Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 25, 2024: You have the words of eternal life...

You have the words of eternal life…

What does Eucharist give us access to? 

    When Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, he knows that, in spite of their previous promises to be faithful to God, they have brought the gods of the Amorites with them to the promised land. So, Joshua challenges them: Decide today whom you will serve. Thinking back on all they have seen God do, the great miracles he performed before their eyes and the protection he offered them along their entire journey, the people promise, We will serve the Lord, for he is our God. In so doing, they affirm their desire to worship the God of their fathers. Unfortunately, the people will not keep their promise, and will need to appeal to God’s mercy again and again; Psalm 34 reminds us that the Lord has eyes for the just and ears for their cry. God continually delivers God’s people. If only they could remember this always, and remain faithful, rather than being swayed by tangibles! 

    In John’s Gospel, the people are also becoming attached to the great miracles Jesus has performed in their midst, but they quickly become caught up in the tangible, resisting his invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Their view is narrow. The Twelve, however, remain with Jesus, accepting the mystery of all that Jesus promises: You have the words of eternal life, Peter says. The Twelve know that, if they stay with Jesus, the mystery will unfold before them. Their faith is not dependent on what they hold in their hands, but on what Jesus has placed in their hearts. 

    To take Jesus into your life, to allow him to enter and become one with you, is so much greater than any tangible proof of his Real Presence can offer us. We are God’s children, essentially, and we can be joined to Christ because he is present essentially in the Eucharist. If we believe that Christ is at work in our community, in us, then Paul’s message to the Ephesians – Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ – is an invitation to our participation in his Presence and in his life. When we serve one another, we are allowing Christ to work in our lives. His Real Presence changes what we do, and what we choose to do for each other. Paul elevates marriage as a symbol of what it means to be church, and of what it means to be in relationship with Jesus himself. When we have faith and enter into Eucharist with a conscious awareness of all the Lord gives us, we will flourish as one Body, one spirit in Christ, devoted to lives of service, carrying the promise of a relationship that is eternal. 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 27, 2023: I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven...

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven…

What gives us access to God’s kingdom? 

   In the time of King David, to be the keeper of the king’s keys was to control access to the priest-king David himself. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord informs Shebna, master of the palace, that he will be thrust from office, and the key of the House of David will be placed on Eliakim’s shoulder, so that what Eliakim opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open. Clearly, the keeper of the keys held great power, yet it was power that came from God, not from man. Psalm 138 recognizes that any power human beings have always derives from God’s action. With humility, the psalmist acknowledges that he is subservient to the Lord: Your kindness, O Lord, endures forever; forsake not the work of your hands. 

   When, in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus will similarly bestow upon Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven, a statement from which the Church derives its understanding of papal primacy. Prior to Jesus’ coming, the scribes and the Pharisees were supposed to help people have access to God, but their authority would be taken from them when they refuse to recognize Jesus as the Christ. Peter is thus given the power to open the doors to the kingdom, just as the Church is to open the kingdom of heaven to all – giving people access to God is her primary mission – so that one day they might know perfect union with God. 

   We cannot know what perfect union will look like, for inscrutable are God’s judgments and unsearchable his ways, as Paul tells the Romans. But thanks to the revelation of Jesus Christ, we have some sense of the depth of God’s love for us and of God’s profound presence in our lives. We are constantly seeking God; we cannot anticipate how God will next act in our lives, for who has known the mind of the Lord? However, we do find him in Eucharist, where we practice being one with him and with one another, opening ourselves to the kingdom of heaven as we enter into his love. 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 21, 2022: Strive to enter through the narrow gate...

Strive to enter through the narrow gate…

Are you fully committed to the love of God? 

    Midway through Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, where he will die, and nothing must stand in the way of his reaching that city and succeeding in his aim. Jesus continues to proclaim the kingdom to his disciples, and so when he is asked, Lord, will only a few people be saved?, his response must be understood in the context of his own imminent death. Strive to enter through the narrow gate, he responds, for many will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. Committed to his own goal, Jesus is asking for their single-minded commitment as well, a commitment which requires surrendering to his love and to God’s will. While we are concerned with things other than the kingdom, the master will not open the door that he has locked, Jesus adds, and others whom his followers might deem unworthy will have perhaps entered before them: some who are last will be first. To enter the kingdom through the narrow gate, we must be one with him, fully surrendering to the power of his love at work in our lives. 

    Such commitment is not always easy, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us. In that community, some have rejected their faith in order to preserve their lives; the persecutions are the trials that the author of the Letter says they must endure as ‘discipline.’ They are children of the Lord, he reminds the community, and must stay true to the Lord’s path in spite of any and all difficulties. Firm in their commitment, they will be like the fugitives the Lord will send to the nations and distant coastlands in the Book of Isaiah, ready to proclaim God’s glory among the nations following the dictum to praise the Lord given in Psalm 117. We too must remain true to that relationship, committed to God’s love. 

    Are we ready to commit to the Lord’s path, holding firmly to our faith, surrendering to the power of his love in our lives, suffering, if necessary, but always and everywhere ready to proclaim God’s glory through praise? Will we strive to enter through the narrow gate? As disciples, we must be strong, because, Jesus tells us, it’s worth it! 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 22, 2021: As for and my household, we will serve the Lord...

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord…

How strong is your commitment?

   When, shortly before his death, Joshua gathers together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, he wants them to make a commitment for the future. His own household is committed to the God of Israel: As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord, he tells them. The people of Israel have taken over the promised land and made it their own, but Joshua wants to know their plans moving forward. Their collective response is promising: we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God. The community is in agreement, united in their intention to remain committed to their relationship with the Lord who, as Psalm 34 says, consistently delivers the just one from all of his troubles.

   John’s Gospel reflects the status of his community, which was facing persecution at the time of his writing. Many followers contemplate abandoning their commitment to the faith, as Jesus himself witnesses among his own disciples in the Bread of Life discourse. This saying is hard; who can accept it? they ask. Jesus needs them to understand that the spirit gives life, and that he is offering them his words that are Spirit and life. But, rejecting Jesus’ proclamation that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. The Twelve, however, remain committed to their relationship with the Lord. When Jesus asks them, Do you also want to leave? Peter responds, Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

   In making that commitment, the disciples ultimately accept a life of service to others, as Paul describes in his Letter to the Ephesians: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. We are all called by our baptism to be subordinate to Christ, first and foremost – the church itself is subordinate to Christ, Paul says; if we are one in his Body, we should see Christ in one another, and we should be Christ for one another. By dying for our sins, Christ accepted to be subordinate to mankind; his was a life of service to other, a commitment made from the moment of the Incarnation. We are called to no less: a commitment to our relationship with the Lord, lived out in loving service for all.

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 23, 2020: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

Do we have access to God?

  Humankind has long known that God is ineffable, that is, that God is too great to be expressed or described in words.  Paul recognizes this in his Letter to the Romans:  How inscrutable are God’s judgments and how unsearchable his ways!  We can’t know the mind of the Lord; we can’t plumb the depths of God’s wisdom.  And so, like Paul, we must simply trust, confident in our God who has invested all in Creation – for from him and through him and for him are all things – with faith in God’s plan for us all. 

  And yet… ultimately, Jesus himself is our access to God. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Like the key placed on Eliakim’s shoulder in Isaiah’s story of Shebna, a key that gives access to the king, Jesus opens our way to God through his death and resurrection.  Our role is to collaborate with him, remaining open to the Lord and to the Lord’s revelation as Peter was, even as we are fully aware of the inscrutability of the Lord.  The Christian community was founded on faith, on the disciples’ ability to hear God and to be open to God.  Indeed, faith is the key that opens us to God’s will rather than subjecting us to our own will.  Knowing, as Psalm 138 suggests, that the Lord hears the words of our mouth, we must be open to the intimacy that the Lord reveals, a community or ekklesia gathered together around our belief in Jesus, willing to embrace his inscrutability as we nonetheless seek a covenant relationship with our Lord, our God of kindness and truth.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 26, 2018: We will serve the Lord...

 We will serve the Lord…

 Whom will you serve?

   When Joshua formally gathers the elders, leaders, judges and officers of all the tribes of Israel, he asks them for a formal commitment to serve the Lord.  Citing God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel throughout their hardship in the desert, they all respond in unison, as if in a ritual ceremony, professing their formal commitment to do just that:  we serve the Lord.  They can promise, as the psalmist does in Psalm 34, to bless the Lord at all times, for he has protected them along their entire journey, and they have confidence that the Lord has eyes for the just.  It is a hard path, a path they may not fully understand, but here, at least, the people of Israel express their full commitment to God.

   Similarly, Jesus will ask for full commitment from his disciples in John’s Gospel, when, having shocked them with the notion that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life, Jesus sees many of his disciples return to their former way of life.  These refuse to commit to Jesus’ way; they have their own parameters of faith, of belief, and Jesus has challenged them in ways they cannot understand, and therefore do not believe.  The Twelve remain, however, having come to believe that Jesus has the words of eternal life, and is the Holy One of God.  Though they probably do not understand either, they believe, and express their belief in terms of full commitment to Jesus and all he asks of them.

   Paul will make the terms of this commitment clear in his Letter to the Ephesians.  Jesus, Paul says, asks for total commitment in the way of service to other.  Just as Jesus himself subordinated himself to humanity, handing himself over for the church in order to sanctify her, so we are called to model our lives on his, mutually subordinate to one another, committing ourselves to service of one another.  This is what love does.  Husbands who love and serve their wives are subordinate to them, just as wives who love and serve their husbands are subordinate to them.  It is this relationship of commitment, a conjugal relationship of Christ to the Church, to which we must commit ourselves; it is this invitation to mutually subordinate love that we must serve, that we might nourish and cherish one another in Christ.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordle.net

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 27, 2017: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven...

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…

Are you open to God’s action in your life?

   In the Book of Isaiah, Shebna, the master of the palace of King Hezekiah of Judah, is dressed down by the Lord for having abused his power, believing himself to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on God:  I will thrust you from your office, the Lord tells him.  Shebna, who was responsible for ensuring access to the King, has failed in his duties, relying on his own hands, and on all the privileges that have been bestowed on him by the King, and now he will have to pay the price:  Eliakim will receive the robe and sash of Shebna:  when Eliakim opens, no one shall shut, the Lord promises.  Eliakim will be a good servant of the Lord because he recognizes his own dependence on God, knows, as Psalm 138 states, that without God, we are nothing:  I will give thanks to you, o Lord, will all my heart, the psalmist sings, and thanks to your name. Both Eliakim and the psalmist are open to God’s action in their life.

   Matthew’s Gospel likewise focuses on a man who will be responsible for ensuring access to God:  the apostle Peter, who recognizes aloud that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And so Jesus confers upon Peter great responsibility:  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells Peter.  Momentarily grounded in love, Peter is open to love, open to revelation, and thus allows God to reveal who Jesus is, thereby creating access to God for all who will hear him.  St. Paul likewise recognizes his own dependence on God, and his profound grounding in faith, in his recognition of a God whose riches and wisdom and knowledge are immeasurable.  Paul’s Letter to the Romans demonstrates that, while Paul may not understand God, he is open to the salvation God has promised through Jesus, and Paul seeks to ensure access to that salvation for all.

   As modern-day disciples, we too are meant to help others to have access to God.  Evangelization can only happen if we are open to God, if we recognize God’s action in our lives, and if we allow God to work through us.  We are called to be present to others, to use the gifts the Lord has given us, and to let Christ reveal himself through us… so that God’s action may touch their lives as well.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle