Year B, August 22, 2021

 

May we at this Eucharistic celebration, be bestowed with the grace to decide with Joshua to serve God instead of false gods/idols and to follow the apostle Peter in continuing staying with Jesus for the rest of our lives.

DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Joshua 24, 1-2a.15-17.18b; Ephesians 5,21-32; John 6, 60-69:John 6, 60-69: Year B, August 22, 2021

Today, the Gospel presents the end of chapter 6 of John to us, that is, the last part of the dialogue that follows Jesus' discourse on the Bread of Life. The conclusion of the discourse seems disappointing, as many disciples do not accept it and withdraw. But there is also a beautiful profession of faith on Peter’s part. This Gospel is prepared by the first reading, which speaks of the commitment that the Jewish people assume not to abandon the Lord to follow other gods. In this circumstance, the people do not hold back, but was committed. The second reading, taken from the Letter to the Ephesians, speaks of the relationship between husband and wife, characterised by mutual submission and great love.

The first reading tells us that, after the conquest of the promised land, Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel in Shechem, and places them before him and demands that they choose between serving the Lord or other gods; the gods of the inhabitants of Canaan. The people respond: Far be it from us to abandon the Lord to serve other gods! The people are committed, recognising that the Lord has saved them: The Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the servile condition, performed great miracles before our eyes and protected us throughout the journey we have made. Therefore, their answer is: We want to serve the Lord, because he is our God. It is a beautiful profession of faith, a beautiful commitment of faithfulness to the Lord.

The Gospel passage presents a more complex situation, and in the end, Peter makes his profession of faith: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life; we have believed and know that you are the Holy One of God. It is a wonderful profession of faith, a commitment to faithfully follow Jesus. But, previously, many had not accepted Jesus' discourse on the bread of life; they found his language hard. They did not understand that what seemed hard to them was, in reality, a need for love. In another passage, Jesus had said: Take my yoke upon you [... ] for my yoke in fact is sweet and my load light (Matt 11,29-30). Jesus’ yoke is love. In the discourse on the bread of life, Jesus’ great love was expressed, and a love that asks to be paid with great commitment, because love is demanding. Without exigence there can be no true love. But these are exigences that procure beautiful, fruitful life and give profound joy. Jesus sadly says to his listeners: Does this offend you?; There are some of you who don't believe. He knows who and who betrays him. His gift of love was faced with a situation of usury, opposition and rejection; but he intends to go to the extreme of love. We read in the Gospel: loving his own who are in the world, he loved them to the end (John 13, 1). Therefore, Peter can declare to him: You have the words of eternal life; we have believed and known that you are the Holy One of God. Whoever abandons Jesus cannot find another saviour, and he is also in a situation of perdition, in a blind alley. Instead, the positive solution is to welcome Jesus’ love with its demands, knowing that these are necessary aspects of Jesus' generous gift.

In the second reading, Paul, writing to the Ephesians, speaks of the relationship in the family and, in particular, the relationship between husband and wife. Two points should be emphasised in his speech. The passage begins with an invitation to reciprocal submission: Be submissive to one another in the fear of Christ. This is the fundamental attitude of the Christian. Jesus made himself obedient until death, he taught us the way of generous obedience. For this we must be submissive to one another. This reciprocal submission is not slavery, precisely because it is reciprocal and, on the other hand, because it is a submission of love. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul exhorts the Christians: By means of charity be at service to one another. (Galatians 6, 13). These words manifest a very high ideal. We must understand that, without submissioullon there is no true love, because it is not possible without the union of wills and, if we are attached to our will and do not want to give in, it means that we refuse to love the other. We must then be aware of the beauty of mutual submission; we must be attentive to the desires and needs of others and welcome these desires and needs as an opportunity to grow in love. For wives, this submissive attitude must be habitual behaviour. Paul says: Wives are subject to their husbands in everything. In the First Letter to the Corinthians,the Apostle says that the head of the man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man (cf. 1 Cor 11, 3), thus making it clear that there is a certain order in creation. But immediately after, he explains that husbands should not command, but love: You, husbands, love your wives; and indicates a very high ideal of love: How Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. When he says: Christ gave himself up for her, the Apostle thinks of Jesus’ passion and the cross, the extreme manifestation of his love. So, husbands must love their wives with this total love. In the beginning it is easy to love, because nature itself arouses the passion of love. But after some time, there is the risk that this love will diminish, or even disappear. Unfortunately, we see it nowadays with the large number of divorces. These are caused by the fact that the initial love was not maintained with generosity, and gradually faded away. Instead, the Christian ideal is that of growth of love: a love which not only has the enthusiastic character of the beginning, but becomes more profound and authentic; an honour that includes the aspect of dedication, patience, forgiveness; a love truly similar to that of Christ, who stayed with us patiently, mercifully and loved us in spite of our sins. Christ's love for the Church is a wonderful reality.

Christ's plan for the Church is to make her holy, and purify her through baptism, in order to make her appear before his church all glorious, without spot or wrinkle or anything like it, but holy and immaculate. This is a wonderful ideal. And husbands have a duty to imitate Christ. If they imitate Christ, the submission of wives will be much easier. In fact, the husband will not make his authority weigh on his wife at all, but involve her in all his decisions, in order to show his genuine love for her. Paul concludes: This mystery is great: I say it, the mystery of Christ and of the Church! The love of man and woman is an image of Christ's love for the Church. At the beginning God created man in his image: Male and female he created them, we read in Gen 1,27. Now the ideal has become more concrete, because Christ has concretely shown us the love of God. The Christian ideal consists of imitating Christ's love for the Church, or better, since in reality it cannot be imitated with human strength alone, it consists of welcoming it. We must welcome the love that comes from Christ’s heart into our hearts, to live our family relationship with all the generosity that the Lord inspires in us. In this way, we find true joy. We can then say to Jesus, with Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. Jesus has not only words of eternal life, but also an eternal love, as he showed us with his passion and cross. For this, we want to continue to follow him with all our hearts. +John I. Okoye