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Gospel Reflection 20071216

Search for people who help you appreciate yourself in genuine ways.
You may discover that some people tend to put you down. It may be necessary to spend less time with those who do not build your positive sense of self. Enter worthwhile activities that enable you to spend time away from those who make you doubt yourself. At the same time, deal honestly with the self-improvements you discover you need.

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Turn to Christ in Every Circumstance of Life
December 16, 2007

Third Sunday of Advent


Gospel
Mt 11:2-11

When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ,
he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question,
“Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

As they were going off,
Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John,
“What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see?
Someone dressed in fine clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way before you.
Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”



Have you ever seen someone take offense at the Lord? I have. A certain lady who spent her time working for the Lord — visiting the sick and the bedridden, helping the elderly and the handicapped — was diagnosed of a knee problem needing surgery. The surgery was not a success and so left her in constant pain and unable to walk. It seemed the Lord had ignored the prayers of this woman and her friends for a successful surgery. This was a woman who considered herself a personal friend of Jesus. And was she disappointed? Her otherwise cheerful disposition turned into sadness and gloom. One day she pulled herself together and shared with her confessor what was going on in her soul. The confessor suggested that she go into prayer and ask her friend Jesus why he has treated her this way. And she did. The following day the confessor met her and saw peace written all over her face in spite of her pain. “Do you know what he said to me?” she began. “As I was looking at the crucified Jesus and telling him about my bad knee, he said to me, ‘Mine is worse.’”
“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." (Matt 11:6)
Does John the Baptist in today’s gospel find himself in a similar situation? John has spent all his life in the Judean desert in anticipation of the Messiah who was to come. He has prepared the way for the Messiah by calling the people to a baptism of repentance. Now he is languishing in prison because he denounced the sins of Herod Antipas. In the meantime Jesus begins his public work as the Messiah. He doesn’t go to visit John in prison or send him a word of encouragement. John hears that he is performing miracles. Why doesn’t he use his miraculous powers to set John free and vindicate him? Doesn’t prophecy say that one of the signs of the Messiah is that he will set prisoners free? Naturally John would expect to be one of the first beneficiaries. After all, it was he who baptized Jesus in the first place. Some reciprocal benevolence would certainly be in order. So John sends messengers to Jesus to remind him. Jesus’ message back to John was, “Yes I am indeed the Messiah. But please do not take offence at me if all your expectations are not met.” Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.
What is going on here? Wrong expectations. Popular theology in biblical times held that prosperity was a sign that God was with someone and adversity a sign that God was not with them. The author of Job questioned this theology by telling the story of Job who was a man of God and yet met with adversity. But that theology has survived and is still with us today in spite of the teachings and personal example of Jesus.
In Jesus we see that the sure signs of God’s presence are not primarily material but spiritual. It is true that in the ministry of Jesus “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Matt 11:5), yet these miracles can be seen as “signs” of an inner spiritual blessing. What does it profit a person ultimately to receive the use of physical eyes and feet if they continue to be spiritually blind and lame? No. The vital signs of God’s presence are spiritual — spiritual enlightenment (blind see, deaf hear) and empowerment (lame walk, dead raised). Of course these have inevitable salutary effects on the physical order, but these are secondary.
Once there was a blind man who became a preacher. He drew crowds to his preaching because, even though he was still physically blind, he would often begin his preaching by declaring, “I was blind but now I see.”
We are, like John, waiting for the coming of the Lord. What are our expectations? Today’s gospel reminds us that we need to entertain expectations that are in accordance with the Lord’s priorities. Without discounting the physical and the material we are reminded that the primary domain of God’s saving work among us is the spiritual. Ultimately this has saving effects on the material and social order, but God’s salvation is primarily spiritual.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes the following, puzzling statement: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” The original Greek here means: “Blessed is he who is not scandalized at me.” If we focus for a second on the anti-Christian attitudes we see and hear around our own country and around the Western world, we might well conclude that Jesus was preparing his followers of today to understand that, indeed, he would be a source of scandal and offense to some people. He would therefore be rejected by them, and so would those who associate themselves with him. We should not be surprised, then, that Christ and Christians would be seen as an impediment to man’s perception of how a free and secular society should function. I would go further. We must see for what it is the reality of those who call themselves Christians but who are ashamed of it in the face of modern society.
We want to have our cake and eat it. We are willing to admit that there is evil in the world, but not to address it when we see it in our own lives or in the lives of those around us. We like the idea of God’s mercy and forgiveness, but we insult it by never even thinking of confessing our sins or holding ourselves and others to live according to his truth and his law. Is it that we have simply become moral cowards? Have we not made of religion an entertainment, a kind of pampering of our souls when the illusion of our worldly lives exhausts us? What real meaning can religion have, if it is not the heart and soul of our daily lives? If Christ in his Church is not the first and last authority over our conscience, our reason for making decisions, our standard for love and friendship, the strength of our marriage and family: what, pray, is he? A concept? A drug? An idol? An object of consumerism? A scandal?
The stress and the drudgery of our lives, the unrelenting attacks of an anti-theistic society and the subtle slavery of material success, are like an over-dose of sleeping tablets. They make us inaccessible to the energy, the life, the urgency, the power and the grace of the Gospel. Christmas is not a time to give in to their tyrannical demands even more than usual. It is the time to wake up and to shake up, to seek mercy in truth, to find new perspective and hope, to make and take time out to ask: do I even know Christ any more? Is he not even a scandal to me, because I have become so indifferent to him? What am I doing with my life? What does it mean, anyway? Where is my true joy? What is the hope of my existence, something that will fade away with my decaying body, or something eternal? Why am I a Christian?
There will be less atheism and anti-theism, less a-Christianity and anti-Christianity in society when those who are Christ’s awake from their slumber and proclaim, without fear, without shame and without apology that they glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ, and that his wisdom and truth and grace are their light and their strength and their life. Be a real Christian and have the guts to be a scandal to your world so that, through you, the Spirit of the Savior might bring the world back to God.

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Blessed Anthony Grassi

(1592-1671)


Anthony's father died when his son was only 10 years old, but the young lad inherited his father's devotion to Our Lady of Loreto. As a schoolboy he frequented the local church of the Oratorian Fathers, joining the religious order when he was 17.
Already a fine student, he soon gained a reputation in his religious community as a "walking dictionary" who quickly grasped Scripture and theology. For some time he was tormented by scruples, but they reportedly left him at the very hour he celebrated his first Mass. From that day, serenity penetrated his very being.

In 1621, at age 29, Anthony was struck by lightning while praying in the church of the Holy House at Loreto. He was carried paralyzed from the church, expecting to die. When he recovered in a few days he realized that he had been cured of acute indigestion. His scorched clothes were donated to the Loreto church as an offering of thanks for his new gift of life.

More important, Anthony now felt that his life belonged entirely to God. Each year thereafter he made a pilgrimage to Loreto to express his thanks.

He also began hearing confessions, and came to be regarded as an outstanding confessor. Simple and direct, he listened carefully to penitents, said a few words and gave a penance and absolution, frequently drawing on his gift of reading consciences.

In 1635 he was elected superior of the Fermo Oratory. He was so well regarded that he was reelected every three years until his death. He was a quiet person and a gentle superior who did not know how to be severe. At the same time he kept the Oratorian constitutions literally, encouraging the community to do likewise.

He refused social or civic commitments and instead would go out day or night to visit the sick or dying or anyone else needing his services. As he grew older, he had a God-given awareness of the future, a gift which he frequently used to warn or to console.

But age brought its challenges as well. He suffered the humility of having to give up his physical faculties one by one. First was his preaching, necessitated after he lost his teeth. Then he could no longer hear confessions. Finally, after a fall, he was confined to his room. The archbishop himself came each day to give him holy Communion. One of Anthony's final acts was to reconcile two fiercely quarreling brothers.

Comment:

Nothing provides a better reason for reassessing a life than a brush with death. Anthony's life already seemed to be on track when he was struck by lightning; he was a brilliant priest blessed, at last, with serenity. But his experience softened him. He became a loving counselor and a wise mediator. The same might be said of us if we put our hearts to it. We needn't wait to be struck by lightning.

posted by Mike Young @ 10:11 AM