Sunday Gospel Comment

 

Alberic Jacovone OSB

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YEAR A

Jer 20,7-9; Rom 12,1-2; Mt 16,21-27

A MIX OF CROSS & GLORY 

To our Father in heaven: Today is Father’s Day. There is no better way to celebrate it, than seeing it in the mystery of God’s fatherhood. Here is a Father’s Day wish: To our dear & precious fathers: those with us, those far away, & those who have lived: we love you & for you, we thank God -who is the Father of all, from whom all fatherhood comes. Today, may you feel richly blessed, cherishing the blessing of your family. In turn, may you be a blessing, now & always... In the Bible, God is said to be: wise & powerful, just & blessed, holy & merciful, one & no other, creator & life-giver, sovereign & righteous judge... But the best insight, comes from our Christian Faith, and is this: God is a good, caring Father of us all. Jesus addressed God with the endearing word: ‘Abba’, which means ‘my loving Father’. He is: ‘My Abba & yours. The prayer He gave us, (we call it ‘Our Father’), draws us into a feeling of close & intimate relationship with God. Since our earliest years, we have learned to feel at home with God our ‘Abba’-Father: we start prayer, making the sign of the cross, & saying: ‘In the name of the Father..’ We conclude, again with the sign of the cross, receiving a blessing ‘In the name of the Father..’. We are baptized: ‘In the name of the Father.." We believe that our ‘Abba’-Father has adopted us as children; & we are ‘begotten of the Father’. In Christ, God has sealed a New Covenant of love with us; & whereas in the Bible, God admonishes & demands obedience, in the Gospels, the ‘Good News’ is that God is infinitely rich in compassion & his love is unconditional. God knows that we are sinners & as such, we remain stubborn & defiant. Still, He embraces us as his beloved children. The reverse of this truth is, that as God’s children, we slowly learn to love as God loves and imitate his unconditional love, by choosing to love one another -unconditionally-, as grateful children & as Jesus did. This is graphically expressed in the Hymn: ‘We are heirs of the Father’ - joint heirs with the Son - children of the Kingdom - we are one. As God’s children, we are indeed: washed & sanctified, cleansed & born in the Spirit; children of the Lord - members of his body - objects of his love - partakers of his holiness - citizens of heaven above.

Through the Cross of Suffering. While all this is wonderfully true, God’s love is such that it always includes self-giving, self-emptying, and self-suffering: God’s love and ours is always a sacrificial love. This is the point of today’s Gospel: we live our Christian life from the Cross to the Glory. The deepest lesson that Jesus gave and that we try to learn & imitate is that God’s love is long-suffering - is loving kindness - is full of com-passion. It’s a mixture of love & pain; it goes through cross to glory. We imitate it by offering-back what we are to God; and at the same time, giving & receiving each other in love. In the Hymn ‘Look upon our offering’, we pray: what have we to offer you? Lord, of heaven & earth - Lord accept our nothingness - make us one with you. Here, in this Mass Lord - we find our giving; & in our lives - You go-on living...’.This mixture of love & pain, is captured by the words of Isaiah 49, which are also a well known hymn (Carey Landry): ‘I will never forget you - I have carved you on the palm of my hand - I will not leave you orphaned - I will never forget my own. Does a mother forget her baby or a woman the child at her breast? yet even if she forgets, I will never forget my own’. Celebrating Father’s Day, we cherish the love of Dads, Mums & Kids, as -through joys & hurts- they carry one another’s burdens, & with Jesus’ example, cope with the ‘Cross of Suffering’.

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