OT XXII [A] Jer 20:7-9; Rom 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27

In today’s Gospel Jesus shows his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. The Apostles could not accept it. To them the idea of a cross with the work of the Messiah was incredible. Hence Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, 'God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.' But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

Then Jesus announces the three conditions of Christian discipleship: “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Like Peter, the Church is often tempted to judge the success or failure of her ministry by the world’s standards. But Jesus teaches that worldly success is not always the Christian way.

Suffering is an integral part of our earthly life, but it is also our road to glory. There is no crown without a cross. Jeremiah, in the first reading, is a certainly a prototype of the suffering Christ.

St. Paul points out in the Second Reading that our self-giving of both our bodies and our minds needs to be complete. “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,” he says, and, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

It is not possible to live a comfortable life and then die and go to heaven. Only a life of sacrifice leads to heaven. A life of cozy religiosity is really a life of self-serving pride.

The Catechism teaches, “The way of perfection,” that is, the path leading to holiness, “passes by way of the Cross” “There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle”. (CCC 2015).

St. Paul wrote: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Rom 5:3-4).” Suffering is not the last thing in life. It leads us to something greater, as long as we are ready to accept its challenges. “A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn.”

In his apostolic letter entitled Salvifici Dolores, Pope St. John Paul II says: Suffering can be a punishment arising from the justice of God. It can also be a test, as it was with Job. And God can also permit suffering in order that it can serve as a seed for a greater good that will come because of it, holiness, or greatness. Our sufferings can also be joined with the sufferings of Christ for our salvation, or for that of others, not because Christ’s suffering are not enough, but because Christ has left his sufferings open to love so that the bitter sufferings of man mingled, with this love, may turn into a sweet spring which shall overflow into eternity. Therefore human suffering can merit great value.

This helps explain why euthanasia is so wrong. Euthanasia is also sometimes called mercy-killing, or dying with dignity.

The Catechism makes very clear that it is always an evil act: "Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable" (#2277).

The Catechism also makes clear that "Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of ‘over-zealous' treatment.

"Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted" (#2278).

In some situations, drawing the line between normal and over-zealous treatment is difficult. At those times, we need to get good advice, pray, and trust that God will guide us. But the main point is clear: suffering, even terrible suffering, does not take away the value or dignity of a human life.

Suffering is part of life in a fallen world. God allows it and uses it to teach us wisdom, compassion, patience, humility, and many other things, and to let us participate in his cross. It's different for animals. They are not created in the image and likeness of God. They are not able to know, love, and praise God in this life and enjoy him forever in the next. That's why it’s perfectly acceptable to put an animal to death when its physical condition has made its life useless or unbearable. A human life is never useless, and Christ has made sure that, united to him by faith, no amount of pain will ever become unbearable.

Jesus asserts emphatically, “whoever wishes to keep his life safe, will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it. The man who plays for safety loses life. If we meet life in the constant search for safety, security, ease and comfort we are losing all that makes life worthwhile.

There is a powerful scene in the movie Schindler’s List. In the beginning of the story, a Czech businessman named Oskar Schindler builds a factory in occupied Poland using Jewish labor because, in those tragic days at the start of World War II, Jewish labor was cheap. As the war progresses, however, he learns what is happening to the Jews under Adolph Hitler, Schindler’s motivations switch from profit to sympathy. He uses his factory as a refuge for Jews to protect them from the Nazis. As a result of his efforts, more than 1,100 Jews were saved from death in the gas chambers. You would think that Oskar Schindler would have felt quite pleased with himself, but at the end of the war Schindler stands in the midst of some of the Jews he has saved, breaks down in tears, takes off his gold ring and says, “My God, I could have bought back two more people [with this ring]. These shoes? One more person. My coat? Two more people. These cufflinks? Three more people.” There he stands, not gloating but weeping with regret that he has not done more. I wonder if one day you and I, as followers of Christ, will ask ourselves, “Could I have done more? Have I truly borne the cross of Christ?” That is the first question on today’s test: is our Faith sacrificial? Is it costing us something?

Shall we remind ourselves everyday with this verse from today’s scripture: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 

 

 

XXI-A-Is. 22:15, 19-23; Rom. 11:33-36; Mt. 16:13-20

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus confronts his disciples with a very difficult question: the opinion of people about him, and their personal opinion about him. It was the time the orthodox Jews were actually plotting to destroy him as a dangerous heretic.

When the people identified Jesus with Elijah and Jeremiah they were paying him a great compliment and setting him in a high place. Then came, the most important question, “Who do you say I am?” With this question Jesus reminds us that our knowledge of Jesus must never be at second hand. A man might know every verdict ever passed on Jesus; he might know all the Christology; he might know every teaching about Jesus; he might by-heart every commentary on the teaching of Jesus; he might analyze the historical background of every utterance of Jesus. But Christianity never consists in knowing about Jesus; it always consists in knowing Jesus. Jesus demands a personal verdict from every Christian. “Who do you say I am?”

Speaking about one’s response to Christ, C. S.Lewis said, “I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic, on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.” — If we accept Jesus as a moral teacher, then we must necessarily accept Him as God, for great moral teachers do not tell lies. Jesus is not merely the founder of a new religion, or a revolutionary Jewish reformer, or one of the great teachers. For Christians, he is the Son of God and our personal Savior.

When this question was addressed to Peter, his answer was, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” We do not know what was the idea of Peter about Jesus. He might have conceived Jesus as the son of God who came to abolish the rule of the Roman Empire and restore the Kingdom. Or he might have conceived him as spiritual reformer; but the experience of Peter made him a different man. On the day of Pentecost, this ignorant fisherman addressed multitudes who spoke different languages, but they heard him in their language. He stood before the rulers and authorities and declared his loyalty to his master; he accepted imprisonment for the sake of his master; and finally he embraced death on the cross.

For the last 20 centuries this question has been repeatedly addressed to a number of Christians; and their lives depended on the answer they found for this question. During the first three centuries, the Church boasts about eleven million martyrs who fertilized the tree of faith with their blood. The martyrs are the most intriguing and most beloved saints of Christianity.

Neomartyr Michael Paknanas was less than twenty years old, and he worked as a gardener in Athens in the 1800s. The Turks, who enslaved Greece at the time, were trying to convince him to give up his faith. When flattery and wealth failed to persuade him, they put to use some of their more convincing standard missionary work by torturing the teenager. When all the tortures proved to be futile, the executioner was preparing to behead the young man, but at the same time he was feeling some compassion for him. So he began cutting his neck slowly with the sword by administering very light blows, while asking the martyr to reconsider. The martyr's response? "I told you, I am a Christian. I refuse to give up my faith." The ax-man struck with another light blow to make some more blood flow, to possibly convince him. The martyr repeated, "I told you, I am a Christian. Strike with all your might, for the faith of Christ." This totally aggravated the executioner. He did exactly that, and St. Michael was sent to the heavenly mansions.

These are the people who understood who Jesus is. And what is his place in their lives. The four Gospels are filled with demands straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ. These demands are Jesus' way of showing us who he is and what he expects of us. He expects an answer from each one of us, “Who is Jesus for us?”

The knowledge of Jesus as Lord and personal Savior should become a living, personal experience for each Christian. This is made possible by our listening to Jesus through the daily, meditative reading of the Bible, by our talking to Jesus through daily, personal and communal prayers, by offering our lives on the altar with Jesus whenever we attend Holy Mass, and by our leading a Sacramental life. The next step is the surrender of our lives to Jesus by rendering humble and loving service to Him in Himself and in all others, with the strong conviction that Jesus is present in every person. The step after that is to praise and thank God in all the events of our lives, both pleasant and painful, realizing that God’s loving hands are behind everything. May this Holy Mass help us to recognize Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer and lead us to exclaim like Thomas, My Lord and My God.

 

OT XX [A] Is 56:1, 6-7; Rom 11:13-15, 29-32; Mt 15:21-28 

During the World War II, a small group of soldiers were on a special mission. Their good buddy had died of wounds he suffered during the war. They wanted to bury their friend in a proper grave. They wandered through the countryside until they came to a little village. They found a Church with a small graveyard. The cemetery was surrounded by a white picket fence. The young men found the parish priest and asked if the soldier could be buried in the Church cemetery. The priest expressed his sympathy and asked if the soldier was a Catholic. They said he wasn’t. The priest said he was sorry, but the graveyard was reserved for the members of the Holy Church. He told the young men that they could bury their friend right outside the fence and that he would personally care for the grave. The soldiers were very grateful to the priest and they buried their friend right outside the cemetery on the other side of the fence. Finally, the war was over. The soldiers returned home. One year, at their reunion, they made plans to visit the graveside of their friend. The village hasn’t changed much through the years, and they easily found the Church but couldn’t find the grave of their friend. The priest recognized the former soldiers and went out to greet them. They told him that they could not find their friend’s grave. The priest explained that it just didn’t seem right that the soldier was buried outside of the fence. “So, you moved the grave?” asked the loyal friends. “No,” said the priest, “I moved the fence.”

Each of today’s Scripture Readings speaks of the universal nature of God’s salvation. It is not limited to the Jews only, His chosen people, but also extends to the Gentiles and foreigners. God is the God of all nations and He moves the fence to include all people.

 

All three readings today speak of the expansive and universal nature of the “Kingdom of God,” in contrast with the protocol of the day which demanded that salvation should come first to the Jews and through them alone to all the people of the earth. Although God set the Hebrew people apart as His chosen race, He included all nations in His plan for salvation and blessed all families of the earth in Abraham (Gn 12:1-3). By declaring through the prophet Isaiah (the first reading), “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” God reveals the truth that in His eyes there is no distinction among human beings on the basis of race, caste, or color.  Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 67) rejects all types of religious exclusivity: “Let all the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You.  For You judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth, so that Your saving power may be known among all the nations.” 

Among all the religions only Christianity has the characteristic proper to a universal religion. Hindu Scriptures, for instance were revealed for the people of India where Caste system prevailed and were written in Sanskrit. When translated those books lose their holy status. Quran, for instance was written in Arabic and revealed for the people of Arabia. If translated, that is not a Holy Quran any longer. Most of the content of Quran has no universal nature. Its content is mostly about how Muhammad’s wives should treat him and how many wives Muhammad was allowed to have as opposed to other Muslims. The prayers addressed to Allah have to be said in Arabic because Allah understands only Arabic and he spoke only in Arabic.  But the Bible was primarily written in Hebrew and Greek. Jesus spoke Aramaic but the new testaments were written in Greek. And all the bible translations are considered just as Holy as the Original Manuscript. Because it is intended, as said in the readings of today is for all the people of the world.

The Gospels describe only two miraculous healings Jesus performed for Gentiles:  the healing of the centurion’s servant (Mt 8:10-12) in Capernaum, and the healing of the daughter of the Canaanite woman which we hear today. By granting the persistent request of the pagan woman, Jesus demonstrates that his mission is to break down the barriers and to remove the long-standing walls of division and mutual prejudice between the Jews and the Gentiles. God does not discriminate but welcomes all who believe in Him, who ask for His mercy and who try to do His will.

 

God is always at work trying to draw each person into His friendship, or to deepen that friendship where it already exists. One of the most important ways God does that is through inviting us to be partners with His Providence, to take part in this saving mission.

Just as we share and collaborate in the concerns and projects of our human friends, so too the mature Christian, because he loves Christ and is living the life of grace, accepts God's invitation to collaborate in building up Christ's Kingdom, in helping  others discover and experience the Gospel, starting with family members, friends, and colleagues.

As Christians, this is our most important work, our life-mission, because as Christians, friendship with Christ is our most important relationship. Unfortunately, because the results of this activity - telling others about Christ, trying to build up the Church and Christianize culture - are not always immediate, we tend to push this responsibility to the back burner. Today Jesus is asking us to bring it to the front and turn up the heat.

Many of our neighbors are in desperate need of the mercy, truth, and grace of God - just like the little girl in today's Gospel. Our job is to connect those needy souls to Christ just as the Canaanite woman did, through our prayers, through our example of Christian living, and through our concrete actions.

But first we have to reconnect ourselves to Christ - so let's pray from the heart during the rest of this holy Mass, and ask God to give us courage and a renewed awareness of our true life-mission of sharing God’s saving love to others.

 

 

 

 

OT XIX [A] 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Rom 9:1-5; Mt 14:22-33

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was the first author to alert the West to the horrible realities he had experienced in Stalin’s labor camps. Solzhenitsyn said that during his long imprisonment in a labor camp in the Soviet Union he became so discouraged that he thought about suicide once. He was outdoors, on a work detail, and he had reached a point where he no longer cared whether he lived or died. When he had a break, he sat down, and a stranger sat beside him, someone he had never seen before and would never see again. For no apparent reason, this stranger took a stick and drew a cross on the ground. Solzhenitsyn sat and stared at that cross for a long while. He later wrote, “Staring at that cross, I realized that therein lies freedom.” At that point – in the midst of a storm – he received new courage and the will to live. The storm didn’t end that day, but through Jesus, Solzhenitsyn found the strength to ride it out.

 

I don’t know what storm of life will come our way this week, or what storm we may be enduring at this very moment. But I know this: even as the storm rages around us, if we will listen very carefully with our heart, we will hear a gentle voice calling to us, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

 

Jesus’ walking on the water follows the miraculous feeding in Matthew, Mark, and John. However, the account of Peter’s walking on the water is found only in Matthew. Peter represents all who dare to believe that Jesus is Savior, take their first steps in confidence that Jesus is able to sustain them, and then forget to keep their gaze fixed on him when they face storms of temptations. From the depth of crisis, however, they remember to call on the Savior, and they experience the total sufficiency of his grace to meet their needs. It is this type of “little Faith” of Peter which Jesus later identifies as the rock on which he will build his Church. The only Faith Jesus expects of his followers is a Faith which concentrates solely on Him. With His grace, we have to raise our awareness of God’s presence in our lives. As we become more aware, we will step out and proclaim that presence, even in surprising places.

 

The recounting of this episode probably brought great comfort to the early Christians, especially those of Matthew’s Faith community. For, it offered them the assurance that Christ would save them even if they had to die for their Faith in him, and that, even in the midst of persecution, they need not fear because Jesus was present with them. The episode offers the same reassurance to us in times of illness, death, persecution, or other troubles. It teaches us that adversity is not a sign of God’s displeasure, nor prosperity a sign of His pleasure, that illness is not a sign of inadequate Faith, nor health a sign of great Faith. Paradoxically, the storms of life can be a means of blessing. When things are going badly, our hearts are more receptive to Jesus. A broken heart is often a door through which Christ can find entry. He still comes to us in the midst of our troubles, saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 

 

We need to call Jesus in the storms facing the Church and our lives. Let us approach Jesus with strong Faith in his ability and willing availability to calm the storms in the life of the Church and in our lives. It is the presence of Jesus which gives us peace even in the wildest storms of life: the storms of anxiety and worries about the future we are suffering now in the ongoing Corona Virus Pandemic (Corvid-19), storms of sorrow, storms of doubt, tension and uncertainty, storms of anxiety and worries, storms of anger and despair, storms of temptations. Storms reveal to us our inability to save ourselves and point us to the infinite ability and eagerness of God to save us. When Jesus shows up in our life’s storms, we find that we gain strength to do the seemingly impossible. Storms let us know that without him we can do nothing, without him we are doomed to fail. Yet, when Jesus shows up, we gain the strength to join Paul, saying, “In Christ I can do all things.” But this demands a personal relationship with God, with Jesus, enhanced through prayer, meditative study of Scripture and an active Sacramental life.

 

We are expected to pray to God every day with trusting Faith for the strengthening of our personal relationship with Him and for the courage and humility to acknowledge our complete dependence on Him for everything. But when we have no time or mental energy for formal prayers, let us use the short prayers in the Gospels, like Peter’s prayer: “Lord, save me!” or the prayer of the mother of the possessed girl: “Lord, help me!” or the blind man’s prayer: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” or the sinner’s prayer: “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!” We get plenty of time during our travels to say the short prayers like the “Our Father”, “Hail Mary” and “Glory be….”  Of course we need to get the habit of doing it to take easy recourse to prayer otherwise we will blame everything on circumstances or fate.  Let’s turn to Jesus in prayer now and ask him to help us to remain in his presence always and be a praying person trusting in God.

OT XVIII [A] Is 55:1-3; Rom 8:35, 37-39; Mt 14:13-21

 

When Jesus heard about the assassination of John the Baptist, He withdrew to a lonely place. He must have been emotionally disturbed and wanted to be alone.

The death of St John the Baptist moves Jesus deeply for three reasons.

First, they had been cousins - there was the bond of family between them.

Second, they had both received a special mission in the history of salvation - so there was the deep common bond of dedication to God's Kingdom. And John baptized Jesus.

And thirdly, John's death marked the beginning of a new stage in Christ's mission - the Messenger's job was done, the King's job was starting.

And so, with a sorrowful heart and a lot on his mind, Jesus goes away to be alone, to have time to reflect and pray at this crucial, painful moment.

But when Jesus arrived, did he find the solitude he was looking for? Far from it. A crowd of 5,000 waited for him, people who were there not to comfort him in his anguish, nor to mourn with him, but rather, to ask him to attend to their personal needs, to cure them, and to hear him speak. What did Jesus do? “His heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.”

He puts his own loneliness and preoccupations aside, sits down, and gives audience to the throngs - comforting, healing, teaching, and listening...

And when it seems he can do no more, when his disciples are totally worn out, he miraculously multiplies the loaves and fish.

 

The disciples tell Jesus to send them away, but Jesus challenges them, “YOU give them something to eat.”

Four years ago, young Matthew LeSage, a third-grader, wanted to do something to help the hungry in his city. So, he started a program, Hams for the Hungry. This year, in its fourth year, Hams for the Hungry will raise $40,000 to brighten the holiday season for people with limited resources. Another young man, 13 years old read about Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s missionary work in Africa. He wanted to help. He had enough money to buy one bottle of aspirin. He wrote to the Air Force and asked if they could fly over Dr. Schweitzer’s hospital and drop the bottle down to him. A radio station broadcast the story about this young fellow’s concern for helping others. Others responded as well. Eventually, he was flown by the government to Schweitzer’s hospital along with 4 1/2 tons of medical supplies worth $400,000 freely given by thousands of people. This, of course, would be the equivalent of millions of dollars today. When Dr. Schweitzer heard the story, he said, “I never thought one child could do so much.”

As Christians we have to commit ourselves to share and to work with God in communicating His compassion to all. God is a caring Father, but He wants our co-operation. That’s what the early Christians did, generously sharing what they had with the needy. They were convinced that everything they needed to experience a fulfilling life was already there, in the gifts and talents of the people around them.

 

Jesus makes us aware that our resources are woefully inadequate to meet the need, but we are to bring what resources we have to Jesus. We place them in his hands to do what he wishes with them, and in the process, release control to him. He in turn blesses them and places them back in our hands, multiplied, more powerful than we could have imagined.

At the end of the miracle there is that strange little touch that the fragments were gathered up. Even when a miracle could feed men sumptuously there was no waste.

Modern man is guilty of wastage of food, while one third of the world goes hungry. According to statistics we throw away 8.3 million tons of food and drink a year. We can see there is food wastage everyday at messes, hotels, restaurants, and even in homes. God gives to men with munificence, but a wasteful extravagance is never right. God’s generous giving and our wise using must go hand in hand. “Live simply, so that others may simply live.” (Mother Teresa).

 

Jesus gave the blessed bread in the hands of the Apostles and they were not to keep them for themselves but pass them on to the hungry people. God gives us things in our hands and they are not meant merely for us, to be kept in our closet. Let’s realize our responsibility to be mediators between God and the needy people around us. Let’s ask the Lord for the grace to be generous and He is generous with us.