Contrasts
by Fr. David M. Knight
July 13, 2024
Saturday of the Fourteenth Week of the Year
Saint Henry; BVM
Lectionary 388
Is 6:1-8/Mt 10:24-33
The two readings are a contrast between difference and likeness, distance and closeness, between us and God.
Isaiah 6:1-8 presents God in the awesome majesty that ends every Preface at Mass: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!” At the sound of that cry, “the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.”
Isaiah, conscious of the gulf of difference between himself and God, said, “Woe is me; I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips... yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” The Jews believed, as we all would, if we thought about it, that no one can “see God and live.” God’s answer was to purify Isaiah’s lips (and heart) and to send him—a human—to speak the words of God!
In Matthew 10:24-33 Jesus is speaking in a context of his majesty as God. He gives his apostles “authority” and divine power over “unclean spirits,” to “heal and cure.” Those who do not listen to them will answer for it on the “day of judgment.” The Spirit of the Father will be speaking through them. They should “not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The value of their whole existence depends on whether, at the end, Jesus will “acknowledge” or “disown” them before his “Father in heaven.” (See verses 1, 8, 15, 20, 28, 29, 32-33.)
But the point of the whole passage is that, more than Isaiah, they are sent, not only to speak with the words of God, but to speak as Christ himself. He says the “Father” whose Spirit will be speaking through them is “your Father.” The One that Jesus, as the “only Son of the Father” calls twice “my Father” he calls twice “your Father” when speaking to those he sends. All who are baptized “into Christ” have “become Christ.” Difference has become identification, distance indwelling. (See John 1:18; 3:16-18; 1John 4:9; Hebrews 11:17; Matthew 11:25-27; Romans 6:3; 1Corinthians 10:2; 12:13; Galatians 3:27; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 792-798.)
This is the mystery of ministry: It is “no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us,” Christ who is our “energy” and power, Christ who “accomplishes in us” anything we are able to achieve. (See Galatians 2:20; 2Corinthians 12:5-10; 13:3; John 14:12; 15:15; Colossians 1:27; Romans 15:17-18.)
This says the secret of ministry is surrender. We do what we are sent to do when we say, “Thy will be done.” We “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” to let Christ express himself in and through our human words and acts. (See Romans 12:1-2.)
Initiative: Use the WIT prayer: “Lord, do this with me, in me, through me.”
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
Comments