Mission and ministry of life

The Texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary for Canada Day challenge our understanding of our relationship to God and the consequence of that relationship for our actions in our society and politics.

The pursuit of a Good Life

In the passage from the Book of Wisdom, the Jewish sage urges us to consider the death that results from spiritual separation from God.

* [1:12] Death: as will become clear, the author is not speaking of physical death but of spiritual death, the eternal separation from God.

Paul addresses the community in Second Corinthians about our Christian call to Generosity in Giving.

* [8:12–15] Paul introduces the principle of equality into the discussion. The goal is not impoverishment but sharing of resources; balance is achieved at least over the course of time. In 2 Cor 8:15 Paul grounds his argument unexpectedly in the experience of Israel gathering manna in the desert: equality was achieved, independently of personal exertion, by God, who gave with an even hand according to need. Paul touches briefly here on the theme of “living from God.”

In the Gospel from Mark, faith in Jesus brings healing and reanimation to a long suffering woman and a young girl.

* [5:28] Both in the case of Jairus and his daughter (Mk 5:23) and in the case of the hemorrhage victim, the inner conviction that physical contact (Mk 5:30) accompanied by faith in Jesus’ saving power could effect a cure was rewarded.

Eileen Burke-Sullivan comments that today is a good day to express thanks, to enjoy the full gift of eucharistic life – that is a life of thanksgiving and sharing with others - so that they also might have life.

The first reading today insists that humans are made imperishable for God.  We enter death because of sin – and to bring about the death of others engages in sin.  The Gospel for today discloses Jesus, at the height of his missionary work, raising the dead and healing the sick.  The reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians asserts that humans have been given the gifts we need to care for and supply for one another’s needs as well as our own.  Our God lavishly pours out the bounty of creation and we must be willing to share that bounty so that all may have life to the full. Taken together, this rich bounty at the table of the word would be enough to feast on throughout the whole summer, even in the face of all the dilemmas of sin and selfishness that seem to surround us and sap our energies.  If we fail to love and respect our lives, the lives of the littlest and most vulnerable in the wombs of their mothers or in the arms of their fathers, in hospital beds, detention centers or nursing homes; if we neglect the dignity of those who have been deprived of their share of the bounty of the harvest by the devastation of wars, the molestation of gangs, government tariffs, or the pure greed of land and water rights locked away for the wealthy and politically powerful, we are engaging in “the dirty work of death,” as Pope Francis challenges us.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares that very often we want a God who reflects and even confirms our culture, our biases, our economic, political, and security systems.

Normally we find it very difficult to let God be greater than our culture, our immediate needs, and our projections. The human ego wants to keep things firmly in its grasp; so, we’ve created a God who fits into our small systems and our understanding of God. Thus, we’ve produced a God who requires expensive churches and robes, a God who likes to go to war just as much as we do, and a domineering God because we like to dominate. We’ve almost completely forgotten and ignored what Jesus revealed about the nature of the God he knew. If Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (see Colossians 1:15) then God is nothing like we expected. Jesus is in no sense a potentate or a patriarch, but the very opposite, one whom John the Baptist calls “a lamb of a God” (see John 1:29). We seem to prefer a lion.

The call of Jesus is for us to see the image of God, often presented as a Lamb, in ourselves and others.

References

(n.d.). Wisdom, chapter 1 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/wisdom/1

(n.d.). 2 Corinthians, chapter 8 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/8 

(n.d.). Mark, chapter 5 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/5

(2018, June 25). Pope Francis: Support life at all stages, avoid 'dirty work of death .... Retrieved July 1, 2018, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-francis-support-life-all-stages-avoid-dirty-work-death

(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from https://cac.org/richard-rohr/daily-meditations/daily-meditations-archive/