Saturday, August 24, 2013

How narrow is the way of the Cross?

"Crucifix" by Byzantine artist, Cimabue (1272).

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, August 25, 2013 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Is 66:18-21
• Ps 117:1, 2
• Heb 12:5-7, 11-13
• Lk 13:22-30

Over the past few weeks we have heard, in the readings from the Gospel according to St. Luke, about Jesus journeying up to Jerusalem to face arrest, suffering, and death (cf. Lk. 9:22, 43-45). Along the way he was spurned by a Samaritan village, he sent out seventy disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God, he told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and he visited Mary and Martha. He also taught about prayer, hypocrisy, riches, and vigilance.

As varied as these matters were, they all were addressed with a singularity of purpose, for the good shepherd was working to gather in lost sheep while demonstrating that he was the promised Messiah who would deliver the remnant of faithful from spiritual exile. His Passion would reveal the deeper meaning of his teachings, and his death and resurrection in Jerusalem would point the way to the heavenly banquet in the new Jerusalem. This is what Ad Gentes, the Vatican II decree on mission activity of the Church, called “narrow way of the cross.”

In today’s reading we hear that as Jesus made his way through “towns and villages” someone asked, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” It appears to be a fair enough question. In fact, haven’t we all, at one time or another, wondered the same thing? How many will be saved? Most? Only a few? What about my neighbor? My boss? So it is a bit bracing to read St. Cyril of Alexandria’s comment that Jesus “is purposely silent to the useless question.” Cyril pointed out that Jesus refocuses the man’s attention—and our attention as well—on the questions that should concern us. “He proceeds to speak of what was essential, namely, of the knowledge necessary for the performance of those duties by which people can enter the narrow door.”

Today’s Old Testament reading, from the conclusion of the Book of Isaiah, seems to present something of a paradox when put alongside the Gospel. Isaiah foretold of a coming time when God would widen the way of salvation to include Gentiles from “the nations.” This, in fact, had been his intention all along, as his covenant with Abram indicated: “…and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen. 12:3). Yet even more surprising was the declaration through Isaiah that some of those Gentiles would become priests. This gathering of the nations would establish a new family of God—the Church—free of ethnic criteria. These people, Jesus stated, will come from all four corners of the earth “and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.”

Yet each of them will have to enter through the narrow gate, and many will fail for lack of strength. In considering this, we must recognize that the graciousness of God’s call is not incompatible with the difficulty of the journey. All that is good and worthwhile requires effort, fidelity, and sacrifice. Jesus warns, as he did many times, that being born into the family of God does not exempt anyone from striving, by God’s grace, to be a true son and daughter of God. Being baptized as a baby doesn’t allow anyone to remain a spiritual baby, but grants divine life that is meant to grow and mature. And, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, those who are sons will undergo discipline and experience trials, which eventually “brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

Some of the Jews rejected God’s discipline via the physical Exile and so remained in spiritual exile. We, too, can turn away from God’s reproval and lose our way. Confession, prayer, and Holy Communion are essential for our spiritual health and growth. “Thus from celebration to celebration,” states, the Catechism, “as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of Jesus ‘until he comes,’ the pilgrim People of God advances, ‘following the narrow way of the cross,’ toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom” (CCC, par. 1344).

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 22, 2010, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Vultus Christi

Fervent in the Work of God

Sunday, 25 August 2013 12:13

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Chapter LVIII. Of the Discipline of Receiving Brethren into Religion

11 Apr. 11 Aug. 11 Dec.

Afterwards let him go into the Novitiate, where he is to meditate and study, to take his meals and to sleep. Let a senior, one who is skilled in gaining souls, be appointed over him to watch him with the utmost care, and to see whether he is truly seeking God, and is fervent in the Work of God, in obedience and in humiliations. Let all the hard and rugged paths by which we walk towards God be set before him.

From the Parish Book Stall: A Classic

If a novice is to become fervent in the Work of God, as Saint Benedict requires, he must be introduced to the sacred liturgy by one who lives it. I had the good fortune, in it must have been 1963 or 1964, of discovering a book that did just that for me: The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean–Baptiste Chautard. Someone in my home parish had taken the initiative of putting a modest book stall in the vestibule of the church (or it may have been a work of the then flourishing Legion of Mary), and the book stall was well–stocked with classic titles in paperback. Among them was The Soul of the Apostolate. I was drawn to the little book as I have been similarly drawn to particular books since then, guided, I think, by the Holy Ghost. Allow me, here, to make an appeal for parish book stalls! Provided that they are supplied with classic orthodox titles, they can play a determining role in someone’s life and also, without a doubt, become the catalyst for a priestly or religious vocation.

Fervent in the Work of God

Dom Chautard’s treatment of the liturgical life set me all afire. It disposed me to want to become “fervent in the Work of God” and so oriented me toward contemplative Benedictine life at a very sensitive stage in my development. I appreciate Dom Chautard’s presentation of the liturgical life for its depth, and breadth, and remarkable freedom from a fussy rubricism. Like Blessed Columba Marmion, Dom Chautard experiences every detail of the sacred liturgy in the light of Christ’s ceaseless glorification of the Father. The liturgy is meant to be a feast for the eyes, the ears, and all the senses, not for the mere gratification of one’s aesthetical appetite, but for the lifting of the heart and mind into the mystery of “what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Listen to Dom Chautard

Here then are some selected passages from The Soul of the Apostolate:

It is You, Jesus, that I adore as Center of the Liturgy. It is You Who give unity to this Liturgy, which I may define as the public, social, official worship given by the Church of God, or, the whole complex of means which the Church uses especially in the Missal, Ritual, and, Breviary, and by which she expresses her religion to the adorable Trinity, as well as instructs and sanctifies souls. O my soul, you must go into the very heart of the Adorable Trinity and contemplate there the eternal Liturgy in which the three Persons chant, one to another, their divine Life and infinite Sanctity, in their ineffable hymn of the generation of the Word and the procession of the Holy Spirit. Sicut erat in principio . . .

Angels and Men, Heaven and Earth

God desires to be praised outside of Himself. He created the angels, and heaven resounded with their joyous cries of Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. He created the visible world and it magnifies His power: “The heavens announce the glory of God.” Adam comes to life and begins to sing, in the name of creation, a hymn of praise in echo of the everlasting Liturgy. Adam, Noah, Melchisedech. Abraham, Moses, the people of God, David, and all the saints of the Old Law vied in chanting it. The Jewish Pasch, their sacrifices and holocausts, the solemn worship of the Lord God in His Temple, gave this praise, especially since the fall. “Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner.”

God Praising God

You, Jesus, You alone are the perfect hymn of praise, because You are the true glory of the Father. No one can worthily glorify Your Father, except through You. Per Ipsum, et cum Ipso et in Ipso est tibi Deo Patri . . . omnis honor et Gloria.” You are the link between the Liturgy of earth and the Liturgy of heaven, in which You give Your elect a more direct participation. Your Incarnation came and united, in a living and substantial union, mankind and all creation, with the Liturgy of God Himself. Thus it is God Who praises God, in our Liturgy. And this is full and perfect praise, which finds its apogee in the sacrifice of Calvary.

The Sacramental Economy

Divine Savior, before You left the earth, You instituted the Sacrifice of the New Law, in order to renew Your immolation. You also instituted Your Sacraments, in order to communicate Your life to souls. But You left Your Church the care of surrounding this Sacrifice and these Sacraments with symbols, ceremonies, exhortations, prayers, etc., in order that she might thus pay greater honor to the Mystery of the Redemption, and make it more understandable to her children, and help them to gain more profit from it while exciting in their souls a respect full of awe.

Beginning on Earth What We Will Do in Heaven

You also gave Your Church the mission of continuing until the end of time the prayer and praise which Your Heart never ceased to send up to Your Father during Your mortal life and which It still goes on offering to Him, in the Tabernacle and in the splendor of Your glory in heaven. The Church, who loves You as a Spouse, and who is full of a Mother’s love for us, which comes to her from Your own Heart, has carried out this twofold task. That is how those wonderful collections were formed, which include all the riches of the Liturgy. Ever since, the Church has been uniting her praises to those which the angels and her own elect children have been giving to God in heaven. In this way, she already begins to do, here below, what is destined to occupy her for all eternity.

United to the praises of the man-God, this praise, the prayer of the Church, becomes divine and the Liturgy of the earth becomes one with that of the celestial hierarchies in the Court of Christ, echoing that everlasting praise which springs forth from the furnace of infinite love which is the Most Holy Trinity.

What Is the Liturgical Life?

Lord, the laws of Your Church do not bind me strictly to anything but the faithful observance of the rubrics and the correct pronunciation of words. But is there any doubt that You want my good will to give You more than this? You want my mind and heart to profit by the riches hidden in the Liturgy and thus be more united to Your Church and come thereby to a closer union with Yourself. Good Master, the example of Your most faithful servants makes me eager to come and sit down at the splendid feast to which the Church invites me, certain that I will find, in the Divine Office, in the forms, ceremonies, collects, epistles, gospels, and so on which accompany the holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the administration of the Sacraments, healthful and abundant food to nourish my interior life.

The Liturgical Cycle

Let us dwell on the basic idea that ties all the elements of the Liturgy together, and the fruits by which progress may be recognized will preserve us from illusion. Each one of the sacred rites may be compared to a precious stone. Yet how much greater will be the value and brilliance of those that belong to the Mass and Office, when I know how to enshrine them all together in that marvelous setting: the liturgical cycle. When my soul lives, throughout a certain period of time, under the influence of a mystery, and is nourished by all that Scripture and tradition offer that is most instructive in this subject, and is constantly directed and made attentive to the same order of ideas, it must necessarily be influenced by this concentration, and find in the thoughts suggested by the Church a food as nourishing as it is delightful, and which will prepare it to receive that special grace which God reserves for each period, each Feast of the Cycle. The Mystery comes to fill me not only as an abstract truth, absorbed in meditation, but gripping my whole being, bringing into play even my sense faculties, to stir up my heart and direct my will. It is more than a mere commemoration of some past event, or an ordinary anniversary: it is living actuality with all the character of a present event to which the Church gives an application here and now, and in which she really and truly takes part.

For instance, in the Christmas Season, rejoicing before the altar at the coming of the Holy Child, my soul can repeat: “Today Christ is born, today the Savior has appeared, today the angels sing on earth . . .” At each period in the liturgical Cycle, my Missal and Breviary disclose to me new rays of the love of Him Who is for us at the same time Teacher, Doctor, Consoler, Savior, and Friend. On the Altar, just as at Bethlehem or Nazareth, or on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias, Jesus reveals Himself as Light, Love, Kin dness, and Mercy. He reveals Himself above all as Love personified, because He is Suffering personified, in agony at Gethsemani, atoning on Calvary.

The Full Development of the Eucharistic Life

And so the liturgical life gives the Eucharistic life its full development. And Your Incarnation, O Jesus, that brought God close to us,

making Him visible to us in You, continues to do the very same thing for us all, in each of the mysteries that we celebrate. So it is, dear Lord, that thanks to the Liturgy, I can share in the Church’s life and in Your own. With her, every year, I witness the mysteries of Your Hidden life, Your Public life, Life of Suffering, and Life in Glory; and with her, I cull the fruits of them all. Besides, the periodic feasts of Our Lady and the Saints who have best imitated Your interior Life bring me, also, an increase of light and strength by placing their example before my eyes, helping me to reproduce Your virtues in myself and to inspire the faithful with the spirit of Your Gospel.

The Prime and Indispensable Source of the True Christian Spirit

How am I to carry out, in my apostolate, the desire of Pius X? How are the faithful going to be helped, by me, to enter into an active participation in the Holy Mysteries and, in the public and solemn prayer of the Church which that Pope called the PRIME AND INDISPENSABLE SOURCE of the true Christian spirit, if I myself pass by the treasures of the Liturgy without even suspecting what wonders are to be found therein? If I am going to put more unity into my spiritual life, and unite myself still more to the life of the Church, I will aim at tying up all my other pious exercises with the Liturgy, as far as I possibly can. For instance, I will give preference to a subject for meditation which has a connection with the liturgical period, or feast, or cycle. In my visits to the Blessed Sacrament, I will converse more readily, according to the season, with the Child Jesus, Jesus suffering, Jesus glorified, Jesus living in His Church, and so on. Private reading on the Mystery or on the life of the Saint being honored at the time will also contribute much to this plan for a liturgical spirituality.

The Danger of a Shallow Liturgical Life

My adorable Master, deliver me from all fake liturgical life. It is ruinous to the interior life, above all because it weakens the spiritual combat. Preserve me from a piety which would have the liturgical life consist in a lot of poetic thrills, or in an intriguing study of religious archaeology, or else which leads to quietism and its awful consequences; for quietism strikes at the very roots of the interior life: fear, hope, the desire of salvation, and of perfection, the fight against faults and labor to acquire virtue. Make me really convinced that in this age of absorbing and dangerous occupations, the liturgical life, no matter how perfect it may be, can never dispense anyone from morning mental prayer. Keep far from me all sentimentality and fake piety which make the liturgical life consist in impressions and emotions, and leave the will the slave of the imagination and feelings. Not that You want me to remain cold to all the beauty and poetry which the Liturgy contains. Far from it! The Church uses her chant and her ceremonies to appeal to the sense faculties, and to reach, through them, the souls of her children more fully, and to give to their wills a more effective presentation of the true goods, and raise them up more surely, more easily, and more completely to God. I can therefore enjoy all the changeless, wholesome refreshment of dogma thrown into relief by liturgy, and let myself be moved by the majestic spectacle of a solemn High Mass, and esteem the prayers of absolution of the touching rites of Baptism, Extreme Unction, the Burial Service, and so on.

Becoming a New Man in Christ

But I must never lose sight of the fact that all the resources offered by the holy Liturgy are nothing but means to arrive at the sole end of all interior life: to put to death the “old man” that You, Jesus, may reign in his place. I will, therefore, be leading a genuine liturgical life if I am so penetrated with the spirit of the liturgy that I use my Mass, Prayers, and Official Rites to intensify my union with the Church, and thus to progress in my participation in the interior Life of Jesus Christ, and hence in His virtues, so that I will give a truer reflection of Him in the eyes of the faithful.

Regnum Christi

The One Thing Necessary

| SPIRITUAL LIFE | SPIRITUALITY

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 13:22-30

Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ´Lord, open the door for us.´ He will say to you in reply, ´I do not know where you are from.´ And you will say, ´We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.´ Then he will say to you, ´I do not know where (you) are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!´ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last."

Introductory Prayer: I believe in you, my God. You called me into existence from nothingness and carefully watch over me. You have even numbered the hairs of my head. I trust in your infinite goodness, and I abandon into your loving hands my fears, my hopes, my needs, my desires, everything. I love you, Lord, and wish to love you with all my mind, heart, soul and strength.

Petition: I shall not fear for my salvation, but grow in confidence in you, my God.

1. Salvation: A Numbers Racket? We never stop asking the question the person in the Gospel asked Jesus. If we don’t achieve eternal life, nothing else we have attained in life matters. Jesus does not give the answer we might want to hear: that many are saved, and salvation is a sure and simple thing to reach. Instead, he warns us against presumption in this matter. As Saint Paul later said, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). It is something we need to take with the utmost seriousness. Every day we need to pray for the grace to persevere to the end. We need to live each day with the perspective that it could be our last. We need to go back to the venerable tradition of praying for a “happy death.”

2. Narrow Gates: When Jesus speaks of the narrow gate, he is saying that salvation is not a birthright or something guaranteed. It depends on our active cooperation with his grace -- the real effort to love God and follow his will. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus warned that not everyone who cries out, “Lord, Lord…” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of his Father in heaven. Obedience to God’s will is the best assurance we can have of our salvation. What is there in my life that is not in accord with his will?

3. Judge Not… We might also be surprised that those from “the east and the west” will enter the kingdom before many others. We might be surprised at those who are saved. Salvation is not a privilege of a race or a chosen people. It is a matter of how we respond in freedom to grace and the invitation of the Lord to a certain way of life. We shouldn’t give in to judging where others stand; we should only attend to our own soul. Are we at peace with God in our conscience? Can we be sure we are objective about our own situation in God’s eyes? Our conscience should be clear, and we should make sure we are serene and have peace of soul. If we find there is something between us and God’s will, we should go to confession and pray for the grace to change.

Conversation with Christ: Lord, give me the grace to know your will and the discernment to know if there is anything in my soul that is keeping me from you. Help me to overcome any obstacle, so that I may be one with you and that your will may be my guide every day.

Resolution: I will make frequent confession a habit and every day examine my conscience to seek union and peace with the Lord.

Scripture Speaks:The Wrong Question

by Gayle Somers on August 23, 2013 ·

Someone in a crowd called out to Jesus, “Will only a few people be saved?” Why was this the wrong question to ask?

Gospel (Read Lk 13:22-30)

St. Luke tells us that as Jesus “passed through towns and villages, teaching as He went,” someone called out a question to Him: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” This is a curious question, isn’t it? Why would anyone be interested in knowing the number of people saved? The idea that there are those who will be saved and those who will be lost in God’s final judgment was a constant theme in the Old Testament Scriptures. Moses laid it out before all the Israelites as they were about to enter the Promised Land: “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day… you shall live and multiply and the Lord your God shall bless you. But if your hearts turn away, and you will not hear … you shall perish” (see Deut. 30:16-18a). The wisdom literature, in particular, is full of exhortations to choose life by living righteously and to avoid the destruction that comes with foolish disobedience and wickedness (see Ps 1; Wis 5:1-16). So, interest in salvation by a Jew listening to Jesus isn’t surprising.

What is surprising, however, is the question this man asks: “Will only a few be saved?” What question should he have asked? We can get a clue from Jesus’ reply: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” The man who questioned Jesus was interested in the “few”; Jesus was interested in the “many.” Why?

Jesus continues to make His point by using a parable. He speaks of the “master of the house” who has “arisen and locked the door.” In this, He is describing Himself and the end of His time of visitation in Israel. He was with His own people, His “house,” for three years, teaching and preaching the Good News of the Kingdom and calling the Jews to believe in Him as their promised Messiah, the Son of God. He was rejected by the religious leaders and put to death, from which He “arose” and then departed, bringing to an end the opportunity for the Jews to acknowledge Him as their true King. He then describes Jews standing “outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door to us.” Jesus, the “master,” sends them away because although they had proximity to Him (“we ate and drank in Your company and you taught in our streets”), He doesn’t know who they are; they did not become His friends when He was with them. Theirs is a terrible fate. They will see “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out.” Here, of course, Jesus is describing Jews who rejected Him, refusing to believe Him when He said things like, “I am the door; if any one enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (Jn 10:9). However, although some of His own people will be outside, they will see people from all four corners of the earth reclining “at table in the kingdom of God.” This is not a description of “few” but “many.” It becomes clear, then, what question the man should have asked.

How different would Jesus’ reply to this man have been if he’d asked, “Lord, how can I be saved?” By the way Jesus addresses his question about “only a few,” we can surmise that this man thought of himself as being in that small number, safe, and not needing to ask this question. Many Jews of Jesus’ day, especially the religious leaders, presumed that because they were descendants of Abraham and God’s chosen people, they were the few who would be saved. This was a dangerous way to think, as John the Baptist made clear in his preaching at the Jordan River: “But when [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham’” (Mt 3:7-9).

Perhaps Jesus sensed this kind of presumption in the man who questioned Him. Instead of discussing numbers, He speaks directly to the man himself: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” In other words, you have work to do! In addition, He warns the man that only those who are “strong enough” will make it through the “narrow gate.” What did He mean? As Jesus regularly taught, only those willing to lose their lives, to take up their crosses, to die to themselves in order to be His disciples will be able to pass through the “narrow” gate of Jesus Himself. Salvation will not be achieved by entering the wide gate of Jewish ethnicity. It will not come through proximity to Jesus—being a Catholic, getting all the sacraments, never missing Mass. It will only come through knowing Jesus and believing in Him, obeying Him as the Messiah, God’s own Son, and our only hope of redemption.

Jesus ends His conversation with a conundrum: “Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” The Jews considered the Gentiles to certainly be those who aren’t saved, yet Jesus’ description of people from all over the world (not just Jews from Israel) proved that “the last,” the Gentiles, would precede many Jews (“the first” to be called) into the kingdom. Interestingly, St. Paul confirms this when he explained that “a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25-26). This describes what happened when the Jews rejected the Gospel; it was then preached to the Gentiles, who received it with joy. However, after this period of hardening (and no one knows how long this will last), St. Paul sees the hope of Israel finally recognizing her Messiah and finding salvation (see CCC 674). “Some are first who will be last.”

Had the man in this story asked the right question, the one all of us should ask—“Lord, how can I be saved?”—Jesus’ answer would have been simple: “Follow Me.”

Possible response: Lord Jesus, help me guard against presumption. I know it’s the door to pride, judgment, and complacency.

First Reading (Read Isa 66:18-21)

This is one of the Old Testament prophecies of the gathering of “nations of every language” into God’s kingdom to which Jesus referred in our Gospel. God announces, through the prophet, Isaiah, that someday people far beyond the boundaries of Israel will see His glory. This prophecy began to be fulfilled in the Incarnation. Jesus came to be a revelation of God’s merciful love, first to the house of Israel, and then to all people. Recall that even in His own day, Gentiles were attracted to Him (see Mt 15:21-28; Jn 12:20-23). On the Day of Pentecost, the Church began her preaching mission as Jesus had instructed the apostles: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20).

Isaiah’s prophecy envisions a glorious reconstitution of the new Israel, the people of God, which is the Church. It includes both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus. Its dwelling place will be “Jerusalem, My holy mountain,” which we understand to be heaven. This is the future reality that Jesus did not want His questioner in our Gospel to miss out on. Neither do we.

Possible response: Heavenly Father, thank You for bringing this promise to fulfillment in Your worldwide Church. Keep alive a missionary spirit in all of us to take the Gospel to all people everywhere.

Psalm (Read Ps 117:1-2)

We should now be seeing how far off the mark our Gospel’s questioner was when he was thinking about “only a few” to be saved. It was always God’s intention that Israel, His chosen people, would “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.” Here, the psalmist exhorts all the nations to “praise the Lord,” the God of the Jews first, then of everyone. Because of “His kindness towards us,” God wants all, not a few, to be saved (see 1 Tim 2:4).

Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.

Second Reading (Read Heb 12:5-7, 11-13)

Remember that Jesus said in our Gospel some would “attempt to enter [the narrow gate that leads to salvation] but will not be strong enough.” Our epistle helps us better understand what is required of us if we are to persevere as children in God’s kingdom. It is only by His grace that we are born again as His sons and daughters in baptism. We can’t do this for ourselves. Yet we need to know that “whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; He scourges every son He acknowledges.” In other words, we will face trials that will require the death to self that Jesus preached in the Gospel. We need strength for this! We have “drooping hands” and “weak knees.” The author of Hebrews, however, gives us wonderful encouragement: “Endure your trials as ‘discipline’; God treats you as sons.” We know earthly fathers discipline their children out of love; it is the same with our heavenly Father.

The discipline of the Lord that comes through our various trials “seems a cause not for joy but for pain.” How realistic this is. Yet, over time, this discipline, if we meet it with faith, hope, and love, will yield “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” The goal of this discipline is to heal our weaknesses, and, as a verse not included in our reading says, “… [the Lord] disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness” (see vs 10).

Make us strong, Lord, to enter the narrow gate for the joy on the other side.

Possible response: Heavenly Father, please help me remember that my trials are meant to make me strong, not crush me, to heal what is lame, not cripple me.

The Joy of Discipline

by Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV on August 26, 2013 ·

I recently came across the reports of the investigations into the deadly train accident that occurred in the last week of July this year in Spain. According to this reports, the driver of the train, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, was driving the train at over 190 km/hr in an area with a posted speed limit of 80 km/hr. He was also found to be talking with a friend on his cell phone seconds before the fatal crash. Lastly, in his distraction, he ignored three automatic warnings of over-speeding just two minutes before the train came to a treacherous bend and derailed, killing over 80 people and injuring scores of others.

I could not help but wonder, “If only he had been more disciplined. If only he had paid more attention to the posted speed limit. If only he had his mind focused on what he was doing and not talking on his cell phone while driving a train-full of people. If only he had paid attention to the automatic warnings and had slowed down in time, if only…” If only he had showed more discipline in his action, maybe he would not have to bear the guilt of being responsible for the worst train accident in Spain since 1972.

This tragedy reminded me of the disastrous consequences of indiscipline for both the undisciplined one and for others in society. A disciplined person is one who chooses to act according to right conduct always and everywhere simply because it is the right thing to do. The actions of the disciplined person are not determined by how easy or pleasurable the action is or by the rewards to be received or the punishments to be avoided or even by how the disciplined person feels. On the other hand, an undisciplined person is one who is bound to ignore right conduct at will especially when they are difficult or not pleasurable to him or just for the sake of it. Whether it is in the family, in the church, or in the society, we all feel comfortable with disciplined people around us and are wary of undisciplined people because we know that we are surely affected by the actions of both the disciplined and undisciplined. Who among us does not like a disciplined leader, personal doctor, parish priest, husband, wife, children, etc.? Who is comfortable with undisciplined people?

Yesterday’s Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us not to “disdain the discipline of the Lord” because “whom the Lord loves He disciplines.” We should “endure our trials as discipline” because “God treats us as sons.” Why would our loving father discipline us with trials of all things? This is because it is in our trials and temptations that we show how genuine our obedience to God really is. Times of trials and temptations are opportunities to both show and learn discipline, to learn how to choose to obey God always and everywhere simply because it is the right thing to do. Though this discipline is not joyful but painful at the very beginning, “later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” This training through trials brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to the disciplined person and also blessings to others.

Jesus Christ is the truly disciplined Son of the Father, the one who always obeyed the Father in all times and in all places because, “Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered.” (Heb 5:8) Though Jesus is the true Son of the Father, though He was obedient to Mother Mary, St. Joseph, and to the Jewish leaders, it was through suffering that He learned obedience, being “obedient unto death, even death on the Cross.” (Phil 2:8) Jesus Christ learned obedience in the sense that He experienced obedience to its perfect degree (unto death) and He makes it possible for us to be as disciplined and obedient as He is. “Being made perfect He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” (Heb 5:9) We have hope of salvation only because Jesus Christ is the disciplined Son of God and He makes it possible for us to share in His disciplined life of loving obedience to the Father through the trials and sufferings of life. It is only in Jesus Christ that we have hope of doing the Father’s will always and everywhere simply because it is the right thing to do.

The Gospel shows us Jesus on His last journey to Jerusalem where He was going to give His life as a ransom for us. Being a disciplined Son, He will be as truly obedient to the Father in Gethsemane and Calvary as He was obedient on the glorious Mount of the Transfiguration. The truly disciplined Son of God answers the question about how many people will be saved by saying, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” Jesus Christ Himself and a participation in His own loving obedience to the Father obtained from disciplined “endurance of trials” is the narrow gate (Jn 14:6) that alone leads to salvation. It is not enough to be close to Him or to “eat and drink in His company” or to have Him “teach in our streets” but we must be willing to be disciplined too and to enter into His constant disciplined obedience to the Father, ready to be obedient in all things even to death. Jesus warns His hearers, unless they too become obedient and disciplined like He is, they would realize that the pain of earthly trials is nothing compared to the pain of missing out of the heavenly kingdom, the eternal “wailing and grinding of teeth.”

God desires to bring us into His heavenly kingdom as one united people more than we desire it ourselves. The Prophet Isaiah in the First Reading speaks of God’s desire to “come and gather the nations of every language to come and see His glory.” In Jesus Christ, God has come to bring us into His glory as one people from every nation. But for us to see the Father’s glory, the Father must see in us the same loving obedience that He saw in Jesus Christ, His truly disciplined Son. In Jesus Christ, we are now God’s children, and in Jesus Christ too, God also disciplines us in and through our earthly trials too so that we grow in our ability to do the right thing in all circumstances simply because it is the right thing to do and to bring hope to others. Being children of God is not enough; we must be disciplined children of God too.

A few days ago I received an email from a woman whose husband was critically ill and dying in hospital. She said that the nurses and doctors do not give him much hope to survive. Then she added, “But it is now in God’s hands. If He goes, or He survives, it is all in God’s hands. I know that God is at work.” It is easy to say, “It is in God’s hands” when things are going fine. But to say so when your husband is in his death pangs is a clear sign of the “fruitful peace of righteousness” experienced by those trained by discipline of God. She reminded me of our vocation to gain discipline from our trials. I was really edified by her words and I prayed that I would have the courage to abandon myself like she did to God in times of trials.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, trials and temptations will always come our way in this life. They are not signs that we have been abandoned or rejected by God. On the contrary, they are signs that Our Loving Father is treating us like beloved sons and daughters to effect in us an authentic disciplined freedom worthy of the heavenly kingdom and able to bring hope to others. There is no room in heaven for sworn enemies of God who disdain His own discipline because in heaven only the will and glory of God reigns.

Jesus unites Himself to us in this Eucharist to share with us His own disciplined and obedient love of God so that we endure our trials as discipline. Let us look to Mary, the Queen of Martyrs and beg of her the grace to be more disciplined in this life. It is no mere coincidence that she is also called Seat of Wisdom because she learned a lot from what she too suffered. She learned to be obedient with Christ and like Christ to the Fathers’ will in all circumstances of our life. With her prayers and sure support along with Christ’s abiding presence, let us show to each other that discipline that alone brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to us and gives hope to others. In this way, we avoid the tragic consequences of indiscipline to ourselves and to others.

Glory to Jesus! Honor to Mary!

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Saturday, August 24, 2013

How narrow is the way of the Cross?

Scripture Speaks:The Wrong Question

The Joy of Discipline

One Bread, One Body

ARE YOU SAVED?