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For the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today in the Gospel we
hear that the Father and the Son choose to reveal themselves to the little, but
choose to hide themselves from those who are great merely in worldly wisdom and
learning.
Then we hear Jesus offer
rest and ease to all who labor and are burdened.
However, the Gospel
opened today with the words, “AT THAT TIME Jesus exclaimed....”
“At that time”— at the time he had just finished bewailing
and boding unbearable, deadly woe on those who saw his mighty miracles but
chose not to turn to God.
So, today’s Gospel of
rest and ease is half of a picture.
In the end the whole
picture is that Jesus sorely wants and warns us to make a free choice between
the black and white either of living or of dying.
For more than two
hundred years, our nation has chosen to be free.
Freedom and its choices
have consequences, and the consequences are everlasting.
In today’s second
reading God tells us the everlasting end of all freedoms and choices.
For 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.
The
one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his SPIRIT that dwells in you.
By the power of the
Spirit dwelling in us, we have a choice to make either to be raised body and
soul from the dead or to be lost because of sin.
The Spirit is the Lord
and Giver of Life, as we profess every Sunday in the Creed at Mass.
For the Spirit to dwell
in us, we must turn away from sin and its deadliness, and we must open up to
God.
That is what Jesus
commands three times and three ways in his Gospel today:
COME
to me
TAKE
my yoke upon you
LEARN
from me
COME, TAKE, LEARN— three times and three ways he commands us to turn and open up
with the same willing Spirit of meekness and humility that he, Jesus, has
towards the Father.
If we freely choose to
do and be as Jesus, then gradually— but one day fully and forever— we will
share the inheritance of Jesus, and we will be able to say of ourselves what
Jesus says of himself today in his Gospel: ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN HANDED OVER TO ME BY MY FATHER.
The promise of our
inheritance— with its down payment and foretaste— gives itself up for us and
pours itself out for us in Christ, in the meekness and humility of his
Eucharistic Body and Blood.
The New, Everlasting
Covenant in the Blood of Christ promises, gives and is our ransom from sin.
We must COME, TAKE, and LEARN to receive the Eucharist with the Spirit of Christ’s own meekness
and humility: learn
from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for
yourselves.
Honesty about ourselves
as we stand before the Spirit of God will open our hearts to meekness and
humility.
As the word of God puts
it today in the second reading: Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him.
Before turning to the
Eucharist, we must turn away from sin and open ourselves in the Spirit, as
Christ is open in the Spirit.
COME
to me
TAKE
my yoke upon you
LEARN
from me
COME, TAKE, and LEARN that, in the power of the Spirit, Christ freely chose to open, to
give up himself bodily, and to shed his lifeblood both to atone for sinners and
to glorify the Father.
The many sinners who
repent and believe are rejoined to the Father in the death and resurrection of
Christ.
By the cost and glory of
his death and resurrection, Christ makes E PLURIBUS UNUM— “one out of the many” who were estranged in sin.
Jesus is service in
person— service of the Father, service of humanity— service in person.
As service in person, in
his Eucharist, he tells us to do and be the same in memory of him.
If we FREELY CHOOSE to come to the Eucharist, if we FREELY CHOOSE to take its yoke upon us, if we FREELY CHOOSE to learn from its meekness and humility, then
by God’s FREE CHOICE we will rest, by God’s FREE CHOICE we will rise, and by God’s FREE CHOICE even our bodies shall rejoice forever.
When a priest is about
to show and consume the Eucharist, he first quietly says the following prayer.
Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,
who, by
the will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit,
through
your Death gave life to the world,
free
me by this, your most holy Body and Blood,
from
all my sins and from every evil;
keep
me ALWAYS FAITHFUL TO YOUR COMMANDMENTS,
and
never let me be parted from you.
To stay FAITHFUL TO YOUR COMMANDMENTS, to stay ALWAYS FAITHFUL— SEMPER FIDELIS!
With our free choice to
turn away from sin, with our free choice to open up to God in meekness and
humility, with our free choice to remain always faithful, God chooses to take
us into the joy of the new heavens and the new earth, the true land of the free,
the true home of the brave.
Turn.
Love. Repeat.
