21st Sunday of Year A, 27th August, 2023

“Jesus promises Peter exactly this: the ties of evil and hell cannot prevail over the ties of ecclesial fraternity (Matt 16,18-19)”. And so, we pray in this Eucharistic celebration that we who belong to the Church be continually protected from the snares of evil. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 22,19-23; Psalm 137 (138); Romans 11,33-36; Matt 16,13-20; 21st Sunday of Year A, 27th August, 2023)

 

“How rich are the depths of God—how deep his wisdom and knowledge! How unfathomable are his judgments and unapproachable his ways! In fact, who has ever known the thought of the Lord? Or who has ever been a counselor to him?” (Rom 11, 33-34). This exclamation of Paul puts us in the right way before the Lord and his word. We can only acknowledge our poverty: admit our non-knowledge; confess the impossibility of welcoming and understanding (in the original sense of the verb: grasping and containing) all the richness of God’s wisdom. Giving up all pretense, we prepare ourselves to stand before him in the silence that adores, in the word of praise that acclaims and glorifies; just as the Apostle invites us to do: “To him be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom 11, 36). If this is to be our way of standing before God, we must at the same time contemplate, with surprise, how God himself disposes himself towards us. The Word that we hear today also tells us about this, revealing to us not only his unfathomable transcendence but also his very confident condescension.

 The mystery of God, in fact, opens up and reveals itself, as Jesus reminds Peter, announcing to him the beatitude of the believer: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for it is not flesh and blood that revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 16,17). His ways, though inaccessible, open to welcome our following him as we walk along in them, as the disciples do, who following the path of Jesus, arrive in Caesarea Philippi for the encounter with him that ignites in them a deeper knowledge of the secret that is hidden in his person. If no man can assume upon himself the role of “adviser of God”, God, nevertheless entrusts to our frail humanity (of flesh and blood) his Kingdom, with the same trust with which, in the first reading, he places the key of the house of David on Eliakim’s shoulder. Now, even the key to the Kingdom is entrusted to Peter by Jesus: “To you I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 16,19). God reveals himself, not because we have the ability to penetrate his secret, but because, despite our poverty (indeed, precisely because of it) he confidently gives us the mystery of the Kingdom. What Jesus exclaims at the end of chapter 11 of Matthew is also true for Peter: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to babes” (Matt 11,25). The littleness of faith, to which God is pleased to manifest himself and from which he wishes to allow himself to be encountered, has some typical features necessary for an encounter to take place. Among the many, there is one, which weaves together personal experience and community experience. Faith is personal, but not solitary: one does not believe alone. It is personal, because he asks to let himself be questioned in the truth and in the depth of his own life: “Who do people say that the Son of man is? But who do you say I am?” (Matt 16,13.15). How delicate and at the same time decisive is this passage from “people” to “you”, until it reaches “you”! You, you who are listening to the Gospel now, who do you say I am? God reveals himself, not by packaging answers, but by arousing questions, opening paths of research, which must be personal, since one cannot be satisfied with what others have said or are saying. The Lord's questions demand answers that establish a true relationship with him. It is in the truth of the face-to-face encounter that he shows his face, while he designs ours in a new way. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” replies Peter. And in turn Jesus says to him: “You are Peter and, on this rock...” (Matt 16,16.18). “You are... You are...”.

 The meeting is not only face to face, but opens the space for a mutual new knowledge of the other and of oneself. While he gets to know Jesus' secret with new eyes, Peter discovers his own personal secret, regenerated by his encounter with Jesus. This personal “you”, in the authentic experience of faith, always opens up to an ecclesial “we”. In Matthew, Peter’s profession of faith is anticipated, in the episode of the calmed storm, by the unanimous faith of the disciples: “Those who were on the boat prostrated themselves before him, saying: “Truly you are the Son of God!” (Matt 14,33). The service that Jesus entrusts to Peter in Caesarea, in chapter 18 will be given to the community as a whole: “Truly I say to you: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt 18,18). Peter needs the faith of his brothers, and his brothers need Peter's faith. God reveals himself to the little ones but to the little ones gathered in the community of brothers, who together, in the bond of communion, live, fight, pray, so that every man and every woman can be freed from the bonds of evil and bound to the Lord of life. Jesus promises Peter exactly this: the ties of evil and hell cannot prevail over the ties of ecclesial fraternity (cf. Matt 16,18-19). + John I. Okoye.

graphics  by chukwubike

20th Sunday of the Year, August 20, 2023

 
“Woman, your faith is great! May it be done for you as you wish”

Let us, therefore, ask the good Lord in this Holy Mass to help our unbelief and strengthen our faith in Him who alone can help us when others fail us. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 56,1.6-7; Psalm 66 (67); Romans 11,13-15.29-32; Matt 15,21-28; 20th Sunday of the Year, August 20, 2023)

“My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56,7). This affirmation must have sounded disconcerting, even scandalous, to the ears of a Jew, who experienced progressive separations in the temple. There was space to which everyone could enter, then only men, then the circumcised, up to the Holy of Holies, which only the high priest could enter, on Yom Kippur, once a year.

Now, God announces a day when his house will be open to all. If Isaiah's text could baffle the Jews, Jesus' attitude surprises Christians, not used to seeing such harsh attitudes in the Lord as those he assumes towards this foreign woman of the Gospel reading, who asks nothing for herself, but intercedes on behalf of her sick daughter. Not only is this woman a stranger to Jesus, but Jesus is also a stranger to her. Relations between their people were tense, hostile and of great enmity. Yet, this woman addresses Jesus with the typical language of faith. On her lips there are two titles proper to a messianic faith: "Lord, son of David" (Matt 15,22).

Furthermore, her first plea is marked by liturgical language: "Pity me": it is the kyrie eleison of the liturgy. But, to these invocations for help so imbued with faith, Jesus responds harshly. However, the woman was not discouraged and "began to shout". In Greek language, in which the gospel was written, the imperfect tense connotes an action that started in the past, extends over time and even perdures in the present. This woman shouted and continued to shout, with great insistence, until she said: "It is true, Lord, and yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table" (Matt 15,27). “It's true”: the woman recognizes her own difference, she does not protest, she does not rebel, she does not expect to be treated on a par with the children of Israel, she does not claim an equality that she knows she does not possess. She is very humble. She submits in obedience to God's will, without questioning it or making demands. She adds however (and here is the turning point of her great faith) that "the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." It is as if she said: it is true, I am not one of her children, and I accept it; yet God's will, his mercy, is not only for children, it also reaches those who are not children. This attitude resembles Paul’s idea about God (as is seen from what he writes to the Romans) who wishes "to be merciful to all" (Romans 11,32). Here is the great intuition of this woman's faith: while recognizing her own difference, she knows herself; she is welcomed by the blessing of the Father which reaches out to her: the crumbs "fall from the table of their masters". This verb (falling from) describes the superabundance of God's bread, which is for everyone. The woman, therefore, recognizes her own difference, but she knows that she is, in any case, already included in the Father's mercy. She stays in, not out.

The symbol of bread, we must not forget, evokes the manna which, in the traditions of the Exodus was given by God not in an equal way, but according to the need of each one: “He who had taken the most had not too much; he who had taken the least was not lacking” (Exodus 16,18).  God satisfies everyone, though he uses different measures. God does not make us all the same and indistinct; of course, he does not discriminate, but he loves each one in a personal way. His mercy does not level us and does not make us uniform; he discerns, and knows the difference between persons, between believer and unbeliever, between the righteous and the sinner. However, with respect for each one's differences, we are all included in the Father's mercy, and his bread reaches each one in its overabundance, even if in different ways. This is what the woman intuits, and Jesus can only admire her faith: “Woman, your faith is great! May it be done for you as you wish” (Matt 15,28). Behind this impersonal verb ("let it happen”) we must recognize God's action. The Greek text is stronger, because the verb "will" resounds in it: the Father do to you as you wish! According to your will! We are used to praying in the Our Father: "Your will be done", Jesus here turns the perspective upside down: may the Father do your will! And Jesus can say it, because he recognizes in this woman's will the very manifestation of the Father's will. He unites with it. This foreigner, precisely in the humility of her faith, has an extraordinary intuition: she knows what God's will is and conforms to it to the point of making it become her own will! And Jesus (whom Matthew presents as the one who answers; the verb "to answer" resounds four times in the Greek text in verses 23.24.26.28) now can only answer and obey the word of this woman, because in it he recognizes the manifestation of the very will of the Father.

This account is a strong appeal for our faith. It asks us not only to welcome the stranger into the evangelical logic of love; it demands more! It demands that we recognize in him or her the manifestation of God's will which calls our lives to conversion. + John I Okoye

(graphics by Chukwubike)