22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) - 3 September
3rd September 2023
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) - 3 September
“Man’s salvation and perfection consist in doing the Will of God, which he must have in view in all things and at every moment of his life. The more he accomplishes this Divine Will, the more perfect he will be.” - St Peter Claver
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"After promising that the gates of hell, or error, or evil would never conquer His Church, Our Lord made the first of the most open confessions of His coming death. He had already given many veiled hints concerning it; but the Apostles had been slow to recognise that the Messiah would suffer as Isaiah had foretold. They missed the full implication of what He said when He cleansed the temple, that He was the Temple of God, and that the Temple would be destroyed. They had missed His teaching about the serpent lifted up as a prophecy of how the Son of Man would be lifted up on the Cross. But now that the man whom He had chosen as the chief of His apostolic body had confessed His Divinity, He openly showed them that the way to glory both for Him and for them led to suffering and death.
"‘From that time onwards, Jesus began to make it known to His disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, and there, with much ill-usage from the chief priests and elders and scribes, must be put to death, and rise again on the third day’ (Matthew 16:21).
"Our Lord said nothing openly of His death while His Apostles believed Him only to be man; but once He was acknowledged to be God, He spoke openly of His death. This was in order that His death might be viewed in its proper light as a sacrifice for sins.
"Once more the mysterious ‘must’ which ruled His life appeared. It was a strong cable that bound Him and was made up of a warp and a woof; obedience to the Father on the one hand, and love of men on the other. Because He would save, He must die. The ‘must’ was not merely a death; for He immediately mentioned His Resurrection on the third day.
"An intrinsic connection existed between the affirmation of Christ’s Divinity and His death and Resurrection. At the very moment that Christ received the loftiest of all titles, and the confession was made of His exalted dignity, He prophesied His greatest humiliation. Both the human and the Divine natures of Christ were involved in this prediction, namely, that of the Son of Man Who appeared before them and the Son of the Living God Who had just been confessed.
"Peter puffed up with the authority that had been given him, took Our Lord aside and began rebuking Him saying: ‘Never, Lord, no such thing shall befall Thee.’ The Divinity of Christ, he would accept; the suffering Christ, he would not. The rock had become a stumbling stone; Peter would have a half Christ for the moment, the Divine Christ, but not the Redeemer Christ. But a half Christ was no Christ. He would have the Christ Whose glory was announced at Bethlehem, but not the full-orbed Christ, Who would be a sacrifice for sins on the Cross.
"Peter thought, if He was the Son of God, why should He suffer? Satan on the Mount of Temptation tempted Him from His Cross by promising popularity through giving bread, working scientific marvels, or becoming a Dictator. Satan did not confess the Divinity of Christ, since he prefaced each temptation with an “if”—“If Thou art the Son of God.” To the credit of Peter, he did confess Divinity. But along with this difference, there was this likeness: both Peter and Satan tempted Christ from His Cross and therefore from Redemption. Not to redeem was Satan’s mind; to have the crown without the Cross was Satan’s spirit. But, it was also Peter’s. Therefore, Our Lord called him Satan:
"‘Get behind Me, Satan; Thou art a stone in My path; For these thoughts of thine, are man’s, not God’s’ (Matthew 16:23).
"In an unguarded moment Peter had let Satan in his heart, thus becoming a stumbling stone on the road to Calvary. Peter thought it was unworthy of Christ to suffer; but to Our Lord such thoughts were human, carnal, and even Satanic. Only by Divine illumination did Peter or anyone else know Him to be the Son of God; but it took another Divine illumination for Peter or anyone else to know Him for the Redeemer. Peter would have kept Him a Teacher of humanitarian ethics—but so would Satan.
"That the Apostles had their eloquent spokesman in Peter, and that they were all equally shocked at their Master’s suffering, is evident from the fact that after personally rebuking Peter, He spoke to all of His disciples and bade even the multitude to heed His remarks. To all who would ever profess to be His followers He enumerated three conditions: ‘If any man would be my disciple, let him renounce self, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’
"The Cross was the reason of His coming; now He made it the earmark of His followers. He did not make Christianity easy; for He implied not only must there be a voluntary renouncement of everything that hindered likeness with Him, but also there must be the suffering, shame, and death of the Cross. They did not have to blaze a trail of sacrifice themselves, but merely to follow His tracks zealously as the Man of Sorrow. No disciple is called to the task that is untried. He had taken the Cross first. Only those who were willing to be crucified with Him could be saved by the merits of His death and only those who bore a Cross could ever really understand Him.
"There was no question of whether or not men would have sacrifice in their lives; it was only a question of which they would sacrifice, the higher or the lower life! If the physical, natural, and biological life was saved for pleasure, then the higher life of the spirit would be lost, but if the higher life of the spirit was chosen for salvation, then the lower or physical life had to be submitted to the Cross and self-discipline. There might be some natural virtues without a Cross, but there would never be a growth in virtue without it.
"Cross-bearing, He then explained, was based on exchange. Exchange implies something that one can get along without, and something one cannot get along without. A man can get along without a dime, but he cannot get along without the bread which the dime will buy; so he exchanges one for the other. Sacrifice does not mean ‘giving-up’ something, as if there were a loss; rather it is an exchange: an exchange of lower values for higher joys. But nothing in all the world is worth a soul.
"‘What good will it be for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’ (Matthew 16:26)."
(Life of Christ)
Prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola
Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve You as You deserve; to give, and not to count the cost; to fight, and not to heed the wounds; to toil, and not to seek for rest; to labour, and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do Your Will. Amen.
In Australia this Sunday we celebrate Father's Day. May God bless all fathers.
Prayer for Fathers
God our Father, through the intercession of St Joseph, foster father of Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, we give You thanks and praise for all fathers in the world. We pray for them so that they may find courage and perseverance to balance work, family, and faith in joy and sacrifice. We ask You for an ever-increasing faithful and generous love of fathers to their respective wives and children. May they be good examples of all heavenly virtues to their families. We pray for men, especially the priests and monks, who exercise their paternity in a spiritual way and guide others with fatherly concern and advice. We pray for those fathers, grandfathers, god fathers, and spiritual fathers who are no longer with us but who live forever in our memory and nourish us with their love. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 🙏💖💐
Food for thought
If the possession of eternal bliss is your aim, you must despise this present life. If you want to be exalted in heaven, humble yourself on earth. If you want to reign with Christ, bear the cross with Him; for none but the servants of the cross will find the way of blessedness and everlasting life. We have received the cross from His hand; let us bear it even unto death. Let us all take courage and go forward together; for Jesus indeed is with us. It is for His sake that we have taken this cross upon ourselves, and it is for His sake that we will persevere to the end. He will help us, for He has gone the way before us. Our King marches before us, and He will fight for us. Let us follow Him courageously, fearing no perils. Let us be ready to die for Him in battle; and let us not stain our honour by abandoning the way of the cross.