The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, World Environment Day and Memorial for St. Boniface, underline the struggle we encounter to build community guided by the Spirit and Word.
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| Challenge for community |
The reading from the Second Letter to Timothy is Paul’s charge to Timothy with advice for carrying on the Christian mission.
* [3:10–17] Paul’s example for Timothy includes persecution, a frequent emphasis in the Pastorals. Timothy is to be steadfast to what he has been taught and to scripture. The scriptures are the source of wisdom, i.e., of belief in and loving fulfillment of God’s word revealed in Christ, through whom salvation is given.1
Psalm 119 declares the sum of the Word of God is truth.
* [Psalm 119] This Psalm, the longest by far in the Psalter, praises God for giving such splendid laws and instruction for people to live by. The author glorifies and thanks God for the Torah, prays for protection from sinners enraged by others’ fidelity to the law, laments the cost of obedience, delights in the law’s consolations, begs for wisdom to understand the precepts, and asks for the rewards of keeping them.2
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gathers the crowd by asking the question about David’s Son.
* [12:35–37] Jesus questions the claim of the scribes about the Davidic descent of the Messiah, not to deny it (Mt 1:1; Acts 2:20, 34; Rom 1:3; 2 Tm 2:8) but to imply that he is more than this. His superiority derives from his transcendent origin, to which David himself attested when he spoke of the Messiah with the name “Lord” (Ps 110:1). See also note on Mt 22:41–46.3
Mike Cherney comments that these days (and this Gospel) have reminded him of the social hierarchies. We are all human beings possessing the right to a certain dignity, still the structure of society and current norms lead to profound differences in the ways in which many are treated.
I am fortunate to find myself in a position of privilege and opportunity; I am healthy and still rather financially secure. This pandemic has made manifest how many have been marginalized in terms of heath care and economic vulnerability. I find myself challenged in how I am called to respond.
Heavenly Father,The television and my smart phone bring the needs of those around me into my sight.Help me to discern how I can best be a source of support to those who are in need.The Gospel today focused on your divinity.Remind me of the spark of divinity that exists within us all.In today’s epistle St. Paul encouraged Timothy that, despite its trials, the Word provides us with mission worthy of pursuit.Draw me into service that responds to Your presence in this world.4
Celia Deane-Drummond, Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford, comments that the more fundamental issue to consider is our common shared humanity, to which this pain points us. Evolutionary anthropology highlights our co-evolution with other species and our highly distinctive ‘hyper’ sociality. Cutting out the opportunity for that sociality is deeply disturbing for many people. But there seems to be no other choice.
Pope Francis argues in Laudato si’ that technology is a poor substitute for human relationships. He welcomes technology that is at the service of the common good, but not when it replaces social bonds. We are now finding the deep truth in what he says. Doing everything through FaceTime or other virtual tools is dissatisfying and feels odd to most people. We are now in a strange land, in spite of familiarity, where we cannot even properly weep and mourn with others. Even papal Masses and eucharistic communion, the liturgical highlight of the Christian year in the Triduum, and the material incarnate source of Christian life, are virtual. What are the spiritual lessons in this dark night, that the early mystics knew so well? The shadow of the empty tomb lingers.
Covid-19 is teaching the human race important lessons that it first learnt in the crucible of its early emergence in deep time. Our lives are entangled with each other and with other species and this is the source of both our unique strength but also our vulnerability. We will best honour those who have suffered and died by learning to take our interconnectedness with God, each other, and other creatures much more seriously. Further, even the deepest and darkest suffering is not beyond the reach of God’s mercy and grace, thus providing an occasion for change and renewal.5
Don Schwager quotes “Jesus is Son of David and Son of God,” by Cyril of Alexandria, 375-444 A.D.
"We also will ask the Pharisees of today a similar question. They deny that he who was born of the holy Virgin is very Son of God the Father and himself also God. They also divide the one Christ into two sons. Let these people explain to us how David's Son is his Lord, not so much as to human lordship as divine. To sit at the right hand of the Father is the assurance and pledge of supreme glory. Those who share the same throne are equal also in dignity, and those who are crowned with equal honors are understood of course to be equal in nature. To sit by God can signify nothing else than sovereign authority. The throne declares to us that Christ possesses power over everything and supremacy by right of his substance. "How is the Son of David David's Lord, seated at the right hand of God the Father and on the throne of Deity? Is it not altogether according to the unerring word of the mystery that the Word as God sprung from the very substance of God the Father? Being in his likeness and equal with him, he became flesh. He became man, perfectly and yet without departing from the incomparable excellence of the divine dignities. He continued in that state in which he had always been. He still was God, although he became flesh and in form like us. He is David's Lord therefore according to that which belongs to his divine glory, nature and sovereignty. He is his son according to the flesh." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 137.52)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 12:35-37 notes that by asking this question, Jesus was trying to get the crowd and the scribes to see that the Messiah was more than they expected. He wasn’t an earthly king. He didn’t come to free Israel from Roman oppression. He came to free everyone from slavery to sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Scriptures, not just the ones that spoke of Israel’s future freedom and prosperity.
God cannot be put into a box—and that’s really good news! Today, spend some time asking him to show you how you might be placing limits on him. He wants you to know him in a way that goes far beyond all your preconceived notions about who he is. Only as you lay aside your own ideas about the Lord can he show you just what a great, loving, forgiving, wonder-working God he truly is!
“Lord, I want to know you. Come and reveal more of yourself to me.”7
Friar Jude Winkler observes that the fate of Christians is to be rejected by the world. The study of Scripture, guided by the Spirit is essential. Friar Jude discusses the role of Jesus' clever responses in showing understanding of the mysteries of God.
A post by Franciscan media notes that in order to restore the Germanic Church to its fidelity to Rome and to convert the pagans, Saint Boniface, Saint of the Day for June 5, had been guided by two principles. The first was to restore the obedience of the clergy to their bishops in union with the pope of Rome. The second was the establishment of many houses of prayer which took the form of Benedictine monasteries. A great number of Anglo-Saxon monks and nuns followed him to the continent, where he introduced the Benedictine nuns to the active apostolate of education.
Boniface bears out the Christian rule: To follow Christ is to follow the way of the cross. For Boniface, it was not only physical suffering or death, but the painful, thankless, bewildering task of Church reform. Missionary glory is often thought of in terms of bringing new persons to Christ. It seems—but is not—less glorious to heal the household of the faith.8
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, asserts that everyone relies on community in some way or another, no matter what our personal, social, or economic circumstances. No one can do it all—feed, clothe, heal, comfort, house, employ, and educate—for ourselves or our families. Despite our current obsession with independence and individualism, we were never meant to try! From the very beginning of the evolutionary process, species have worked together in mutually beneficial ways to survive. Mammals particularly have a track record of fostering the young of others within their species and kinship group, but it happens across or between species as well. Even the “fittest,” biggest, and strongest do not survive without the cooperation of others.
Jesus’ example of mutual aid was so inspirational to Dorothy Day (1897–1980), the founder of the Catholic Worker, that she called her book about the movement Loaves and Fishes. She wrote, “Young people say, What good can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.” [2]
May we all pray for an “increase of love in our hearts” that will awaken, transform, and multiply the impact of our actions.9
Our efforts to grow kinship with others and nature is the challenge of being followers of Jesus.
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