Four on One Ministry
by Fr. David M. Knight
August 7, 2024
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Saint Sixtus II, Pope, and Companions, Martyrs; Saint Cajetan, Priest
Lectionary 409
Jer 31:1-7/Mt 15:21-28
Jeremiah 31:1-7 tells us Christian ministry is never just one-on-one. Or, since Jesus is acting in us, two-on-one. Or, if we get really theological, since the whole Trinity lives and acts in us, four-on-one! Our ministry always has as its goal what God said to Jeremiah: “I will be the God of all the tribes of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Everything we do as ministers we do “for the praise and glory of God’s name, for our good [and that of the person we are dealing with] and the good of all his holy Church.” Christianity is communal.
The gifts he gave were... to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (See Ephesians 4:11:13. And see the assembly’s response after the Presentation of Gifts at Mass. If we get really, really theological, all Christians act in any Christian who ministers. We are all one body.)
Ministry is most effective “in the desert.” God says, “The people... have found favor in the desert.” This refers to “the first desert wandering of Israel (Exodus 16-18), in which the people found the Lord.” People are more receptive to ministry when they are less absorbed in our cultural “city,” where we are “worried and distracted by many things.” Ministry either meets people in the openness of their awareness of God, or brings them into that awareness. In some ways all ministry is a “desert experience.” Ministry alerts us to the “voices that cry in the desert.” (See Luke 10:39-42 and New American Bible Revised Edition notes on this reading.
Often it takes prayer or pain to keep God’s voice from being drowned out by all the other voices around us. Ministry should always be present to pain. And it should come out of and lead into prayer. God is the environment of ministry.
In Matthew 15:21-28 Jesus deliberately assumed the narrowness common to people who identify their religion with, and restrict it to, their culture. He rejects the plea of a non-Jewish woman in a way that is objectively rude: “My mission is only to... the house of Israel.” Even his disciples were embarrassed. But Jesus was preparing them.
There would be great, even violent resistance when Christians admitted Gentiles into the Church without requiring them to adopt Jewish culture. Paul fought this, and suffered from it, all his life. Eventually it brought on his death. People just can’t see that religion is not identified with the cultural expression of it they are used to. We saw this in resistance to the changes inspired by Vatican II. We see it now in the “restorationism” movement trying to reverse them. Culture dies hard! (See Acts, chapters 10 and 15. Acts 21:27 to 22:22 tells what got Paul arrested and sent to Rome to die.)
Initiative: Be a “catholic” Catholic. Hear every voice that is God’s voice.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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