Martin Jumbam
Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, August 31, 2014 as the twenty second Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “I call to you all day long, have mercy on me, O Lord. You are good and forgiving, full of love for all who call on you. Amen.” The readings of this day’s Mass open with a dramatic accusation: the prophet Jeremiah accuses God of seducing him into becoming a prophet and deceiving him about the personal sufferings his mission would involve. In the second reading, Saint Paul reminds the Christians of Rome, and through them all of us listening to this broadcast, to be sincere to our call and not to show ourselves to be stained by worldliness. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus prepares his disciples for his approaching ordeal in Jerusalem. Like the prophet Jeremiah, Jesus has to face the stark truth that his relationship with God involves personal anguish, suffering and rejection. More than that, it will lead to a violent death in the hands of his enemies. Let us pray for the grace of being seduced by our Lord so we can carry our cross behind him with joy.
First Reading: Jeremiah 20: 7-9.
O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing stock all the day; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The authors of The African Bible tell me that Jeremiah lived during one of the most troubled periods in the Ancient Near East, between the second half of the seventh century and the first half of the sixth century before Christ. He witnessed the momentous historical and political events that led to the fall of the great Assyrian Empire and the rise of an even greater Babylonian Empire.
Jeremiah was born into a priestly family from a little village near Jerusalem. He received his mission from God round about 626 BC, while still a young man and his ministry lasted well over forty years.
Of all the prophets in Sacred Scripture, he appears the most plaintive and heartbroken of all. He complains constantly of the burdens of a ministry he does not want, and he is profoundly pained by the hostility of his own people, which he deeply resents. He accuses God of seducing him into becoming a prophet and deceiving him about the personal suffering his mission would involve. God has commissioned him to tell the people of Judah and Jerusalem that their sins have earned them defeat and exile. He warns them that God’s help is not automatic, that they might as well surrender to the invading Babylonian armies, because God will not help them.
Jeremiah’s message is heard as treason; he is attacked by the crowds, imprisoned and tortured. His painful vocation isolates him from his family and friends and he becomes the laughing stock around the streets of the city. He is hurt by how people respond to him. He suffers so much that he tries early retirement, but it doesn’t work because he cannot extinguish the fire burning in his heart. And in the midst of all his anguish and sufferings, life goes on in the city. People continue their daily routine; it’s business as usual.
Despite all his efforts, Jeremiah feels that he has failed. It is a time of inner crisis for him. He laments his vocation because it is the cause of all his problems. He confides his feelings to God and complains about his vocation. When he proclaims the word of God, no one listens. He would like to walk away but he cannot, for God is like a “burning fire” in his heart.
As Jeremiah speaks of the approaching suffering of Jerusalem and his own troubled relationship with God, so Jesus in today’s Gospel prepares his disciples for his approaching ordeal in Jerusalem. Despite the difficulties he faces, Jeremiah's zeal for God is finally victorious. This only goes to prove that those who have experienced the love of God cannot contain their desire to make him known to others. In spite of everything, Jeremiah is sure that God will not forsake him. He opens wide the door of his soul to someone he loves. He admits his limitations but perseveres in his mission to the end of his life.
We too are called upon to carry the Word of God, with all the dangers involved, to a sometimes ungrateful lot; to people who may mock us and even persecute us, even our family members, because of our faith. We ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen our faith so we can proclaim God’s word in season and out of season, whether we are listened to or not. Amen.
Second Reading: Romans 12: 1-2.
I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The section from where the meditation of this day is taken can be called the moral or the exhortation section of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans. In it, we learn how Christians are being called upon to offer sacrifices to God – no longer sacrifices of animals, as in the Old Law, but offerings of themselves. This new kind of worship must take a spiritual form rather than a purely material form; in other words, it must be something living, holy and pleasing to God. As the Fathers of Vatican II tell us, “It is by the apostolic preaching of the Gospel that the people of God are called together and gathered so that all who belong to this people, sanctified as they are by the Holy Spirit, may offer themselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Presbyterorum ordinis, 2).
Saint Paul’s Christian advice flows from this letter to the Romans. In it, he shows that the Holy Spirit has united us to the sacrifice of Christ; his redemption has freed us from worldly standards, rendering our hearts, minds and bodies, our whole being in tune with the divine plan for mankind.
What does this passage teach us? It tells us that we, as Christians, should offer ourselves along with Christ in the Holy Mass, accepting even to suffer as he did on the Cross for the sake of righteousness. Our whole selves must bear witness to Christ’s loving work on our behalf, and our conduct must be a testimony to our new existence.
Let us present to the Father, as our own sacrifice this day, a forgiving heart. May he grant each of us the courage to forgive those who have offended us and the patience to bear with our own faults, and the faith to renew our commitment to him each day of the year. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
Gospel: Matthew 16: 21-27
At that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.”
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
We heard last Sunday how Peter, responding to Christ’s question to his Apostles as to who they thought he was, called Christ the long-awaited Messiah, the Only Son of God. Christ had praised Peter in the following words: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” With those words of praise, he crowned Peter head of his Church on earth, making him the first ever Pope.
Just when Peter is getting comfortable with the idea of the leadership role of his group, their Master then shocks and confuses all of them by telling them that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer persecution and death but will rise again on the third day. None of them understands him and it is again Peter who takes him aside and rebukes him saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” Peter is carried away by his love for his Master and that is why he tries to prevent him from taking the way of the Cross. He does not yet understand the immense benefit the way of the Cross will have for mankind. That is because Peter reasons in a human fashion. He views Christ’s earthly mission from a human view, failing to understand that it was the will of God that human redemption would come through the Cross.
Our Lord answers his disciple in very strong terms, just as he did the tempter in the desert: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” When Peter recognizes Christ’s divinity, he is acting under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, but when he tries to dissuade his Master from following his ordained path to the Cross, he is speaking from a totally human and materialistic perspective; an indication that Satan is at work.
If we speak only in purely materialistic terms, it is difficult for us to understand why anyone would agree to undergo pain and suffering for someone else. We all aspire to happiness and the fear of pain and suffering is a deeply rooted instinct in us. That is why our first reaction in the face of something hard or difficult is to run away.
However, faith enables us to see and realize that without sacrifice, the soul encounters no true love, no genuine joy, no lasting purification and no possession of God. The path to holiness passes through the Cross. As Saint John Paul II once said: “the cross is the living book in which we learn definitively who we are and how we ought to behave. This book is always open before us.”
As Christians, we know that our salvation and the path to heaven are found in the loving acceptance of pain and sacrifice. Married couples, for example, are never sure of their love until they have suffered together. Friendship is never strengthened until the friends have shared moments of hardship together. If we want to rise with Christ, we have to accompany him on his journey to the Cross. How do we do this? By accepting life’s trials and hardships with calmness and peace of mind, and putting all of them in God’s hands. “Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).
In our Christian life, we face a constant challenge to choose between God and ourselves, to follow Christ, or to follow our own plans, to accept our cross, or to follow some deadly pleasure. The choice for the Christian life is not easy. The man who only thinks of himself, who selfishly hugs life for himself alone, whose first concern is his own safety is a failure in the eyes of heaven, however rich and successful and prosperous he may seem to our human eyes. But the man who spends himself for others, especially for the poor and the needy, is he who receives heaven’s praise and God’s reward, which is not only everlasting life in the next world, but also the fullness of life in this world.
Let us say this prayer that Saint Ignatius of Loyola left to the Church. It is a prayer asking for courage to pick up our own cross and follow the Lord. “Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to seek reward, except that of knowing that I do your will. Through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God forever and ever. Amen.”
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