May God grant us, in today’s Eucharistic celebration, the insight to see Christ not as a spiritual messiah but as the suffering one, who came to save mankind through the loving sacrifice of himself during his passion. May God grant us also, the grace to be his true disciples by taking up our own crosses and following him.
Happy Sunday!
DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Jeremiah 20,7-9; Romans 12 1-2; Matt 16, 21-27: 22nd Sunday of the Year, August 30, 2020)
This Sunday, the Gospel presents us with Jesus’ first prediction of his Passion. Immediately after the confession of Peter, who proclaimed him the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus begins to announce his Passion. Peter opposes this perspective. Parallel to this tension between Jesus and Peter, the first reading presents us with a conflict, an interior tension in Jeremiah’s soul. The second reading is the beginning of Paul's great exhortations in the Letter to the Romans, with the invitation to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, in order to live fully in union with the passion of Jesus.
Jeremiah finds himself in a much tensed situation, which he narrates in some passages of his book called the confessions of Jeremiah. The prophet complains to God: You seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced. Then he says that he has become an object of mockery every day; that everyone makes fun of him, because his prophecies always announce misfortune, violence and oppression. So people don't want to hear him talk anymore. Jeremiah would like to get out of this situation of interior tension. But this is not possible, because the word of God, the prophetic inspiration, is in his heart like a burning fire that he cannot contain.
The Gospel passage partially corresponds to Jeremiah’s situation, which shows that Jesus is moving towards his passion. He never complains of this fate; indeed, in a Gospel passage he expresses his desire to face the decisive struggle against evil (cf. Luke 12,50). But Peter is against this perspective. Shortly before, he declared with great enthusiasm the messianic and divine dignity of Jesus and was full of the vision of Jesus’ messianic glory. But now, the announcement of the passion that Jesus makes openly finds strong resistance in him, because this perspective is opposed to his ideas: for this would mean that instead of glory, there is humiliation; instead of success and victory, there are defeat and death. It is true that Jesus also announces his resurrection, but Peter does not accept this path towards the resurrection. Thus he begins to protest and to say to Jesus: God save you, Lord; this will never happen to you. Peter does not accept the passion of Jesus; he wants the glory of Jesus, but without going through defeat and pain. Jesus, in his own part, is determined to go on; he does not want to withdraw from God's will, because he knows that it is a will full of love, which has a positive meaning. Passion is necessary, because without a fight there can be no victory. He must face evil, sin and death, to establish a way through these realities of human existence: a way that is ultimately triumphal. He then reproaches Peter: You are like a scandal to me, because you don't think according to God, but according to men. Jesus then gives a teaching valid for all: to be his disciples, one must deny oneself, take up one's cross and follow him. This is the necessary way for the disciple of Jesus. Every Christian must face evil, sin and death in order to follow Jesus in the path that he has traced. This is the surest way to victory, therefore a positive way, even if human nature is opposed to it and would like to go through another way, avoiding these terrible demands. Jesus explains that whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of him will find it. It is an absolute necessity. We are made for the fullness of life and happiness. In each of us there is an irrepressible impulse towards happiness, the fullness of life and glory. But we cannot reach them if we seek them directly. We are made above all to love. God, who is love, created us to make us partakers of his love. So our orientation must be to progress in love and to offer our life for the love of Jesus. The Lord says: Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. If we seek our happiness directly, we remain in selfishness, and, therefore, we cannot reach the fullness of life; we remain in a bankruptcy situation. But if we overcome our selfishness, thanks to the acceptance of the love that comes from God and practice self-denial with a positive impulse towards love, then we will truly reach the fullness of life. The Gospel is full of these seemingly contradictory demands: to save one's life, one must lose it; to reach glory, to be exalted, one must humble oneself. The key to all this is always the same: love, do not think about yourself, do not seek your own interest, your glory, your happiness, but try to live united with Christ in love. In this way the highest goal is reached, obviously at the cost of great renunciations, of a radical renunciation of oneself. It is necessary to deny the impulse towards happiness and glory, which wants to be satisfied directly, and instead follow the path that leads, surely, to that fullness of life that is so desired.
Paul's teaching in the Letter to the Romans goes in the same direction. He says: Brothers, I urge you, by the mercy of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. We must not seek our happiness, but offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. This means to place ourselves at the service of justice, holiness and love of God. This is the meaning of Christian sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice is a positive reality: it means welcoming into one's life, and also into one's death, the love that comes from God, to be transformed into an offering that rises to God and is pleasing to him. To do this, we must renounce the mentality of this century, in this bad world. We must not accept the mentality of the world, which is that of the search for pleasure, money and power. All of these are selfish pursuits. We must renounce the mentality of this world and transform ourselves, renewing our minds, in order to be able to discern the will of God, what is good and what pleases him. God's will, in fact, is that we live in love, not in selfishness. Every progress in love gives us profound, true and divine joy. God is love, his joy is that of loving, and his glory is that of giving himself with absolute generosity. Let us, therefore, in today’s Eucharistic celebration welcome and incorporate in our lives Christ’s perspective of showing love in suffering and in generous sacrifice as a sign of our discipleship to him. +John I. Okoye
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