Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 30, 2026: Be transformed...

Be transformed…
How does surrendering to God’s will transform us? 

    The life of a prophet is never easy, and Jeremiah’s is no exception. The people Jeremiah is sent to serve have categorically rejected his message and have subjected the prophet to prolonged abuse, even time in the stocks, because he has participated in God’s plan unfolding. All the day I am an object of laughter, he tells the Lord; everyone mocks me. Yet Jeremiah has found the strength to surrender his own will to the Lord, and the transformation effected by this surrender is viscerally clear: God’s name becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. Jeremiah is no longer the man he was when the Lord called him; his identity has been radically altered, and he cannot stay silent. The author of Psalm 63 has undergone a similar transformation, and thus recognizes that his life and self exist only to the extent that the psalmist dwells in God. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God, he sings. To yearn to be close to God, the source of life, is an indication that this man knows his true identity and is ready to live from it, whatever it takes. 

    Jesus likewise participates in God’s plan and knows he will suffer for it. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus knows that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly and be killed, and yet he surrenders to God’s plan unfolding, that all humankind might be saved through his sacrifice on the cross. Spokesman for the disciples, Peter cannot countenance this revelation: God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you! Jesus makes it clear to Peter and to all that they are, first and foremost, to surrender, to participate in God’s plan unfolding. How? Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me, Jesus says. To surrender this life to Christ is to become what Paul in his Letter to the Romans calls a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Our worship must be worship with our whole self as we offer ourselves fully alive to the Lord, ourselves and all that is in us, living life as a sacrifice for other. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, Paul continues. Transformation of body and mind takes place so that we might discern what is right and do it, discern, as Paul writes, what is the will of God, living life for other rather than for self. Then and only then will we know the transformation of our identity that comes from making our whole self a living sacrifice. 

    God’s plan is unfolding, and Jeremiah and the psalmist find themselves at heart of it. Peter and his companions have some way to go. Our hope is to be able to say that God’s plan is unfolding and we are at the heart of it! But first, we must surrender, allowing our hearts and lives to be transformed! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Infinitely essential and essentially infinite (St. Gregory of Nyssa / St. Francis de Sales)

The ways that lead to knowledge of God
remain untrodden and impassable.
 For the nearer we draw to God
the more we come to realize His incomprehensibility,
and this unknowing knowing
increases our reverence and piety.

 --St. Gregory of Nyssa  

        God being most singularly one, and most simply indivisible, we cannot see Him without seeing Him all: but being infinite, without limit, without bounds or measure at all in His perfection, there neither is, nor can be, any capacity out of Himself which can ever totally comprehend or penetrate the infinity of His goodness, infinitely essential and essentially infinite. 

 --St. Francis de Sales,
Treatise on the Love of God,
Book III, Chapter xiii

Image source: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/god/what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-infinite.html
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Jesus asks his disciples that devastating question: “But who do you say that I am?” But the disciples don’t speak. Are they afraid? Perhaps. Finally, Simon Peter speaks: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” You are the Mashiach, the “anointed one,” the long-awaited Savior; but more to it, you are the Son of God, not just a human hero. This is the mystical faith that stands at the heart of Christianity. To hold this Petrine faith is to be a Christian; to deny it is to deny Christianity. 

    And then those amazing words of Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” This insight did not come from Simon’s own intelligent speculation. It came from above, through grace, from God. And this is why Peter is a rock. 

    The Church is built not on a worldly foundation of any kind but on a mystical foundation, born of Peter’s faith in the revealing God. The Church is neither democratic nor aristocratic—it is charismatic. And this is where its power comes from. 

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source: https://www.stjosephparish.org/files/840.pdf
Quotation source

We follow (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    Sometimes it’s hard to remember that it’s God’s work we’re participating in. Sometimes we feel that all the responsibility lies with us. And yet the responsibility that lies with us is to remain open to the one who is really in charge, and to follow his lead. 

    How many days do I wake up and feel like I’m the one who has to lead, and I forget that I’m following? It’s always a bad thing when you forget you’re following and go where you want, because that could be the wrong place. Actually, it usually is. Better to remember that we are disciples, followers, and that it is his revelation that we follow, his revelation that we are opening ourselves to. 

    We become the church he has called us to be when we let him work and we trust in his love and in his revelation, a revelation that takes place in each of us. Because the idea is that eventually all will come to know him, all will know the depth of his love, and all will choose to be followers. Then, we will live life in its fullest, in him. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, August 27, 2023

Image source: https://faithfulcanvas.com/blogs/the-blog/what-it-really-means-to-be-a-disciple-of-christ?srsltid=AfmBOooxJDIbNP31Gi5HIfhackw1E8t7YMY58pV1aqFcBjjFHh1kZ6bi

When we receive the Lord (Pope St. John Paul II / St. Francis de Sales)

When we receive the Lord
in Holy Communion,
he also receives us.

--Pope St. John Paul II

    The beauty of the Church is due to the admirable union of all its members, spread across the entire face of the world. 

    Now, the Blessed Sacrament is the center and principle of this union: it unites minds in one same belief, hearts in one same love, and wills in the same virtues. We are all nourished by the same bread, that heavenly bread of the Most Holy Sacrament, the partaking of which is called Communion; this signifies the common union that we ought all to share, a union without which we do not merit the name of children of God, since we do not obey Him. The very matter of the Sacrament—composed of grains of wheat united into a single loaf of bread, and of grapes blended into a single wine—expresses and symbolizes this union. 

   Let us pray: It matters little to me, O my God, how You come to me in this divine Sacrament; it suffices that I believe with absolute certainty that it is You Yourself—Your true Body, Your Blood, Your Soul, and Your Divinity; that it is the mystery of the most intimate union and communion that Your love could devise to unite Yourself to us and to impart to us the most precious gifts of Your divine love. Thus do I believe, O my dearest Savior. In this disposition, come, unite Yourself to me, and take possession of my heart. 

--St. Francis de Sales,
Spiritual Conferences,
On the Eucharist, III, 5

Image source: https://aleteia.org/2024/10/23/how-the-sacred-heart-devotion-is-intensely-eucharistic/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

To bind and to loose (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

      The Christian power to bind and loose is the power to bind and loose in conscience, in truth, in goodness, and in love. When I refuse to forgive another, when I hold a grudge, I am acting not as the Body of Christ, nor as an agent of grace, but precisely as part of the very chain of sin and helplessness that Christ was trying to break. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser,
Facebook, January 14, 2026 

Image source: Joseph-Fortuné-Séraphin Layraud, Joseph se fait reconnaître par ses frères / Joseph Makes Himself Known to His Brothers (1863), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Layraud#/media/File:Fortun%C3%A9_Layraud_Joseph_se_fait_reconna%C3%AEtre_par_ses_fr%C3%A8res.JPG

Hearing the Scriptures proclaimed in church (St. Ignatius of Loyola / Jon Stotts)

Every Mass is an opportunity
to draw closer to God.

--St. Ignatius of Loyola

    The Scriptures connect us to God, and Christ becomes present to us in a distinctive way when the Scriptures are proclaimed at Mass. Because we believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God given to us in writing, we trust that God speaks to us in them. This is true whether we’re reading the Bible privately, discussing a passage with a small group, or hearing the Sunday readings in church. 

    That said, I think that something special happens when we gather together in faith to listen to someone proclaim the Scriptures to us, something that doesn’t occur as readily when we’re reading privately or even taking part in a Bible study. My claim is that Christ becomes present to us in a special way when we hear the Scriptures in church because of how our intentions — what we anticipate and what we desire — are shaped by the liturgy. 

    To “read aloud” is simply to vocalize the words on the page, and anyone who happens to be listening might hear. But to “proclaim” is to communicate what has been written to an intended group of listeners. The lector proclaims the readings as a message intended for someone in particular: the assembled body of believers, gathering in Jesus’ name to hear the Word of God. 

    This is why hearing the Scriptures proclaimed in Church connects us to the presence of Christ in a special way. When we listen to the lector, we become conscious of ourselves gathered together as God’s intended audience: this assembled body, on this day, in this space. The reading of the Scriptures becomes an event in the life of the Church. 

    Here’s how Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, puts it: “For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her children, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life” (n. 21). 

    When we listen to the Scripture proclaimed to us, we remember again who we are and who God has called us to be. 

--Jon Stotts

 

Source of images: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1434956835336393&type=3
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2