The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate our understanding of our experience of life with Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Journey to Truth
The reading from the First Letter of John declares God is Light and Christ is our Advocate.
* [1:8–10] Denial of the condition of sin is self-deception and even contradictory of divine revelation; there is also the continual possibility of sin’s recurrence. Forgiveness and deliverance from sin through Christ are assured through acknowledgment of them and repentance.1
Psalm 124 is thanksgiving for Israel’s Deliverance.
* [Psalm 124] A thanksgiving which teaches that Israel’s very existence is owed to God who rescues them. In the first part Israel’s enemies are compared to the mythic sea dragon (Ps 124:2b–3a; cf. Jer 51:34) and Flood (Ps 124:3b–5; cf. Is 51:9–10). The Psalm heightens the malice of human enemies by linking them to the primordial enemies of God’s creation. Israel is a bird freed from the trapper’s snare (Ps 124:6–8)—freed originally from Pharaoh and now from the current danger.2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph is warned in a dream to escape to Egypt.
* [2:15] The fulfillment citation is taken from Hos 11:1. Israel, God’s son, was called out of Egypt at the time of the Exodus; Jesus, the Son of God, will similarly be called out of that land in a new exodus. The father-son relationship between God and the nation is set in a higher key. Here the son is not a group adopted as “son of God,” but the child who, as conceived by the holy Spirit, stands in unique relation to God. He is son of David and of Abraham, of Mary and of Joseph, but, above all, of God.3
Mike Cherney was redirected to the book God of Surprises written 35 years ago by Gerald Hughs, SJ. In the chapter titled Changing Direction, he presents views of sin and repentance that have enduring relevance. He parallels the warnings of today’s Epistle.
Dear Lord,
Unshackle me from the false security of the defenses that I build around myself.
Give me the openness to trust in God’s goodness.
Grant me the courage to acknowledge my shortcomings and avoid judging others.
Allow me to welcome criticism and learn from it.
Help me to feel drawn to God, rather than feeling driven by God.
Free me from rigidity of mind and heart.4
Don Schwager quotes “The first martyrs of Christ,” by Chromatius (died 406 AD).
"In Bethlehem therefore all the babies were slain. These innocents who died then on Christ's behalf became the first martyrs of Christ. David refers to them when he says, 'From the mouths of nursing babies you have perfected praise because of your enemies, that you might bring ruin to the enemy' (Psalm 8:2). ... For in this persecution even tiny infants and nursing babies were killed on Christ's behalf and attained to the consummate praise of martyrs. Meanwhile the wicked king Herod was destroyed, he who had usurped the realm to defend himself against the king of the heavens. Thus it is that those blessed babes have deservedly lasted beyond others. They were the first who were worthy to die on Christ's behalf."(excerpt from TRACTATE ON MATTHEW 6.2)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 2:13-18 comments in becoming man, Jesus fully embraced our humanity with all its limitations. He was born into poverty to a young couple who offered only two turtle doves when they consecrated him at the Temple (Luke 2:24). His family fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s threats and lived as refugees until they could safely return to Nazareth. In ministry, Jesus experienced both admiration and rejection. And he knew the blessing of close relationships, as well as the grief of losing his father and the disappointment when his friends abandoned him.
So whether we are suffering or rejoicing today, we can be confident that Jesus knows what it’s like. Better yet, he enters into our circumstances with us. It’s easy to imagine Jesus smiling beside us when everything is going well. It’s harder to trust that he’s with us when challenges arise. We might think that he has forgotten us. But he is never far from us. He hears our cries, just as he heard the cries of the grieving mothers of Bethlehem. When we suffer, he weeps with us, just as he wept over Lazarus with Mary and Martha—and he invites us to weep with those who are suffering (John 11:35; Romans 12:15).6
Friar Jude Winkler explains the Docetism among the audience for the Letter of John that asserted no need for Jesus who is incarnate. The theology of salvation differs in the Gospel of John and the Letters of John. Friar Jude reminds us of the technique in Matthew’s Gospel of intuiting secondary inspiration from Hebrew Testament events.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that to pray is to practice that posture of radical trust in God’s grace—and to participate in perhaps the most radical movement of all, which is the movement of God’s Love. If religion and religious people are to have any moral credibility in the face of the massive death-dealing and denial of this era, we need to move with great haste toward lives of political holiness. Fr. Richard shares his theology and his politics.
It appears that God loves life—the creating never stops.
We will love and create and maintain life.
It appears that God is love—an enduring, patient kind.
We will seek and trust love in all its humanizing (and therefore divinizing) forms.
It appears that God loves the variety of multiple features, faces, and forms.
We will not be afraid of the other, the not-me, the stranger at the gate.
It appears that God loves—is—beauty: Look at this world!
Those who pray already know this. Their passion will be for beauty.7
Truth, Beauty and Goodness are transcendental virtues that are made visible in our journey with Christ.
References
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