Thursday of the fourteenth week
- gospelthoughts
- Jul 6, 2016
- 5 min read
Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 48 (47): 10‑11 Your merciful love, O God, we have received in the midst of your temple. Your praise, O God, like your name, reaches the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with saving justice.
Collect O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Scripture today: Hosea 11:1-4.8-9; Psalm 79; Matthew 10:7-15
Jesus said to his apostles, As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. (Matthew 10: 7-15)
No Gold or Silver It is said that when Joseph Stalin was told that Pope Pius XII opposed his policies and, indeed, communism itself, he contemptuously replied, “and how many divisions has the Pope?” During the Second World War, through skilful restraint Pius XII maintained the power of papal prestige and was able to assist numerous hunted individuals. Nevertheless he was at the mercy of any sudden German intervention. He had, of course, no “divisions.” Hitler was planning to arrest him and occupy the Vatican, and he could easily have done this had he not been persuaded from doing so by advisers who were on the spot. In February 1798, French General Berthier marched into Rome and seized the Pope, who died away from Rome not long after. Pius VII excommunicated Bonaparte. He was then arrested, taken elsewhere and kept in confinement for some six years till Napoleon’s plummet and crash. All of this illustrates the directions our Lord gave to his Apostles in our Gospel passage today (Matthew 10:7-15), as he sent them ahead to preach that the kingdom of heaven was near. “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.” Christ was sending them out as his warriors, warriors of the kingdom. But they were being given no gold or silver or copper, no bag or extra tunic — in a word, no worldly weapons to advance the kingdom. All they had was his word and his presence with them. That was enough, and the method of victory was to be the Cross. They were to take up their cross every day and follow in the footsteps of the Master — and he had seemingly been defeated! At the end of all his efforts, Christ hung dead on the Cross outside Jerusalem. The weapon of the Master was obedience amid suffering, bearing witness to the truth amid rejection, acceptance of the Cross amid seeming abandonment by God and man. The path to victory for the King of kings is poverty of worldly means and apparent defeat by enemies. But it is precisely this that leads to glory and victory.
It is essential for the triumph of God’s kingdom that Christ’s disciples be patient in the apparent poverty of their means. On September 12, 2006, in the academic quiet of the German University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict gives a profound lecture on the importance of reason in religious faith. Faith and reason are interdependent, and in his works God is rational. The most distinguished department of rhetoric in Germany, at Turbingen, later gives to this address the award of “Address of the Year” in German. But Islam is in flames at the Pope’s passing citation of a mediaeval dialogue and the Pope is left alone amid all the thunder. He has no divisions, only the Cross of Christ. He endures it patiently, and emerges with representatives of Islam at the table seeking regular dialogue with the Church — and that is set in place as a bi-annual event. There is a pattern in the Church’s most authentic work. It is that if the word of Christ is to be obeyed and if his path is to be followed, the Cross will be the sword and shield to be used. That is the weapon the Master bore, and that is the weapon his disciples will be given. The temptation will be to let such weapons fall from the hand and to seize other weapons, the weapons of the world — praise, honour, convenience, wealth. The Christian must understand the way of Christ and be patient amid the difficulty that constitutes this way. In the famous Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius there is a Meditation entitled "The Two Standards" (De Dos Banderas). The one doing the retreat is asked to imagine a great field in the region of Jerusalem and in that field is the supreme Captain (el summo Capitan), Jesus Christ. Then the retreatant is asked to imagine a field in the region of Babylon where there is standing in his splendour the other great leader, Lucifer. Lucifer speaks to his minions, commanding that they tempt all with the prospect of riches and honours — and in a word, pride. Jesus Christ speaks, and the path of his followers is to be spiritual poverty, actual poverty and humiliations. In a word, to use Stalin’s expression, there are to be no worldly divisions. Victory will come from carrying the Cross.
The characteristic path of the Christian is that there is to be no “gold or silver or copper in your belts .... no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff.” Of course, these words of Christ applied to a very specific situation of the disciples whom he was sending out ahead of him during his public ministry. But they are symbolic of the deeper reliance on Christ and his word rather than on the means that the world regards so highly. We must use the things of the world in accord with God’s will and our particular vocation, but in and through it all, our true support is the presence, the power and the grace of Christ. Without this, all the other is nothing at all.
(E.J.Tyler)
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A Second Reflection: (Hosea 11:1-4.8-9)
Our Loving and Holy God At times it has been said that the God of the Old Testament is a God of punishment, judgment and anger at sin. Whereas, it is claimed, the God of the New Testament is a God of love, tenderness and mercy. But we have only to read some passages of the prophet Hosea (11:1-4.8-9) to see how simplistic such a statement is. In this passage God speaks of himself as a father full of love for Israel his child. He hates the thought of being angry at his child and punishing it, "for I am God, not man." He characterises his holiness as a holiness of love: "I am the Holy One in your midst and have no wish to destroy."
All this is more fully revealed in the New Testament. Let us approach God as the one who is holy and who loves us tenderly, while at the same time, in our dealings with others, bearing witness to His loving and holy mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)
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