A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 9, n. 44)
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – September 25, 2011 *
“Christ, our Model”
BIBLE READINGS
Ez 18:25-28 // Phil 2:1-11 // Mt 21:28-32
(N.B. Series 9 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year A from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year A based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 3. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 6.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
The Sunday liturgy presents not only the exquisite quality of God’s mercy and justice, but also the need to respond to his saving love. In the Old Testament reading (Ez 18:25-28), we are exhorted to turn away from sin. Conversion is a vital option and a personal challenge. God does not want the death of a sinner, but that he may live. It is our personal responsibility to renounce wickedness and embrace the life-giving grace of God. Indeed, just and true are his ways.
The liturgical scholar, Adrian Nocent remarks: “Our thoughts today, then, should focus on God’s offer of salvation to us. What he did in the past, he still does in our time. On the other hand, we must also be concerned with our constancy in love and fidelity to the Lord if we are really serious about entering the kingdom.”
The Gospel reading (Mt 21:28-32) reiterates the necessity of making a fundamental option for the kingdom of God revealed in Christ Jesus. Harold Buetow comments: “In Jesus’ deceptively simple parable, almost all parents can recognize a real life situation with some of their children. But Jesus meant much more … The elder son, who cons his father by agreeing to work in the vineyard and doesn’t, represents the Pharisees. The second son, who initially refuses to work and then, thinking it over, regrets his decision and does the work, represents the hated tax collectors and rejected prostitutes. Both groups are imperfect … But it is far nobler to change your mind and do good than to remain set in the direction of evil … The ideal way is both to promise and to do – and that with graciousness.”
The Second Reading (Phil 2:1-11) presents the “kenosis” or self-emptying of Jesus as the ultimate paradigm of a perfect filial response to God. Jesus Christ is the supreme model of total surrender to the Father’s saving will. Harold Buetow explicates: “Jesus’ characteristic quality was self-renunciation. He did not want to dominate people, but to serve them; not in his own way, but in the Father’s, and not to exalt himself but to humble himself. His obedience went beyond that expected of an ordinary human being to that which was expected of a good slave: that is, obediently accepting even death – heroically, the degradation of even death on a cross! From that lowest point, Jesus’ upward movement began: God exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Jesus’ new name is Lord … It means that Jesus is the master of life, a cosmic influence over all creation … We give Jesus obedience, a love, and a loyalty we can give no one else. At his name, every knee must bend – not in broken submission to might and power, but to the influence of love. And all is, as was Jesus’ life, to the glory of God the Father.”
If we live in deep communion with Christ and assume his humble stance of servitude and self-emptying, harmony and unity would flourish in his body the Church. Indeed, our actions as Christian disciples need to be inspired by Saint Paul’s exhortation: “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus”.
The beauty and the power of allowing the “self-emptying” Christ to live in us and mold us can be verified in the life of the first Australian saint, Mary MacKillop (cf. Patricia Treece, “Mary MacKillop’s Rocky Road to Holiness” in THE WORD AMONG US, October 2010, p. 20-24).
Good mothers generally produce good people. But Australian Mary MacKillop (1842-1909) went beyond the very real goodness of her siblings to sanctity. She said once to her mother: “I learned everything from you.” Beyond that single statement, Mary’s heroic virtue and deep insights into God’s ways remain swathed in divine mystery. She kept no journal. She had no confessor who outlived her and wrote of her inner life.
But if the roots remain hidden, there is no shortage of evidence that Mary saw life from an uncommon point of view. Even from age sixteen, when she worked as a teacher to support her entire family of ten – including her devout but hopelessly improvident father – she believed, above all, that God would bring good for her out of anything he permitted. And because she believed this with all her heart, she never let trials embitter her or turn her into a grim, dour woman.
“I cannot tell you what a beautiful thing the will of God seems to me”, Mary once wrote. And most of the time – even the holy have tough days – she lived that peacefully and joyously.
Blessed Are the Wronged: The daughter of Scottish immigrants, Mary MacKillop had a pioneering spirit that served her well in her mission of bringing free Christian education to the children of farmers, miners, and railway workers who were settling new areas of Australia. She “was not daunted by the great desert, the immense expanses of the outback, nor by the spiritual wilderness which affected so many of her fellow citizens”, said John Paul II at her beatification in 1995. “Rather, she boldly prepared the way of the Lord in the most trying situations.”
It was through a trying situation, in fact, that God led Mary into the work he was calling her to do. She had been teaching for a decade when one day, the school superintendent came to test the pupils in her absence. Without anyone knowing about it, a fellow teacher presented Mary’s students as his, and his as hers. “Her” students performed so poorly that Mary was fired.
Rather than seek revenge, Mary took this treachery as a sign that she should follow Fr. Julian Tenison Woods, a priest who wanted to launch a new religious order. She accepted his invitation, becoming not just its first sister but also its Mother Superior.
This new order – the Josephites (Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart) – had the simple, non-controversial mission of reaching and teaching the poorest children in the country. It grew quickly, and soon many other sisters were joining Mary. They and their leader would hardly seem to merit anyone’s wrath. Yet time and time again, God permitted Mary’s goodness to be tested by determined adversaries. Being wronged – sometimes by even decent or even good people – and reacting with heroic virtue became a theme of her road to holiness.
“A Terrible Mistake”: Consider a day in 1871, just four years after the Josephites’ founding, when Mary was twenty-nine. Now aptly named Mary of the Cross, she knelt on a bare convent floor, wearing a brown habit of the most durable material available. The local bishop had just come in with several of his priests, and the baby-faced Mother Superior was positioned for his blessing.
Instead, Mary was summoned to the convent chapel. There, she knelt again before the frail and failing bishop, now formally decked in his robes and miter, crosier in hand. He had been kind and supportive of Mary, but now, because he had been led to believe false reports, he was expelling her from the Josephites, and excommunicating her to boot.
Mary didn’t fall into the false humility that would have made her think she deserved this treatment. “The dear old bishop has made a terrible mistake”, she wrote her mother. But she was neither devastated nor furious.
As Mary saw it, the mistake offered her a privileged sharing in Christ’s cross for God’s good and redemptive purposes – for herself and others. And since God, in his great love, had permitted it, she found no reason to think badly of anyone-involved – they just were his instruments, after all. Later, Mary wrote of feeling “like one in a dream”, at peace during that terrible moment: “I seemed not to realize the presence of the Bishop and priests. I know I did not see them; but I felt, oh, such a love for their office, a love, a sort of reverence for the very sentence I then knew was being in full force passed upon me. I do not know how to describe the feeling, but I was intensely happy and felt nearer to God that I had ever felt before. The sensation of the calm, beautiful presence of God I shall never forget.”
Five months later, just six days before he died, the bishop realized that he had been duped into believing lies about Mary. He admitted his mistake and restored her status. That was made easier because she had never spoken a word against him or treated him as an adversary. Even when a newspaper trumpeted the injustices she had suffered, Mary was far from rejoicing that “her side” had won; she could only express sadness that her vindication came at the cost of undermining the bishop’s authority. (…)
Count It All Joy: Mary MacKillop relied on God to steer and champion her through all the opposition she encountered. By her example of forgiveness, forthrightness, and calm trust, she set her order on a firm foundation and brought the gospel to people who had never heard it.
Mary understood that the difficulties she met with – from people who were downright blind, spiritually limited, or just a product of their times – were all grist for God’s mill, polishing her into holiness. And so her life invites us to “consider it all joy”, knowing that God will use our own trials to build the perfect perseverance that leads to the joy that never ends (James 1:2-4).
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
Do we trust in the justice and mercy of God? Are we ready to renounce wicked ways that negate the goodness of his love?
In what ways are we a “Yes, but No” person? In what ways are we a “No, but Yes” disciple? Are we faithful to our fundamental option for Christ?
Do we endeavor to put on the mind of Christ and participate in his “self-emptying” and glorification?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Leader: Almighty God,
just and true are your ways.
You do not wish the death of a sinner,
but that he be converted and live.
Help us to say “Yes” to your saving initiative
and embrace fully the beauty of your grace.
Give us the courage to renounce wicked ways
for they alienate us from you.
Let us not negate your compassionate love ever again.
Teach us to put on the mind of Christ
and imitate his self-emptying that leads to glory.
Jesus humbled himself until death - death on the cross.
You thus exalted him as Lord of all creation.
Led by Jesus, let us tread the path to eternal life
and we will praise you and adore you,
forever and ever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.” (cf. Phil 2:5)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
ACTION PLAN: Pray for all Christian disciples that they may have the strength to sustain their fundamental option for God’s kingdom. By your acts of kindness and service, of justice and charity to people who have been deeply impacted negatively by today’s socio-economic-political situation, let the mystery of Christ’s kenosis and glorification come to the fore.
ACTION PLAN: That we may have a deeper understanding of Christ’ humble stance and thus imitate him more fully, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM website (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year A, vol. 7, # 44).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US