The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to meditate on our faith that enables us to trust that our justification is through the mercy of God.
Living the mercy of God
The reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans declares our righteousness is through faith.
* [3:21–31] These verses provide a clear statement of Paul’s “gospel,” i.e., the principle of justification by faith in Christ. God has found a means of rescuing humanity from its desperate plight: Paul’s general term for this divine initiative is the righteousness of God (Rom 3:21). Divine mercy declares the guilty innocent and makes them so. God does this not as a result of the law but apart from it (Rom 3:21), and not because of any merit in human beings but through forgiveness of their sins (Rom 3:24), in virtue of the redemption wrought in Christ Jesus for all who believe (Rom 3:22, 24–25). God has manifested his righteousness in the coming of Jesus Christ, whose saving activity inaugurates a new era in human history.1
Psalm 130 is a prayer about waiting for Divine Redemption.
* [Psalm 130] This lament, a Penitential Psalm, is the De profundis used in liturgical prayers for the faithful departed. In deep sorrow the psalmist cries to God (Ps 130:1–2), asking for mercy (Ps 130:3–4). The psalmist’s trust (Ps 130:5–6) becomes a model for the people (Ps 130:7–8).2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus delivers a denunciation of the scholars of the Law.
* [11:49] I will send to them prophets and apostles: Jesus connects the mission of the church (apostles) with the mission of the Old Testament prophets who often suffered the rebuke of their contemporaries.3
Andy Alexander, S.J. comments about Jesus' stating something that has been true for so long in the journey of faith - that prophets have been universally persecuted. He thinks of a prophet like Dom Hélder Câmara (1909–1999) a Brazilian archbishop, who said, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." He thinks of some of the opposition Pope Francis is experiencing within the Church.
I like to imagine that there is more harmony, more peace, more understanding, more compassion, more fraternity among us when we are each moving closer to Jesus. We can more easily, together, hear the call to self-sacrificing love for others. We can more easily hear the message that calls us to accompany the marginal. We can be moved by the prophetic message to advocate for the poor, for those in need among us, for the urgent call to work together for the saving of our planet and those who suffer first and worst from what is happening to it.4
Don Schwager quotes “The key of knowledge that opens the kingdom of God,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"We consider that the key of knowledge means the law [of Moses] itself, and by faith in him, I mean justification in Christ. Although the law was in shadow and type, yet those types show to us the truth, and those shadows depict to us in many ways the mystery of Christ. A lamb was sacrificed according to the law of Moses. They ate its flesh. They anointed the lintels with its blood and overcame the destroyer. The blood of a mere sheep could not turn away death. Christ was typified under the form of a lamb. He endures to be the victim for the life of the world and saves by his blood those who are partakers of him. One might mention many other instances as well, by means of which we can discern the mystery of Christ sketched out in the shadows of the law. When speaking to the Jews, he once said, 'There is one that accuses you, even Moses, whom you trusted. For if you had believed Moses, you should have also believed me, because he wrote of me' (John 5:45-46). 'You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me' (John 5:39). Every word of divinely inspired Scripture looks to him and refers to him. As it has been shown, if Moses speaks, he typified Christ. If the holy prophets that you name speak, they also proclaimed to us in many ways the mystery of Christ, preaching beforehand the salvation that is by him." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 86)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 11:47-54 comments that Jesus accused these scribes of not embracing the kingdom that he preached—not “entering” it (see verse 52)—and of thereby preventing other people from embracing it as well. Their witness of hostility and opposition to Jesus made other people suspicious and kept them from following Jesus. What’s more, it’s possible that they openly kept people away by spreading false rumors about Jesus or threatening any who followed him with God’s judgment. We can also assume that their hypocrisy prevented people from seeing the true nature of God.
But just as these scribes took away the key of knowledge by their words and actions, we can pass on that key by our own Spirit-filled words and actions. One powerful way we can do this is by trying to treat everyone around us with the same love and respect that we have received from Jesus. Of course, our words can be effective at times, if we can find a way to talk about our relationship with the Lord without sounding pushy. But the words we speak will have a far greater effect if they are backed up by acts of love, generosity, mercy, and compassion. Because the truth is, the harder we push when we try to persuade people, the more we risk alienating them—or even misrepresenting the Lord.6
Friar Jude Winkler comments that Paul tells the Romans that forgiveness and righteousness in our relationship with God is not a result of external action but of faith. We trust in God and surrender to the love Jesus shows on the Cross. Friar Jude reminds us that being scrupulous and hypocritical may cut off others from the mercy of God.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that Christ is everywhere. The entire planet is anointed and messianic, if you will. All bears the Christ mystery. The whole point of going to communion in church is to sacramentalize the universe. We’re not only in communion when we go to communion. We’re always in communion when we learn this. We’re in communion driving to church. We’re in communion walking up the steps of the church. We’re in communion at the bathroom break. We’re in communion when we’re in nature. Franciscan sister José Hobday (1929–2009), writes of how she learned to “pray always” from the Native American spirituality of her mother, which honored this sense of being in constant communion and harmony with God in all things.
My mother prayed as a Native American. That meant she saw living as praying and praying as living. She tried to pray her life. She expressed her prayer of gratitude, for example, in the way she did things. She told me many times, “When you stir oatmeal, stir it slowly so you don’t forget that oatmeal is a gift and that you don’t take it for granted.” She made a prayer out of the way she stirred oatmeal. Doing things prayerfully. That reflected her approach to prayer. She always did that. She even did it in the way she walked. She taught me and my brothers to walk with our hearts high and to walk softly on the earth because the earth is our mother. . . . As we walked, she said, we should be ready to enter into every movement of beauty we encountered. . . .7
Faith brings experience of closeness to God to our lives.
References
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