The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to go beyond lip service in our Covenant relationship with God as we seek conversion to childlike simplicity and trust.
Care and trust
The reading from the Book of Joshua challenges the people to witness to serving the Lord.
So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.1
Psalm 16 is a song of trust and security in God.
* [Psalm 16] In the first section, the psalmist rejects the futile worship of false gods (Ps 16:2–5), preferring Israel’s God (Ps 16:1), the giver of the land (Ps 16:6). The second section reflects on the wise and life-giving presence of God (Ps 16:7–11).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus blesses little children as examples of how to live in the Kingdom.
* [19:13–15] This account is understood by some as intended to justify the practice of infant baptism. That interpretation is based principally on the command not to prevent the children from coming, since that word sometimes has a baptismal connotation in the New Testament; see Acts 8:36.3
Maureen McCann Waldron comments that each of us makes daily decisions about our lives, and how we connect with God. Will we spend some time today thanking God for the gifts we have been given, or get sidetracked by “important” tasks that must be done?
Each morning we can begin by asking for help in our choices for the day, to serve others and follow the teachings of Jesus. We can take a few minutes at the edge of our beds before our day begins, simply opening our hands to God and asking for guidance for the day. Making that choice each day will change how our day unfolds and how the bonds between us and our loving God are strengthened.4
Don Schwager quotes “To such belongs the Kingdom,“ by Epiphanius the Latin (late 5th century).
"Why did the disciples keep the children back? Not because of the children's wickedness but because it was not the right time. They did not want the Lord to be tired by the great crowd. To them he said, 'Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.' For children are ignorant of wickedness. They do not know how to return evil for evil or how to do someone an injury. They do not know how to be lustful or to fornicate or to rob. What they hear, they believe. They love their parents with complete affection. Therefore, beloved, the Lord instructs us that what they are by the gift of nature, we should become by the fear of God, a holy way of life and love of the heavenly kingdom - for unless we are alien to all sin just like children, we cannot come to the Savior." (excerpt from INTERPRETATION OF THE GOSPELS 25)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Joshua 24:14-29 comments that the Israelites didn’t always uphold their end of the covenant. They forgot about being God’s chosen people and adopted the religions and practices of the nations around them. Then they blamed God when he didn’t do what they demanded of him. Because of all this infidelity, you might expect God to sever his relationship with them. But he surprised them, and us. Not only did he remain faithful to his covenant, but he also provided the perfect remedy. He entered into our humanity so that he could personally fulfill what had been the weakness of the covenant. Jesus became the beloved, obedient Son of Israel that the Father was looking for.
This is the new covenant we celebrate at Mass. Jesus, God’s beloved, obedient Son, gives himself to us in the Eucharist. And like the people of Israel, we affirm our commitment to be God’s people and to worship him alone. Every “Amen” that we pray reaffirms that covenant and strengthens us to live it out. “Father, thank you for uniting yourself to us in a covenant of unconditional love.”6
Friar Jude Winkler notes the composition of the people led by Joshua had come to worship Yahweh and other gods. The large stone became a witness altar in a sanctuary. Friar Jude reminds us to seek God in the childlike characteristics of simplicity, trust, innocence, and generosity.
An article by Franciscan Media on Saint Maximilian Kolbe notes that in 1941, Fr. Kolbe was arrested. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, three months later in Auschwitz, after terrible beatings and humiliations. A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line. “I would like to take that man’s (Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek) place. He has a wife and children.”“Who are you?” “A priest.”
Father Kolbe’s death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. And his beloved Immaculata was his inspiration.7
Cynthia Bourgeault shares that entering Prayer is a devotional practice, placing ourselves in God’s presence and quieting our minds and hearts. It doesn’t only work on that level. What the desert abbas and ammas, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and even Thomas Keating could not have known when he formally started teaching the practice five decades ago, was that it works on a physiological level as well, strengthening neural pathways, and making “letting go” that much easier. When it comes to releasing our strong preferences, especially our desire for power and control, it seems safe to say that some practice of kenosis is necessary for any movement forward.
Fascinating confirmation that kenosis is indeed an evolutionary human pathway is emerging from—of all places—recent discoveries in neuroscience. From fMRI data collected primarily by the California-based HeartMath Institute, you can now verify chapter and verse that how you respond to a stimulus in the outer world determines which neural pathways will be activated in your brain, and between your brain and your heart. If you respond with any form of initial negativity (which translates physiologically as constriction)—freezing, bracing, clinging, clenching, and so on—the pathway illumined leads to your amygdala (or “reptilian brain,” as it’s familiarly known) . . . which controls a repertory of highly energized fight-or-flight responses. If you can relax into a stimulus—opening, softening, yielding, releasing—the neural pathway leads through the more evolutionarily advanced parts of your forebrain and, surprisingly, brings brain and heart rhythms into entrainment. . . .8
The emptying of ourselves that brings us closer to the childlike qualities blessed by Jesus opens our being to the prompting of the Spirit to move in the direction of full life.
References
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