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The Focus of Ministry is God

Writer's picture: Immersed in ChristImmersed in Christ

Sunday, July 9, 2023

by Fr. David M. Knight


View readings for Sunday, Week 14 Ordinary Time (A1): https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings LECTIONARY 100 (Zec 9: 9-10; Ps 145: 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14; Rom 8: 9, 11-13; Mt 11: 25-30) Inventory: If you had to use one adjective to describe God, what would it be? What tells you God is like this? How have you experienced God being like this to yourself?

Input: The Entrance Antiphon celebrates God’s “loving kindness” — because of which God’s “praise reaches to the ends of the earth.” In the Opening Prayer, God’s kindness is recognized in the “obedience of Jesus,” through whose death and resurrection God “raised a fallen world.” Based on this we look to God as the one who will “free us from sin and bring us the joy that lasts for ever.” It is not surprising that the Responsorial (Psalm 145) proclaims: “I will praise your name forever, my king and my God!” Prince of Peace Zechariah 9: 9-10 holds up before us the vision of a world in which war and the instruments of war which give such a sense of power to weak human beings will be no more: God will “banish the chariot... and the war horse... the warrior’s bow... and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.” Only God will rule: “His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” He will do this through his chosen one, the Messiah whom we now know to be Jesus. And he will do it without earthly power and violence: “Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you... meek and riding on an ass,” the mount of those who come in peace, not on a horse, the warrior’s pride. The Church sees this prophecy fulfilled when Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph to die, and God “through the obedience of Jesus, [his] servant and [his] Son, raised a fallen world.” This is the God of “loving kindness,” who evokes from us the cry, “I will praise your name forever, my king and my God!” For he is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works” (continuation of Psalm 145). This is the spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Christ Romans 8: 9-13 tells us this is the spirit that must be in our hearts: “Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” This is the Spirit of “the one who raised Jesus from the dead,” and this same Spirit will raise us above the attitudes and values of “the flesh” — the destructive assumptions and practices taken for granted in human cultures and societies. Paul writes, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” In this he is echoing Jesus: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” This is the ultimate refutation of those who espouse the violence of war. But it also applies to all of our day-by-day aggressive and defensive behavior motivated by fear, obsession with security or addiction to power — all not in harmony with the “loving kindness” of God. “Come to me…” In Matthew 11: 25-30 Jesus gives his own echo of the Responsorial Psalm: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.” Small children are spontaneously shocked when anyone is slapped, hit or even yelled at. At least they are until they become “wise and learned” in the ways of human society. The “street wise” in our culture — whether the street be Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue or a back alley in the Bronx — quickly adapt to the ways of this world. Then the way of the Spirit is “hidden” from them. They do not have the “loving kindness” of God because they do not know the Father or the Son: Jesus said, “Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think… they are offering worship to God... because they have not known the Father or me.”1 The way to the Father is through union with the heart of Christ: No one knows the... Father except the Son -- and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him…. Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. We “know God” by “letting the same mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus”; that is, by letting the Spirit conform our hearts to the gentle, nonviolent, peacemaking, unifying spirit of Christ’s heart. This is the key to holiness. The key to ministry. The key to Christianity. 2 The way of the priest is love. Jesus was Priest by being Victim. We can only be “priests in the Priest” by offering ourselves as victims in him. That is why, in every Eucharistic Prayer we say together with Christ lifted up in the first elevation: “This is my body, given up for you.” Given up for every member of the human race, to all to whom we have pledged our flesh in ministry. It is Christ’s own sacrificial love, revealed in our ministering bodies, that leads the world to respond, “I will praise your name forever, my king and my God!”

Insight: Have you experienced God’s “loving kindness”? Is this what draws you to him? Initiative: Try to detect how your milieu — at school, at work, in politics, even in family and social life — inclines you to achieve power and control through violence — of thought, word and action. Respond by looking at the heart of Christ. 1 John 16: 2-3. 2 Philippians 2:5-9; John 13:1-12, 14:15-26, 15: 9-15.



Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

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