ACCEPT AND SUBMIT TO THE WORD

XXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

Many passages of the Scriptures function like a mirror in which we can look at ourselves. They lead to self-examination, forcing us to recognise our shortcomings. Like the Pharisees, we hide our evil and corrupt intentions under a mask of holiness. We are very strict in judging and condemning others. Guided by fundamentalism, we become radical and puritanical, ready to denounce and exclude all those who do not comply with our (false) righteousness. 

The demand for politically correct speech and attitudes permeates society at all levels. Nobody can speak, teach or behave differently; those who do are banished from the public arena. If someone is accused of racism, homophobia, islamophobia and other kinds of phobia, then he/she is ostracised and stopped from intervening in society. A cancel culture has been created as “a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture)

Gender ideology is being imposed in schools and is taught to young children, creating the false notion that they can choose whatever gender they wish since gender is not binary and does not depend on the biological reality of the body. 

Some groups consider themselves as victims, being exploited and oppressed. Being victims they have the right to be compensated and to receive privileges to redress the injustice which they suffered. Despite beings minorities, they want to establish the rules which they impose on the majority, trying to create in them a complex of guilt and lead them into submission.

Today’s readings speak of the commandments that come from God. They were not given to oppress us, but to helps us achieve what is good and perfect. St. James writes: 

“Accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your souls. But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.” (James 1:21-22).

Since we will be judged by God’s commandments, we must keep them faithfully and wholeheartedly with a good conscience. What makes us unclean comes from within our hearts. When we allow evil to take possession of our hearts, everything else - our thoughts, our desires, our plans and our projects - becomes tainted and contaminated.

Let us pray that the Lord may grant us his Spirit to guide and strengthen us to be His faithful servants.

CHOOSE LIFE OR DEATH, GOOD OR EVIL

XXI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - John 6:60-69

Since the beginning, humanity faces a choice that determines the outcome of their lives. Adam and Eve - and they represent all of us - made the wrong choice, turning their backs on God and drifting away from the source of life. Generation after generation, throughout the ages, we have to choose between the way that leads to life or the one that leads to death.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.” (Dt 30:15-18).

We are called to make a free choice. God does not impose himself on us. He does not want slaves, but free people. In Islam, we are told that we should behave like slaves because is the master and we have no other option but to submit and lay low on the floor. As the revelation unfolds before us, God’s purpose and plan become clearer: In Jesus, we are called to be children of God and to share in the glory of God who is a merciful and loving Father. Only free people can become children of God, reflecting his glory in their lives.

Moses told the people that they had to choose between “life and good, death and evil”. Joshua, at the end of his life, convened an assembly of the people and called upon them to choose: either they serve the Lord (YHWH) or they reject Him to serve their gods. Joshua had taken the clear option of serving the Lord, but he could not make that choice for others. That is a personal choice that must be made by each one of us. The people, gathered in assembly, decided to follow Joshua’s example:  

“We have no intention of deserting the Lord and serving other gods! “

“We too will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” (Jos 24:18).

In the Gospel, Jesus leaves it clear that the disciples have to choose. The crowds that followed him in search of an easy living, turned their backs on him. It is difficult to take responsibility for our own lives and we prefer to wait for others to solve our problems. And Jesus does not make it easy: “What about you, do you want to go away too?”

In the name of the apostles, Peter gave the only answer that makes sense of our lives:

“Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:69).

Are we going to answer like Peter or are we turning our backs on him like the crowds?

A WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SON

THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY - Apocalypse 11:19,12:1-6,10

On the 15th of August, we celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast is a proclamation of faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ who subjected himself to death to become the conqueror of death. Indeed, Christ has to put “all his enemies under his feet and the last of the enemies to be destroyed is death, for everything is to be put under his feet.” (1 Cor 15:26). All those who have become one with Jesus sharing in his death will share also in his victory: Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Ph 3:21). By celebrating the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of God, we affirm that the salvation brought about by Jesus Christ has been realised on his mother. What we affirm of Mary is what we are waiting for with hope. The Orthodox Church celebrates on this same day the feast of the dormition of the Virgin Mary which goes together with “the translation or assumption into heaven of the body of the Theotokos.” (https://www.goarch.org/dormition). Jesus had compared the death of Jairus’s daughter to sleep (Mc 5:39). And so it happened with  Jesus’ mother: in her death, she entered into a deep sleep and woke up in the glory of God in perfect and total communion with her Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

The Church has always looked to Mary, the Mother of the Lord, as an icon of the Church and a model of the true disciple. She is the woman of faith who is the most blessed because she believed. That’s why the “woman, adorned with the sun” (Rv 12:1) is looked upon as representing both the Virgin Mary and the Church, as the bride of Christ.

Painting by Pedro Chey Dianingama

Rejoice Mary

- Χαιρε Μαρια - 

O favoured of the Lord (Lk 1:28).

 

Trampling the snake at her feet

- the great seductress who brings

darkness and gloom,

sowing sorrow and death - 

She rises, ascending to heaven

wrapped in a mantle of fire,

brighter than the sun

Like a crown on the head

enfolding her trunk

in the shape of a heart;

as the sun of love becomes

the fruit of her womb

to become on the cross

the sun of life and salvation.

With Mary, let us sing the praises of the Lord, giving thanks for his love and mercy.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

and my spirit exults in God my saviour;

because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid.

Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed,

for the Almighty has done great things for me.”

Lk  1:46-49

JESUS IS THE BREAD OF LIFE

XIX SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - John 6:41-51

Being the last gospel to be written, John does not present a narrative of the Last Supper and we may think that he left out the institution of the Eucharist, which is central to Christian worship. However, in chapter 6, John gives us a eucharistic gem with Jesus’ speech on the bread of life. Jesus’ saying: “the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51) is the same statement that we find in Lk 22:19 (or 1 Co 11:24): “This (bread) is my body, which will be given for you”. The speech on the bread of life was given to the crowd that came after him on the day after the miraculous feeding. Jesus took the opportunity to bring into the open their motives: they were looking for easy food and an easy way of life. They were not concerned at all with eternal life (or the Kingdom of God); they cared only about finding an easy way of enjoying life. Jesus had advised them to look for the true food that comes from heaven and presented himself as “the bread that came down from heaven”. In their reaction, people showed their lack of faith, very similar to the unbelief of the people of Israel, who time and again put God to the test, refusing to trust the Lord. For them, Jesus was no more than the “son of Joseph”, a humble carpenter from Nazareth. So they despised Jesus and accused him of delusion and self-aggrandisement.

According to Jesus, to believe in him, we must be led by the Father. Indeed, faith is a gift from God, who facilitates the encounter with Jesus, leading to believe and accept him as the Son of God. We need a listening heart “to hear the teaching of the Father, and learn from it”; only then will we go to Jesus and recognise him as the giver of life and salvation. It is faith in Jesus that opens the door to eternal life.

Jesus is the “living bread”, and “Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever” (Jn 6:51). In the eucharist bread that we receive, we enter in communion with the body of Christ. This has been the faith of the Church from the beginning. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ” (Jn 10:16).

Saint Justin, one of the first Christian writers, presented our faith in the Eucharist in this manner:

“And this food is called among us Eykargstga [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” (Justin, First Apology, no 66). 

Let us approach the table of the Lord with true faith, so that in Jesus we find life and salvation.