Memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot

The Responsorial Psalm proclaims: “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord” (Psalm 39). We need to remember this when our well-being seems to depend on or be threatened by what others do to us. 

Genesis 46: 1-30 shows us how God works in and through human history, including human sins, to realize and reveal his own designs. He used the sin against Joseph to move Israel to Egypt, which eventually led to the great event of the Exodus, which became the reference point for all subsequent Jewish life and history. But at the time this telling speaks of, no one involved had any inkling of this.  

Israel (Jacob) wanted to see his son alive and well before he died. This, in St. Augustine’s definition, is love: to want another to esse et bene esse: to “be and be well.” And we might translate “be well” as “be everything one can be.” If this is what our love for others is, then we have the same desire for them that Jesus came to earth to fulfill: “I came that they might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10 NAB 1970). 

This is the goal of all Christian ministry: to help others live their lives to the full. We know that for humans, the fullness of life is found only in living by grace, which is the favor of sharing in the divine life of God. Life on the merely hu 

man level, even when “fully human,” is diminished life. “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.” We are called and gifted to live on the level of God. Ministry aims at facilitating this. 

Matthew 10: 16-23 warns us that people resist being urged out of their orbit. They will accept and reward ministers who communicate only what people want to hear, the “good news” of the human satisfactions to be found in religion, the blessings of prosperity, success, peace of mind, and protection that popular evangelists claim God will give to those who profess belief in him. People will even affirm ministers who condemn sin, so long as these are the obvious sins against human reason and decency, such as drunkenness and debauchery, adultery, and abortion. But they will turn on those who urge them to go beyond the human and live by the ideals of God, to take seriously the principles Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount and call into question our society’s acceptance of violence (5:38-46), affluence (6:19-34), social inequality (5:42), knee-jerk litigation (5: 22-25), media manipulation and spin (5:37). They resist change in the Church, preferring the security of law-observance to the risk of renewal and prophetic witness (5:16, 20) — all because they don’t really believe “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.” 

Initiative: Be a priest. Be conscious of grace. Live and minister on its level. 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #387, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.