12th Sunday of the Year (C) 2016

 12^th. Sunday of Year (C)

(Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1; Galatians 3:26-29; Luke 9:18-24)

The events mentioned in today’s Gospel reading can hardly be said to have been ‘introduced’ by St. Luke, for he says nothing more than:

            Once, when Jesus was praying in solitude ...

But, of course, that is the whole point!  Luke did not particularly want to inform us where Jesus was at that time or what He was doing; above all he desired to draw our closest attention to the fact of Jesus’ prayer which was most important for this evangelist who regularly took care to highlight its divine potential and to outline the sublimely mysterious aura associated with it.  And in that, of course, he was absolutely correct because such prayer was of the very essence of Jesus’ life and mission here on earth:

My doctrine is not Mine but His who sent Me….    I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.... The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.  (John 7:16; 8:26, 29) 

In our first reading taken from the prophet Zechariah the Lord God said:

I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition;

and that prophecy received its ultimate fulfilment with the coming of God’s Son on earth -- born of Mary of the house of David -- to live among God’s People and serve God’s redeeming purpose.  And it could well have been that the prayer of Jesus at this very moment chosen by St. Luke was indeed prayer for a spirit  of grace and petition to be given God’s People and, most especially, to be bestowed on the twelve Apostles with Him on this occasion; for, turning to them He said:

‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’  They said in reply, ‘John the Baptist; others Elijah; still others, One of the ancient prophets has arisen.’  He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’  Peter said in reply, ‘The Christ of God.’

The divine potential and power of Jesus’ prayer, demonstrated by those words of Peter, was -- according to St. Matthew’s parallel account – openly acknowledged by Jesus when He said that Peter’s answer was indeed a most gracious gift from His Father:

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.  (Matthew 16:17)

Knowing, or rather, believing that Jesus was the Christ of God, Peter and the disciples were feeling a confidence and trust similar to that of which St. Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans (8:31):

            If God is for us, who can be against us? 

For, as it would seem from scholars’ endeavours to ‘calibrate’ Jesus’ life on earth,  the Twelve disciples had recently witnessed and experienced most wonderful manifestations of their Lord’s power and the authenticity of His mission.  They had recently been sent out by Him to proclaim the kingdom of God with power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases; and the success of their mission had set all the people talking about Jesus, and had even captured the attention of Herod Antipas: Who is this about whom I hear such things?  Indeed, so interested or concerned had Herod become that he even tried to meet Jesus.  The Apostles, again, had recently seen Jesus multiply bread (5 loaves and 2 fish) to feed more than 5,000 persons; He had walked on water before their very eyes, and had performed miraculous healings for many individuals; and then, they may have witnessed yet another miraculous feeding of a multitude, this time some 4,000 people being nourished and sustained at His bidding.  Peter’s words confessing Jesus as the Christ of God expressed the exuberant feelings of all of the Apostles, Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Messiah of God!!

The disciples having thus been both enlightened and confirmed in their faith in Him, Jesus was able to proceed immediately -- though not without a vigorous admonition (He rebuked!) -- and reveal to them what was soon to befall Himself:

He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone.  He said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Once again, with such words, He mysteriously fulfilled what the prophet had foretold:

They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and they will grieve for him as one grieves over a firstborn.

Had the apostles, however, rightly understood the exact meaning and significance of what Peter had been inspired to say? 

            You are the Messiah/Christ of God!

The only other words that give us exactly the same meaning are also to be found in St. Luke, in his account of the presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple by Mary.  There, Luke (2:26) says of Simeon, the priest who took the Child in his arms:

It had been revealed to him that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord.

‘The Messiah’, was an expression used when speaking of the hopes of the devout in Israel who were longing for the coming of God’s salvation, and ‘the Christ’, ‘the Son of God’, are other expressions readily to hand in our New Testament scriptures; but ‘The Messiah/Christ of God’ and its equivalent, ‘The Lord’s Messiah/Christ’, stand alone and as one in their perfect clarity.

Jesus, Who at the inauguration of His Public Ministry had had to rebuff the Devil’s temptations on this issue, was most desirous now that His apostles should recognize and believe in Him as the Christ of God, the Messiah sent by Israel’s God, and not allow themselves to be led astray by any subsequent endeavours of Satan to derail His work which must soon, and of necessity, be able to endure, deepen, grow, and extend through their Apostolic proclamation of His Gospel so as to become Jesus’ Church for the whole of mankind and for all ages.   They had to know Him truly, and unshakeably believe in Him, not simply as the Christ – subject to whatever inevitable human misinterpretations -- but as:

            The Christ of God!  The Lord’s Messiah!

How truly wonderful it is that here we can now recognize the beautiful harmony evidenced by Jesus’ ardent prayer for a spirit of grace and petition on behalf of His apostles, by His Father’s words of inspiration bestowed on Peter, and by the promise of the Holy Spirit given to Simeon of old!!

That the apostles might be enabled and prepared to proclaim, not the Messiah of popular expectation, but the Christ of God’s salvation, Jesus sought to impress upon their minds and fix in their memories – He rebuked them! – the truth and the hope they would have to demonstrate and promote in the face of bitter opposition and the excesses of exuberance and depression among their own followers:

The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then, to show clearly that He was warning against, and warding off, all subsequent popular misconceptions concerning the Christ, the Saviour, to come:

He said to ALL, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.’

People of God, St. Luke wanted to help us recognize the sublime secret of Jesus: communion with, prayer to, and trust in, His Father.  Any manifestation and proof of that relationship and bond was always an occasion of supreme blessing ... and we, His present-day disciples, must appreciate that without ourselves being, in like manner, able to turn confidently to the Father, that without such humble prayer and filial communion with Him, we cannot come to a personal knowledge of Jesus our Lord, or be able to truly appreciate, embrace, and further, His will to save us and all mankind.

Moreover, as we consider Luke’s account of Jesus’ experience of the Cross, we are inevitably struck by His compassionate and monumental silence, and are led once again to a realization that prayer to His Father was the ultimate medium for Jesus’ self-expression and self-fulfilment, indeed, it was the very root of His Being during those hours of total torment.  Consequently, our personal conformity to and enduring union with Him will surely find its due measure of fullness and authenticity only to the extent in which we are willing to embrace our own sufferings in His way, as His most faithful Apostle St Paul penetratingly realized, personally embraced, and inspiringly proclaimed (Phil. 3:8-11):

I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. … knowing Him …. and sharing His sufferings by being conformed to His death,  if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And here, dear People of God, we must recognize and respond to the devil’s great endeavours now being made in these our days to rob us of, or at least, divert us from Jesus’ truth.

For Our Blessed Lord, became Man not simply to:

Open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a fountain to purify from sin,

as we heard in our first reading from the prophet Zechariah, but in order to redeem the whole of mankind from servitude to sin and death, and He began and defined His public ministry, as you well know, by calling for repentance from Israel.  What sort of repentance?  Repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  What sins?  Of that we must be absolutely clear and unshakeably firm.

At a time when Israel appeared rotten from top to bottom Elijah was sent to King Ahab and indeed to Jezebel his bloody and Baal-worshipping consort, with these words:

Because you have given yourself up to doing what is evil in the Lord’s sight, I am bringing evil upon you: I will destroy you!     (1 Kings 21: 20s.)

Indeed, no one gave himself up to the doing of evil in the sight of the Lord as did Ahab, urged on by his wife Jezebel.   (ibid. v.25)

Evil in Israel was determined according to, and judged by, God’s word.  In the Greek and Roman world, evil was thought of and debated on in accordance with what sinful, though serious, philosophers thought.  In our modern world evil is thought and spoken of largely in terms determined in accordance with the chosen policies of self-serving governments and ever present popular ‘slogan’ ethics (for everything must be popular!) based on modern rationalist thinking originally trumpeted abroad by the French Revolution.

Dear fellow Catholics and Christians, we must remember that our vocation is to proclaim, and in our words and by our way of life bear witness-to, the saving Gospel of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.  That is our supreme calling.  

Sanctify Christ Jesus as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.  (1 Peter 3:15-16)

And for that end we should not easily allow ourselves to be called on or provoked  into discussions or arguments with people who do not wish to hear that Good News; nor in speaking calmly with them should we allow ourselves to be limited to the use of their terminology. 

Those recently murdered in Orlando, for example, were victims of a vile crime, but to call them ‘innocents’ to be compared with school-children slaughtered elsewhere is not terminology I as a Catholic priest am willing to accept or discuss.  Certain public, ‘governmental’ words, such as ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ are seized upon time and time again and applied to all sorts of incidents or crimes with seemingly, at times, little motive or justification other than to stir up public feeling against whatever is being targeted.  What used to be commonly understood and accepted as semi-jocular expressions (‘an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Welshman were once talking together in a pub …’ type of thing) are now labelled as ‘racist’ and consequently said to be deeply offensive and hurtful-harmful in possibly numberless ways.

Therefore, we must recognize that today words are very often and most deceitfully used as weapons – especially by politicians and protagonists, who are specialists in words! -- and we must be very careful whose words we accept, what hidden meaning they may not only be carrying but be loaded with, and for what particular purpose they are being used.

Dear People of God, words have meanings and we cannot condone or accept the use of Catholic words and terminology with other than their Catholic and Christian meaning.   For a Catholic-Christian God’s word, Jesus’ Gospel, and Mother Church’s unfolding and explanation of Jesus’ teaching, determine definitively what is sin and what is sinful, what does or can serve a good purpose, and what cannot.  ‘Marriage’, for example, ‘husband and wife’, ‘adultery’ are not indeterminate words to be discussed, bandied about and changed at popular whim.    Jesus was and is God’s Word made flesh and we should treasure those words He Himself used and which His Church teaches in His Name, with reverence, love, humility, and commitment, always remembering Jesus’ admonition:

Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it!   

Words are often used to climb the slippery pole of success in the world.  They can, however, also be a most humble and courageous witness to our love of Jesus.

11th Sunday of the Year C 2016

11^th. Sunday of Year (C)

(2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13; Galatians 2:16, 19-21; Luke 7:36-50)

While Jesus was at table as the chief guest in the house of Simon the Pharisee, you heard how a woman, unnamed but locally well-known, or rather, notorious, came to the feet of Jesus as He was reclining at table and first of all kissed, then washed and anointed His feet in front of all the other guests, and of the embarrassed and disgusted host, Simon.

Although Simon almost certainly did not appreciate that he was one of those sinners whom Jesus earlier– at a function given in His honour by Levi the former tax-collector – had declared that He had come to call to repentance, nevertheless, Simon, welcoming Jesus to his house and table as Levi had done, was not only showing the attraction that Jesus held for him, but perhaps also, testifying to a certain subconscious awareness of his own spiritual needs.   Under the guidance of God he had invited Jesus into his house, desiring both to honour Him as a teacher and also to learn from Him by speaking with Him more freely and observing Him more closely at table.

The meal had begun well and Simon was looking forward eagerly to hear Jesus speak when, quite unexpectedly, this publicly disreputable woman came into the room where his guests were at table, and:

Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind (Jesus), at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.

That woman, let us call her Mary Magdalene, was indeed a notorious sinner; nevertheless, guided by God, she had courageously entered Simon's house where she found herself -- not surprisingly -- about as welcome as a leper would have been.

That is the situation before us: two sinners of different types and perhaps of different degree, both of them drawn by God's grace to Jesus because they -- either consciously or subconsciously – had been made aware of their need after having listened to Jesus' preaching.   Let us now watch how they both respond to Jesus' presence.

As soon as Mary comes into the room she throws herself down at Jesus' feet, apparently totally oblivious of the revulsion of the others at table.  Simon's attention, on the other hand, is less on Jesus than on the woman and the reputation of his house which is being compromised by her uninvited and unwanted presence.  At first, he had gladly subjected himself to the influence of Jesus, but now – quickly prejudging Mary and totally committing himself to anxious concern about himself and the public standing of his house -- he even began to criticise in his heart the Rabbi he had originally invited in order that he might learn from Him.

There Simon was failing to make the most of the opportunity that God's grace was offering him: for at the very moment when he could have learned most from Jesus, he has stopped listening, because his pride and self-solicitude have reasserted themselves under the guise of righteous indignation.  Mary, however, seems to have learned to hate herself to such an extent that even in this most hostile company, she is totally centred on Jesus: she knows her need of Him Whom she appreciates above all else, and is quite unmoved either by her own feelings of fear at people’s scorn and opposition or embarrassment at their obvious contempt and revulsion in her regard.

The Law and the Scriptures were clear about these things; Hannah, the mother of Samuel, though she was not learned, nevertheless, she was a true daughter of Israel, and in her prayer she said:

Talk no more so very proudly; let no arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is the God of knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed. (1 Samuel 2:3)

Likewise, David, an uneducated soldier on the run from King Saul, cried out to the pursuing King:

Let the Lord judge between you and me, and let the Lord avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you. (1 Sam 24:12)

There is no doubt that Simon, a Pharisee, knew what the Law taught, and while it was both natural and legitimate for him to form an opinion on the basis of what he saw or knew, here Simon was manifestly going far beyond that: he was judging, where Jesus his ‘teacher’ was accepting; judging not simply the outward actions but the inner dispositions of the woman before them, and, indeed, even going so far as to begin to criticise in his mind and heart both the personal holiness and public appreciation of Jesus:

If this man were a prophet, He would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, and that she is a sinner.

Simon was no longer looking with respect to the holy Rabbi for an example of the right attitude to be adopted in what was a difficult and delicate situation; the imaginary threat to his own dignity and reputation as host far outweighed in his eyes the respect and reverence due to his invited Guest.

Under these circumstances, Jesus turned to Simon and said:

“Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty.    Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?”   Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Jesus shows here His divine wisdom and human sympathy.  He knows what has been going on in Simon’s mind and heart and so He says: ‘You have judged’; but, because Simon did not directly answer, ‘the one whose larger debt was forgiven’, but, more tentatively:

 The one I suppose whose larger debt was forgiven;

Jesus added the word ‘rightly’.  Now, He was not being so condescending as to congratulate an educated Pharisee for knowing the difference between 500 and 50; rather Jesus was saying ‘In this hypothetical case which I have just put before you, you have rightly judged by saying “I suppose the one whom he forgave more”, because questions about forgiveness and love cannot be judged on the basis of numbers’.   Now Simon’s attitude was both wrong and reprehensible; nevertheless, Jesus chose to make things as easy as possible for him by congratulating his choice of words which, indeed, could be regarded as more praiseworthy than his personal attitude.

For Simon’s answer could easily have been considered somewhat off-hand, rather like: ‘the one whose larger debt was forgiven, but what’s it matter?’  Jesus, however, was trying to lead Simon to recognize his mistake and correct his fault, so He interpreted his words most charitably:  ‘You are right to say ‘I suppose’ because in such a personal matter as the love to be found in a human heart none but God can judge rightly.’  Having thus very gently led Simon to recognize that he was in no position to make a judgement about the present sinful state of this woman before them, He then went on to make the correction He wanted to administer to him:

Do you see this woman? When I entered your house; you did not give Me water for My feet (He might have added: ‘as you should have done’), but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give Me a kiss (again He could have added: ‘as you should have done'), but she has not ceased kissing My feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint My head with oil (again, ‘as you could have done’), but she has anointed My feet with ointment. 

The implication was: Simon, you should not presume in your heart to judge the sincerity of this woman’s actions, because the inner workings of your own mind and heart in my regard are not truly expressed by the words of your mouth; nor, indeed, was the reception you gave Me a truly appropriate reflection of the Law you profess to follow and claim to teach.

Nevertheless, Jesus is trying to be very gentle with Simon, He is not trying to ‘publicly put him down’, so to speak; He is speaking to Simon’s heart and that is why He preferred to emphasise the woman’s public and dramatic actions rather than make any mention of Simon’s subtle and unnoticed omissions.  Jesus was trying to show Simon how He, Jesus, was viewing the situation in which they found themselves, where a woman, in  repudiation of her past life,  had bravely manifested great humility and true love whilst a  legal expert had failed to live up to the Law he sought wrongly to uphold.   He was also recommending to Simon a lesson in humility since He, Jesus, though a guide and teacher, as Simon himself had earlier recognized, was judging no one, rather He was waiting on and watching for the One Who alone could judge.

For, just as Jesus once recognized His Father at work in Peter, revealing to him the truth which he confessed in the words, ‘You are the Christ the Son of the living God’; and, just as He had also recognized the wisdom given by His Father to the Syro-Phoenecian woman who said, ‘even the dogs can eat of the scraps that fall from the children's table’; so, here also, seeing the great sorrow, love, and self-repudiation, being shown by Mary, He immediately recognized it to be the result of His Father’s grace at work in her, and therefore Jesus said:

I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, because she has shown great love. 

Jesus, the Lord and Master, Simon’s Rabbi and Teacher, was humbly looking to God His Father in this situation; Simon, on the other hand, had been too hasty, too proud and judgemental, to wait for, or learn from, Jesus.

Jesus wanted both to encourage the woman to ‘go and sin no more’ and also to give Simon cause to remember what had happened.  Therefore, He turned again to the woman and said to her: ‘Your sins are forgiven’.  For those present who were learned in the Law, those words were of striking significance, and we are told:

(They) said to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Simon, above all, however, would ponder what lay behind those words of Jesus.  Jesus had not wanted either to condemn him or humiliate him, yet He had wanted Simon to learn a lesson, which is why He added those final words:

The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.

Notice, Jesus does not say ‘to you little is forgiven since you love little’; no, He rather invites Simon to be his own accuser, to humble himself, to repent in his heart, before God.

He (then) said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

With those final words, Jesus would leave Simon’s house bidding the woman to take up her life anew, whilst discretely inviting Simon himself to seek his peace of heart through greater faith and greater humility.  For it was not the woman’s love that had saved her, Jesus was careful to point out, it was her attitude to God -- her faith in Jesus and her humble obedience to the Spirit’s guidance -- that had brought her to Jesus’ feet and thereby won her forgiveness and peace.  Simon had started along that same path when he originally invited Jesus to his home, but pride, his own personal and ‘professional’ pride, had got in the way.  Jesus’ final words would help both of them: the woman would, indeed, experience deep peace and renewed hope;  Simon, on the other hand, realizing perhaps for the first time that he did not know true peace, would, thanks to Jesus, know better how to seek it: not so much through rigid adherence to the letter of the Law, but through greater humility and deeper faith in the God of Israel Whose Spirit  had originally led him to invite that remarkable Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, to his home and table.