John 18:37-38)

What is truth? Pilate doubted there was such a thing as truth.  Today, pseudo-disciples give the same thought a different twist: since the only true proclamation of the Gospel is one that makes Jesus and His teaching popular, therefore we must study modern attitudes and practices both carefully and sympathetically, so as to be able to make suitable adaptations to the Gospel message that will enable it to win more widespread acceptance.

Now that can never be the authentic Christian, Catholic attitude; we only need to look at and listen to Our Blessed Lord once more to realize that:

Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. (John 15:20-22)

Today we need to renew our trust in God; indeed, we have to stir up some courage on the basis of our faith.  The original apostles, the original Christians who were called Catholics from the very beginning, did not cower before the world's criterion of popularity as so many do today; for example, the gentle, loving, Apostle John  (1 John 4:6) says quite bluntly:

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

And they had this confidence and strength because they firmly believed what the infallible Faith taught them, as we heard in the second reading:

If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think on what is above, not of what is on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with Him in glory.

In other words, they looked forward to a heavenly, not an earthly, fulfilment, and, in order to attain that blessedness they proclaimed a Gospel of Truth, knowing that only divine truth can form a human being in the divine likeness:

The new self is being renewed for knowledge in the image of its Creator.

That very truth required them to preach what would be unpopular at times.  Indeed, because the essence of the Gospel message is that we can only find salvation through the Cross of Jesus, Who died for our sins before rising again for our salvation:

(He) bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed. (1 Peter 2:24).

Therefore, even in the early Church, there were those who wanted to preach a Gospel without the Cross, a popular Gospel instead of the Gospel of righteousness.  Of them, the Apostle Paul said with incisive clarity in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:18-19):

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." 

And again in his letter to the Galatians (5:11):

Brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offence of the cross has ceased.

People of God, in times of trial we must cling to Jesus all the more closely in Spirit and in Truth, for:

This is a faithful saying: if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him.  If we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.  (2 Timothy  2:11-13)

 

     

15th. Sunday, Year (C)

15^th. Sunday, Year (C)

(Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37)

In our readings today we have an embarrassment of riches, and so it is a matter now of picking out one or two jewels, for in no way can I pretend to open up to your gaze the beauty and wealth of all that we have just heard.

In the Gospel we were told of a Scribe, an expert in the Jewish Law, who approached Jesus in what is, truly, the only way in which Jesus can be rightly approached:

            "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

That should be our attitude at this very moment as we try to understand and learn from the Gospel, before going on to offer Jesus' self-sacrifice to the Father, and then finally, in Holy Communion, surrendering ourselves to Jesus that He might draw us with Himself to the Father:

            Lord Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus replied by asking the Scribe what the Law had to say about the way to eternal life and he responded without hesitation:

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbour as yourself.'

Jesus had nothing to add to that.  However, the Scribe -- not wanting to seem foolish for having asked a question to which he already knew the answer -- went on to justify himself and also pay Jesus a notable compliment by asking Him:

            And who is my neighbour?

Yes, he was an expert in the Law who knew well the words of the Law, but here he was asking Jesus to tell Him what the words really meant: that was the humility of a man sincerely seeking to find the way to eternal life. 

With our modern proliferation of books and skill in information technology, it is easy for people to be satisfied with knowing about the words of Scripture while appreciating little of their meaning and spiritual significance.  Too often today self-styled experts and militant proselytisers attempt to show off their knowledge of the Bible by writing or reciting words: words are their favourite medium, for they trip so very easily off the tongue or pen, one after another, so easy to count and multiply.  Spiritual appreciation, on the other hand, is a much more demanding than mere facility with words: it requires that understanding which only comes from respect for, and submission to, the whole of God's revelation; it involves humility, patience, and prayer.

            Lord, who is my neighbour?

Jesus, in answer to this learned man's humility, told him a parable -- or perhaps He made use of a real-life incident -- about one whom today we call the Good Samaritan, and another who had fallen into the hands of thieves.  This unfortunate victim -- probably a Jew and possibly a priest -- was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  It was the most public road in all Judea and the only road between those two cities for thousands of priests and Levites who, after having served in the Temple at Jerusalem according to a fixed rota system, would then return home until their next period for service.  For about twelve thousand of these priests and Levites Jericho was thus their chosen place of residence, while the Temple in Jerusalem was their destination for work and worship.   Despite being much used, this road was extremely dangerous for travellers, twisting and turning through rocky desert, and -- in the course of about 20 miles -- falling steeply some 3000 feet from the chill heights of Jerusalem to the near tropical depths of Jericho.  Jesus’ parable, therefore, when it told of a traveller falling into the hands of robbers, was recalling an all-too-frequent occurrence that many had suffered before and many others would continue to experience in the future.  The bandits of the Judean desert did not scruple to kill at times, but in this case, having robbed the man, they were content to leave him, wounded and helpless, by the side of the road. 

Now, a priest, making the same journey from the Temple in Jerusalem down to Jericho, came upon the wounded man, and:

            When he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

Then a Levite, having likewise completed his rota of service in the Temple and returning back to his home in Jericho:

When he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the opposite side.        

Both the priest and the Levite would have recognized the victim as a neighbour, a fellow Jew, indeed, perhaps as a fellow priest or Levite.   And yet, both of them, out of considerations for legal purity or for their own personal reasons, passed him by.  Finally, a Samaritan arrived on the scene.

Now, Samaritans were regarded as enemies by the Jews, and, generally, Samaritans had a like opinion of the Jews.  In this case, however, the Samaritan of whom Jesus spoke, having chanced upon the wounded man:

was moved with compassion at the sight.  He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.  Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him.  The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, 'Take care of him.  If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back' 

Jesus was indeed revealing the meaning of the word "neighbour" to the Scribe: for His story showed that an enemy could -- should the occasion arise -- show himself to be a true neighbour; and consequently, it raised the question whether or not Jewish national pride and religious exclusiveness could have any further role to play in God's coming Kingdom that would transcend all such human boundaries and limitations.

The passing priest and Levite had the word of God on their lips, as Moses said:

            The word is very near to you, already in your mouth.

That word they could repeat, discuss, dispute about, and perhaps use to display their learning.  It was so easy, on such occasions, to forget that Moses had gone on to say that the word was also:

            in your heart, that you may obey it.

Now, sinful, worldly, men have always been able to use the Word of God as a weapon for personal advancement in an earthly kingdom, despite the fact that God had originally given it as a guide to our heavenly home.  Those who use their facility with the Word of God as a weapon for earthly advancement need only to apply their natural talents and human techniques in such a way as to win earthly patrons and stir up simple supporters by making and championing short-term and shallow judgments according to popular appearances and personal advantage.  On the other hand, those using God’s Word as a guide to our heavenly home, have to ask, knock, wait for, and pray to, Him Who is infinitely above us and Who judges the hidden secrets of mind and heart: only then will they be enabled to proclaim His truth and manifest His beauty before men rather than promote their own popularity and success.

The Word of God is meant to be ever at work in our lives, as the prophet Isaiah, speaking in the name of the Lord tells us:

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (55:11)

The Scribe, as a Jew, preferred to limit the word "neighbour" to his fellow Jews; but, nevertheless, He felt uneasy about it and so he asked Jesus "who is my neighbour?" whereupon Jesus showed him that it was not possible to limit the significance of God's Word according to human prejudices.  However, when -- at the end of the parable -- Jesus asked:

Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbour to the robbers’ victim?

The expert in the Law still could not bring himself utter the words "the Samaritan", so ingrained was his Jewish prejudice.  He could only prevail upon himself to say:

            The one who treated him with mercy.

We are like that in so many ways, and that is why the same prophet Isaiah proclaimed (66:2):

The Lord says, ‘on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word’.

We cannot determine or fix beforehand where the Word of God will lead us; Isaiah says we should tremble -- perhaps even thrill -- at the sound of it, because the Word of God is meant to work in us, and -- by the power of the Holy Spirit -- to change us, in accordance with plans God has for us: it is a harbinger of beauties as yet unseen and possibilities as yet unknown.

As we heard in the second reading all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus, and that is why we cannot try to restrict the effect of His Word in our lives.  We are called to become children of God in Jesus, and if we are to be found in the likeness of Jesus we must be formed by His Spirit according to His Word.  We must allow His Spirit to lead us wherever He wills if we are to reach the blessings prepared for us, blessings we cannot even begin to imagine of ourselves, let alone prepare for.  The Spirit alone knows the depths of God, He alone is Holy and Wise, and we must trust ourselves to Him.

There are still today many who seek to control the effect of the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit of God in their lives.  Like the Jews of old, they want to form themselves according to their own fancies or in accordance with ideas of goodness and holiness popular in society around them.  Today, for example, most people's idea of Christian goodness enables them to recognise and appreciate work done for the poor and for children in need; a life devoted to prayer, however, especially as a monk or nun in relative solitude, seems alien to them, perhaps, even inhuman.  Modern ideas of sanctity usually involve soft words and attractive, pleasant, attitudes; on the other hand, clear doctrinal teaching and firm discipline in moral matters is thought to be unacceptably rigid and unsympathetic.  And so, the modern disciple of Jesus will frequently be found trying to interpret the guidance of the Holy Spirit along broad, loose, lines acceptable to modern ideas of human rights, the freedom of individuals, and God’s gentle and accommodating goodness.  However, holiness of this sort is just as false and inadequate as, and probably less sincere than, the exclusive holiness of the Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' times.

People of God, listen to the Word of God as proclaimed by Mother Church, not that glibly quoted for popular acceptance by frequently self-appointed and self-taught gospellers.  Beg the Holy Spirit to lead your life along the way of Jesus, to form you in Jesus’ likeness, and then try to answer God’s call to faith, trust, and love with a humble simplicity of mind and heart; do not allow your own prayerful thoughts and conscientious actions to be distorted or determined by the selfish pride, prejudices, and fears, of modern society.

The Spirit first led Jesus out into the desert and then along the most unlikely way of the Cross: the disciple of Jesus is not greater than his Master; he or she too, must be open, willing, and obedient, enough to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus said (John 3:8):

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.  

Finally, what is perhaps the greatest jewel hidden in the field of today’s readings:  

 Who was, Who is, the Good Samaritan?   How could he just postpone, or at least seriously interrupt his journey to spend a night at the inn, where he was not likely to have been popular as a Samaritan?   Why was he alone able to deal with the man’s wounds?  Why did he not just pay the hotelier extra for that first day’s extra care, as well as for subsequent days’ care, ‘bed and board’?     Was the Samaritan, in fact, a hint at Jesus Himself?  He interrupted His journey by His suffering and death on Calvary; He alone could provide essential medicine for fallen man.  Jesus did continue His journey to His heavenly home after having cured man’s grievous wound and then committed him to the care of His Church, the inn and hotelier in the story.                                                                                        

  

 

                                                                                                                                 

14th Sunday Year (C)

14^th Sunday Year (C)

(Isa. 66:10-14; Gal. 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20)

In our first two readings we were given an appreciation of the essential character of Mother Church, for she -- and we who are in her and of her -- are, according to St. Paul:

            A new creation.

And, recalling St. Augustine’s jubilation for Eastertide, we can truly say that for our new creation there must be appropriately new nourishment, such as the prophet Isaiah foreshadowed, saying:

Rejoice with (Mother Church) and be glad because of her: Suck fully of the milk of her comfort; carried in her arms … may your hearts rejoice and your bodies flourish.    

In the Gospel reading we then heard of the Lord sending out seventy-two others, disciples who had learned to delight in Mother Church, that is, in their proximity and communion with Jesus, and the strength it afforded them:

He sent (them) ahead of Him in pairs to every town and place He Himself intended to visit.

Their instructions were both simple and firm: first of all, they were being sent in His name, they were not beggars; moreover, they had a clear message to proclaim, they were not to be pleaders or cajolers:

Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’   If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.   Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the labourer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another.

Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’

As you can see Jesus wanted His disciples to be single-minded and sincere: they were not to seek money, but neither should they be embarrassed about accepting whatever the house or town could offer by way of food and drink, for "the labourer deserves his payment".  Jesus likewise desired that they should be humble, but in no way lacking confidence in their mission: for their message was from the Lord, not from their own imagination or fancy.  In His name they were to announce a fact, namely that "The Kingdom of God is at hand for you", and to those willing to listen to their message they were to bestow a gift from the Lord:  'Peace to this household.'

People today often get hung up on the messenger, the priest, whom they decide to like or dislike; and, as a consequence of centring on him, they then tend to ignore or forget the message.  Now Jesus did not want His disciples either projecting themselves in order to win people's approval, or holding back in their proclamation of the Gospel for fear of disapproval, and therefore He assured them:

Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

You can imagine how thrilled the disciples must have been when their mission proved to be a great success: the Lord gave the Word and great was the company of unseen angels contributing towards the accomplishment of the work; the disciples, to their amazement, simply gathered in the harvest.  Despite their initial fears -- arising from the awareness of their own incapacity -- they found that, in all their endeavours for the Lord they had, most assuredly, been given:

power to trample on serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy, (so that) nothing would harm (them). 

No wonder then that they "returned rejoicing!”   Why -- and this was most wonderful of all, because it summed up and included everything else in their minds -- even the demons had been subject to them in the name of Jesus! They were, indeed, amazed, thrilled, and astounded!!

However, notice what Jesus said in response to their enthusiasm:

Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

Now that is what St. Paul had in mind when, as you heard, he wrote:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 

St. Paul loved to teach his converts that belief in Jesus, together with baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, makes us members of the Body of Christ.  He believed this so firmly, and understood it so concretely, that he could then go on to say that, having become members of His Body, therefore we too, in Him, have been crucified with Him:

Through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

And, so deeply did St. Paul contemplate this mysterious yet glorious union of Christians with Christ that he was finally able to say:

From now on let no one make troubles for me, for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus on my body. 

Let us just try to understand what this meant for Paul.  In his contemplation of this union between Christ and the believer, Paul -- absorbed in divine truth and filled with an overwhelming desire to respond to and co-operate with the Father’s  calling  --  had been led to recognize that:

In Christ Jesus neither does circumcision mean anything nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation.

No earthly pride, be it Greek, Roman, or even Jewish, nothing whatsoever that depends on us in any way, could save us from the destructive power of sin; only the totally gratuitous gift of God’s Spirit in response to Jesus’ self-sacrificing love on Calvary could bring us salvation.

Paul had been granted the insight that, -- through the power of Christ’s Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension -- we, who as baptized believers have become members of His Body,  are a new creation.  Jesus, in His Body, rose from the tomb to heavenly glory, and in Him we too -- having died to our sinful selves through faith and baptism -- have, therefore, as a new creation by the power of His Spirit, risen heavenwards with Him: living still on earth, of course, but now endowed with a share in Jesus’ heavenly life, a share that enables us to live, henceforth, in a heavenly way and for heavenly prospects.  Paul tells us that if one must boast, one should boast about what the Lord Jesus has done for us on the Cross, in His Resurrection, and by the gift of His Spirit.  Circumcision means nothing: that is, personal pride in one’s own holiness gained by legalistic observance of a written Law, and national pride in the exclusiveness of one’s birth; all that means nothing Paul says.  Uncircumcision too means nothing: the Greeks' boasting in their superior wisdom, the Romans' vaunting of their worldly power, all that too, ultimately, means nothing .  For a Christian there can be only one cause for boasting: what Christ has done for us and for all who -- whatever their race, culture, or natural abilities -- are willing to believe in Him as Lord and to obey His Spirit; a boasting centred not on self, but on God's goodness, in “our Lord Jesus Christ”, through the Gift of the Spirit.

Just think of people today -- indeed, just think of our own un-spiritual selves -- how much boasting there is, in us and around us; just like that of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans of old: boasting in holiness of birth and racial advantage, intellectual and cultural superiority, worldly power and privilege!!   Indeed, today people can even hypocritically try to justify their murderous crimes: totally callous and ruthless as they prepare, prime, and place their bombs; quite lawless and unbridled as they peddle their drugs for power, plenty, and pleasure; blind and totally indifferent to the sufferings of others around them as they search for personal vengeance to satisfy their devilish pride.  These are some of the obscenities many boast about today, and pursuing such purposes they rely on  lying tongues, deceptive looks, animal viciousness and cunning; and all the while they seem to enjoy an apparently total freedom from any restraining power, be it conscience, fear, reverence or respect.  This, however, should not surprise us, dear People of God, for being so much alive to themselves and so committed to the world, they become well-nigh dead to God and to their neighbour!

We who are believers cannot allow ourselves to be deceived by any such lying self-confidence.  It is a danger about which Jesus had to warn even His apostles; and still today, it leads too many well-intentioned Christians to rejoice wrongly over what they think they themselves are doing or have done, for God, His Church, and for souls.  The only One about Whom we can rightly boast is our Lord Jesus Christ Who so loved us that He died for us on the Cross; and, having ascended into heaven, has bequeathed to us in Mother Church the only power on which we can surely rely, that is, His Most Holy Spirit:

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit who works all in all; (for) one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. (1 Cor. 12: 6, 11)

He is, indeed, the Spirit of Glory, Who alone can ensure our names "are written in heaven". 

Therefore, People of God, we are encouraged today, by the prophet Isaiah, to rejoice in Mother Church: the Church Our Lord continually sustains, promotes, and protects through the working of His Spirit, so that, as He originally and enduringly intends, we may ever be able to drink deeply of, and find delight in, the abundance  He gives her.

We are encouraged to rejoice in such a way over Mother Church because, as Isaiah foretold, it is in her and through her that:

The Lord’s power shall be known to His servants.

People of God, Mother Church -- though scarred and disfigured by the sins of some of both her priests and people, hated and abused by a lustful and wilful world around -- is ever mankind’s only authentic meeting-place with God, thanks to His enduring faithfulness to us in Jesus.  In her, however, Jesus always meets us on His terms, not on ours:  He lovingly condescends, comes down, to meet with us; we do not in any way compel or require Him.  Above all He comes thus freely and lovingly when, at Holy Mass, we do what He requires of us ‘in memory of Him’; we do not force or oblige Him by any power of chosen words or secret associations, for all the blessings and powers He has given her are given for our saving fulfilment not for His enslavement.

This most sublime fulfilment comes our way today when, in response to His command, we have come together on His Sabbath Day -- in memory of Him and in the name of all creation -- to offer worship, praise and honour, glory and thanks to God our Father for His great goodness to us.  On this sublime occasion we are drawn by the Spirit to share in the heavenly and eternal liturgy being celebrated by our High Priest and Saviour before the Father: a celebration where the whole of obedient creation is united by the Holy Spirit of God under the leadership of the God-man Jesus Christ: here He does indeed come to us in Communion, but above all, He draws us, by His Gift of the Spirit, ever more and more with Himself towards the Father; He fills us, inspires and enflames us, ever more and more, with that Love which makes Him one with the Father, that Triune Fire of eternal Love which is the glory and very Being of God the Almighty and which can – O wonder of wonders!! -- be shared by us in Jesus as life everlasting; communion, both total and fulfilling; joy, ever fresh and at peace.

           

13th. Sunday, Year (C)

13^th. Sunday, Year (C)

(1 Kings 19:16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62)

It would be difficult to find a subject more suited to Christians living in our Western democratic societies today than that which is put before us by Mother Church in the readings we have just heard:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. 

Whilst society around us relates freedom to politics, we must consider freedom with regard to Jesus, and so, for Christians, authentic political freedom must allow us to relate to Jesus and worship God without hindrance or let.  However, such authentic, political freedom is but the background, the setting, for the supremely important personal freedom of mind and heart that enables us to recognize and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He seeks to guide us ever further along the ways of Jesus.

History teaches us that, even over many centuries, people change little in their fundamental attitudes, and in the second reading we heard St. Paul warning his people about a mistaken attitude to freedom which is just as common today as it was then:

You were called for freedom, brothers and sisters; do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

How many young people, and how many foolish older people, think that they are asserting their freedom when they indulge their animal impulses of all sorts against the law, against propriety, and against the many civilities which have been found, by long experience of life in society, to be necessary if human beings are to be able to live peaceably and profitably together?  This cult of false freedom starts early in life and grows rapidly: little boys swearing, smoking etc., bigger boys getting drunk and being rowdy, girls trying to draw attention to themselves by either exaggerating their physical femininity or by showing a contempt for their own sex as they try to imitate men in their swearing, drinking, sexual licence and general vulgarity.  It goes on much further however, and then we get into the horrors of infidelity and adultery, drugs and prostitution, violence and murder, abortion and child abuse.  These are some of the stages in a gradual and growing madness: the abuse of freedom wherein the freedom that God meant to be the glorious badge of human kind becomes a scourge to torment and destroy true humanity.

However, such a false idea of freedom is, on the whole, not likely to deceive true disciples of Jesus, so let us turn our attention to the Gospel and learn to recognize more hidden enemies of true freedom.

When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.

There we see some Samaritans who were prevented by racial, political, religious, and perhaps personal, prejudices from allowing themselves to be approached by Jesus.  They were not free: they were bound captive by prejudice.  What is prejudice?  Any attitude of mind and heart that makes us unprepared to listen to, unable to appreciate and acknowledge, and unwilling to accept and respond to, truth.

People of God, prejudices can be very deep and also very subtle.  There are gross prejudices, such as the racial hatred we have in Palestine, or religious hatred as shown by the Muslim fundamentalists, and social taboos such as those which abound in India.  The subtle prejudices, however, can be almost unperceivable in our lives because they are connected with what we love, admire, or aspire to.  None of us can afford to think ourselves free from such prejudice, and there is only one way we can try to combat what we cannot see: we should always try to acknowledge the truth wherever we glimpse it or whenever it is shown to us.  We must never reject what we know or suspect to be true, otherwise we, like the Samaritans, will prevent the Spirit of Jesus even approaching us.

They would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.

Our Gospel reading offers us another example of fettered human freedom, featuring another, much indulged, human attitude which is, deceptively, destructive of authentic freedom, namely emotionalism:

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to Him “I will follow You wherever You go."

Now notice that I am not here speaking against emotions, for they are an essential component of human character: for without emotions we could neither love nor commit ourselves.  Emotions only become emotionalism when they are allowed to run riot, when they try to take over rather than follow our mind, our intelligence.   Emotions are given us so that we might be able to love what the mind recognizes as beautiful and knows to be good; emotionalism, on the other hand, does not allow itself to be guided by the mind at all: blind and gushing, it is quite ungovernable and instable.

The man mentioned in our Gospel reading, seeing Jesus as He was walking with His disciples along the road and perhaps having heard Jesus speak some words, called out:

      I will follow You wherever You go.

Jesus immediately tried to help the man appreciate the meaning of his unthinking words:

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head." 

Emotion is no guide to truth: that is the work of the mind; emotion is meant, as I said, to help us respond to truth, goodness, and beauty, which the mind has recognized.  Emotions, following the judgment of the mind, can then realise what the mind could only conceive.  With emotionalism, however, the great sin is that it tries to pass itself of as a form of inspiration: it is a human artefact pretending to be the work of the Spirit of Jesus within us, a shoddy imitation of what is truly a holy calling and calm conviction.

The man here put before us in the Gospel reading was showing himself to be emotionally unstable, allowing his feelings to anticipate and pressurize his mind in such a way that he was neither able to recognise the truth about himself nor appreciate the working of the Spirit, and consequently was in no sense free to commit himself to Jesus.  That is why Jesus brought him back to his senses, as we would say, by helping him to realize what discipleship involved.

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head." 

Perhaps, later on, the man might have been able to follow Jesus more closely, for emotionalism is but a twisting, an excessive abuse, of what is good.  However, to be able to do that, he would need to grow both in human maturity and personal discipline, while also developing in spiritual humility so that he could use his God-given emotions aright, seeking to promote God’s glory rather than his own gratification.  If he could do that it would rescue him from self-deceit and self-display and earn him, instead, the divine gift of true personal fulfilment.

The Gospel then paints another picture for us:

To another (Jesus) said, "Follow Me."  But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father." Jesus answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead.  But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

On this occasion Jesus takes the initiative: He calls the man to follow Him.  What was it that would have prevented him from following Jesus?  What was it that was holding him captive even though with bonds of softest silk?  It was human love competing with divine love in this man’s heart: and, as it is not unknown for silk to bind as surely and effectively as chains or fetters of iron, so also human love was threatening to enslave this man.  How many there are of those who, loving in this excessive and merely human way, effectively restrain God’s authority in their lives!  Therefore, Jesus, recognizing the trial this man was experiencing, made it absolutely clear for him by saying:

Let the dead bury their dead.  But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Love of God takes precedence over all else; and it can, and at times does, demand exclusive commitment.  We do not know how the (young?) man responded to Jesus’ words, but, in our first reading, we did see Elisha’s response to a similar ultimatum. Elijah, the great prophet of the Lord, having initially called Elisha in the name of the Lord, was on the point of leaving him behind – ‘Who is stopping you?’ -- would appear to be the meaning of his enigmatic reply to Elisha’s plea to be allowed to go home first.   Elisha, however, was not going to lose his calling … he cut off all possibility of that by immediately slaughtering his yoke of oxen, then burning his ploughing equipment in order to cook the oxen’s flesh, before giving it to those around and then definitively following Elijah.  Elisha would indeed follow worthily in the footsteps of Elijah!

Finally, today, we are told of another passing encounter; and notice here that it is not Jesus who takes the initiative:

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”  (To him) Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plough and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This is not a case of real love, here we have someone held captive by his own superficiality.  As distinct from the others mentioned before, here we are shown one lacking in emotion to the extent that he was not up to the demands of any sort of real commitment, being subject to a general superficiality that would lead him to begin but never complete, to have some initial appreciation but never true love; just as we heard Jesus speak of when He told his disciples:

Some (seeds) fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. (Matt 13:5-6)

Shallowness of character, superficiality, these again are recognizable human traits which are, more or less, true for every human being, since we are all weak and inclined to leisure and ease.  And yet, despite this, we are also endowed with a God-given ability to recognize and respond to what is of God.  Here, this man himself takes the initiative, offers what was not requested, and then, in the same breath, shows how little he is attached to what he promises.  He wants to give all to Jesus, "I will follow you, Lord", but he also wants to enjoy, he would say for the last time, all the old associations to which he had become attached over the years:

           but first let me say farewell to my family at home.

This two-minded attitude -- this wanting to be with Jesus and yet wanting to keep alive all the old attachments of life apart from Jesus -- could lead nowhere:

Jesus said to him, "No one who sets a hand to the plough and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

People of God, let me recall Paul’s words again to mind for your personal consideration:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. 

How free are you?   Can you, will you, "stand firm" in the freedom Christ has won for us, despite all the allurements and threats of a dominant and hostile secular society, in spite of all the fears and excuses of personal self-love?   Ultimately, such endurance and patience is only to be attained by following, as best you can by the grace of God, that other piece of advice given us by St. Paul:

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfil the lust of the flesh.  Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.