FEBRUARY 22-23, 2019
4:30 PM (SAT), 9:00 AM, 5:30 PM ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
He was canonized four months and one week ago. Elected to the See of Peter midstream during the Second Vatican Council, and died 15 years later.
Roughly halfway through his pontificate, Pope Saint Paul VI (the sixth) commented:
We would say that, through some mysterious crack—no, it’s not mysterious; through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God.
Many commentators have attempted to interpret what this means. Yet Paul VI (the sixth) himself goes on to tell us:
There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation.
And then says:
The Church is no longer trusted.
He said that nearly 47 years ago.
Funny, it sounds pretty “contemporary,” don’t you think? In fact, it sounds like things that have been written in the past week from many secular media outlets, and quite a few Church sources as well.
There’s a word for that … prophetic. That is, when something uttered nearly half a century ago sounds like it was meant for today … it is more than just “here we go again,” … it can with some certainty be taken as prophetic.
Today is the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Our readings deal with conflict and division … and how to act in the midst of conflict and division.
In the first reading, from First Kings chapter 26, David is fleeing from King Saul. But while running away from Saul, David finds himself in the middle of Saul’s camp.
Yet two chapters before, David is in a similar situation. In this first episode, David is hiding in a cave that Saul uses as a latrine. Indisposed, and perhaps in a hurry, Saul fails to notice that David is hiding in the same cave he’s using for … doing his business.
They are in such close quarters that David cuts off part of Saul’s cloak.
In today’s reading, David takes Saul’s spear and water jar from his tent.
What’s going on?
Twice, David’s adversary King Saul is delivered into his power. The first time, Saul is indisposed. The second, he is sleeping.
The answer, spoken by David at the end of today’s pericope is:
Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp,I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.
I would say that this is sort of a human flip-side of Deuteronomy 32:35
Vengeance is mine [says the Lord.]
David is being tested. How much does he trust God?
In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians he is speaking about the Resurrection. In this discussion, Paul compares the natural with the supernatural – or as we hear in today’s reading natural or earthly … and spiritual or heavenly.
Indeed, then as now, Christians were struggling with living “in the world, but not of the world.” In Paul’s time, the struggle was to be a Christian in a pagan world; while in our own time, the struggle is to be a Christian in a secular world.
We, too, are being tested. How much do we trust God?
In Luke’s Gospel, we hear the continuation of the Sermon on the Mount. This teaching moment of Christ to, not only His disciples, but also to a great multitude, is often reduced to “Don’t judge.” Yet the entirety of Our Lord’s sermon is that we are called to exceed what is considered “normative” in polite company. In living out our Christian call, Christ demands of us that we go above and beyond what is “nice” … and in exceeding the “normative” … we are to become “trans-formative.”
This requires a greater measure of virtue than the overly simplistic admonition to “don’t judge.”
This requires that we become the change we wish to see in the world.
And so, in the midst of “doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation”, we must persevere in Faith, Hope, and Love. Going beyond problems, we must become the solution. In the midst of unrest, dissatisfaction and confrontation, we must become peace makers.
Not of our own making. But rather in union with Christ Jesus – the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ … let us pray for a deeper outpouring of God’s grace that we may aspire to greater things – so that transformed through, with, and in Christ – we can clear the air and dispel the smoke that seeks to steal the inheritance which is ours in Christ. The Church is the people of God. Let us place our hope in God, and our trust in the promises of Christ Jesus, Our Lord.
