August 21, 2016 – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Lectionary: 123
Reading 1 – Isaiah 66: 18-21
Thus says the LORD:
I know their works and their thoughts,
and I come to gather nations of every language;
they shall come and see my glory.
I will set a sign among them;
from them I will send fugitives to the nations:
to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan,
to the distant coastlands
that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory;
and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.
They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD,
on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries,
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD,
just as the Israelites bring their offering
to the house of the LORD in clean vessels.
Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 117: 1, 2
- Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
Praise the LORD all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples! - Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
For steadfast is his kindness toward us,
and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever. - Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
Reading 2 – Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13
Brothers and sisters,
You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”;
God treats you as sons.
For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.
Gospel – Luke 13: 22-30
Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”
Listen to the Scriptures: click on the link below:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/16_08_21.mp3
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time – C – 21st August 2016
Theme: UNWANTED CROSSES: God disciplined the Israelites through the hardships they suffered because of their failure to live up to the covenant He had established with them through Moses. He disciplines us too through difficulties experienced in daily life, especially through the unwanted crosses we have to bear. His purpose is to mold us, through our acceptance of these things, into the likeness of Christ.
Life is full of unwanted and unsought problems and difficulties over which we have no control. They are part of the burden of the human condition. How to handle them is a perennial question. The Christian answer is to accept and bear them as occasions of grace and participation in the redemptive carrying of the cross by Christ himself.
Simon the Cyrenian, a victim of circumstances beyond his control, was subjected to a discipline not of his choice. He was drafted to help Christ carry the cross to the place of crucifixion. He did it because he had to, under the necessity of military command, and without understanding what the sad chain of events in which he found himself involved was all about. The only thing he knew at the time was that he had to submit himself to the discipline of carrying an unwanted cross. Doing so, he found out later, led him to faith in Christ and salvation.
POINT 1: Unwanted crosses and the discipline connect with them – mental and physical suffering, injustice, hardship, boredom, fatigue – are imposed on the shoulders of everybody in one way or another. Carrying them is hard. Harder still is dragging them without conviction that they have meaning, that they figure somehow in the overall plan of God’s providence for salvation. To suffer for an apparent reason is one thing. To suffer without such a reason or without being in any way the cause of it makes people say, in complaint: “Why me?” “Where’s the justice of God?” – or, in resignation: “It’s God’s will and I’m stuck with it.”
POINT 2: Facing difficulties. When “stuck with it,” we face the dilemma of making some kind of virtue out of unavoidable difficulties or of wasting our way through them. We cannot bypass them; they are simply there. That’s the trouble, their inevitability. And their mystery, hidden in the design of God does not directly will them but yet permits them to occur as events of s subtle discipline from which good can come – if they are accepted in the Spirit of Christ and carried not just to torment but finally to resurrection and new life.
POINT 3: This form of discipline is not to be blamed on God, but has to be referred to Him for understanding and justification. Both are possible for those who believe that his justice and mercy have forever, and not just time, in which to work themselves out. Job, a good and guiltless man, could not fathom the mystery of his chastisements and suffering. Elsewhere in Scripture it is said that everything works for the good of persons with faith. Everyone is heir to the ills of person and fortune that come from the nature and imperfection of things, and from his own behavior. Those who bear them with faith make them redemptive, as Christ did with all of the suffering imposed on Him because of the sins of men – and which He accepted as His bitter cup to drink in compliance with the will of His Father.
CONCLUSION: Resignation to the discipline of unwanted crosses is a necessity for followers of Christ. Carrying them behind him, he said, is what his disciples have to do; it is a condition of discipleship. For this, they will receive the blessings promised in the beatitudes. No ready answers to the mystery of suffering, no instant relief or satisfaction of needs, no easy comfort. But everlasting recompense for all things endured for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
First Reading – Book of the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 66, Verses 18-21
The Israelites were the chosen people. They remain so. But God extended the same “chosenness” to others. How has this worked out through the ages? Have Christians always honored their ancestors, the Jewish people?
It was God’s plan to save all humankind from the beginning. What can you do to make others welcome? What encourages exclusivity? Can you think of anything your parish or the Church in general could do to be more inclusive?
Second Reading – Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 12, Verses 5-7, 11-13
The second reading says that we should “strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees.” What happens to athletes who don’t work out? Can you become spiritually “flabby?” Do you ever “exercise” spiritually on your own? How? What good does St. Paul say will come from such “discipline?”
From what you know of the lives of the saints, did/does God handle the saints with “kid gloves”? Does God handle you with kid gloves? Would you like that? What is the relationship between God’s love and hardships along the spiritual path?
Gospel – According to Luke, Chapter 13, Verses 22-30
“We ate and drank in your company.” Is a membership in a particular church an automatic “opening” of the narrow gate? What opens the narrow gate for you?
Can people of all religions receive grace? Is the narrow gate open to all of humankind? What do you think?.
Read today’s Gospel (Luke 13:22-30) again:
Jesus continued to go through towns and villages, teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. `Lord,’ someone said to him, `are those who are to be saved few in number?’ He said to them, `Keep on striving to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able to. Once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and when you begin to stand outside and knock, saying, `Lord, open to us,’ he will answer you, `I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, `We have eaten and drunk in your presence and you taught in our streets.’ He will say, `I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me all you who are workers of iniquity.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there, when you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God and yourselves cast out. And they will come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and take their places at table in the kingdom of God. And–look you–there are those who are last who will be first, and there are those first who will be last.
When this questioner asked his question it would certainly be on the assumption that the kingdom of God was for the Jews (God’s chosen people) and that gentiles would all be shut out. Jesus’ answer must have come as a shock to him.
- He declared that entry to the kingdom can never be automatic but is the result and the reward of a struggle. “Keep on striving to enter,” he said. The word for striving is the word from which the English word agony is derived. The struggle to enter in must be so intense that it can be described as an agony of soul and spirit.
We run a certain danger. It is easy to think that, once we have made a commitment of ourselves to Jesus Christ, once we have been baptized, made first communion or confirmation, we have reached the end of the road and can, as it were, sit back as if we had achieved our goal. There is no such finality in the Christian life. A man must ever be going forward or necessarily he goes backward.
The Christian way is like a climb up a mountain pathway towards a peak which will never be reached in this world. It was said of two gallant climbers who died on Mount Everest, “When last seen they were going strong for the top.” It was inscribed on the grave of an Alpine guide who had died on the mountain-side, “He died climbing.” For the Christian, life is ever an upward and an onward way.
- The defense of these people was, “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.” There are those who think that just because they are members of a Christian civilization all is well. They differentiate between themselves and the heathen in their ignorance and blindness. But the man who lives in a Christian civilization is not necessarily a Christian. He may be enjoying all its benefits; he certainly is living on the Christian capital which others before him have built up; but that is no reason for sitting back content that all is well. Rather it challenges us, “What did you do to initiate all this? What have you done to preserve and develop it?” We cannot live on borrowed goodness.
- There will be surprises in the kingdom of God. Those who are very prominent in this world may have to be very humble in the next; those whom no one notices here may be the princes of the world to come. There is a story of a woman who had been used to every luxury and to all respect. She died, and when she arrived in heaven, an angel was sent to conduct her to her house. They passed many a lovely mansion and the woman thought that each one, as they came to it, must be the one allotted to her. When they had passed through the main streets they came to the outskirts where the houses were much smaller; and on the very fringe they came to a house which was little more than a hut. “That is your house,” said the conducting angel. “What,” said the woman, “that! I cannot live in that.” “I am sorry,” said the angel, “but that is all we could build for you with the materials you sent up.”
The standards of heaven are not the standards of earth. Earth’s first will often be last, and its last will often be first.\
PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL
For the Church: that we may not merely profess Christ with words but live as dynamic disciples of Christ, let us pray to the Lord.
For spiritual growth: that Spirit will help us implement spiritual practices that will deepen our knowledge and love of God and increase our ability to respond to God’s invitations each day, let us pray to the Lord.
For unity in the Body of Christ: that Christians from east and west, north and south, may work together in confronting evil, poverty and disease so that the Gospel may be made known in deeds as well as words, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are experiencing trials and disciplines: that God will strengthen their spirits and help them to be open to the pruning and renewing work of God’s Word, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are facing difficult choices, particularly about health issues, relationships or unhealthy life styles: that the Spirit guide them to inner freedom, integrity and wholeness, let us pray to the Lord.
For grace to enter through the narrow gate: that the Spirit will guide us in living with forgiveness, compassion, self-, let us pray to the Lord.control and acts of service so that our lives may manifest the reign of God, let us pray to the Lord.
For fortitude: that we may resist the easy path of violence, ridicule, prejudice and humiliation of others and become ever more aware that we are all sisters and brothers in Christ, let us pray to the Lord.
For courage: that those who have heard God’s invitation may generously respond to God and trust that God will provide what seems lacking in their ability, let us pray to the Lord.
For a spirit of openness: that we may be welcoming and hospitable to all people, particularly immigrants and refugees, let us pray to the Lord.
For missionaries and aid workers: that God will renew their spirits and give them the resources they need to support and inspire those whom they serve, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are suffering from wildfires and other disasters: that God will comfort them, heal their spirits and guide them to the resources to rebuild their lives, let us pray to the Lord.
For freedom from fear: that God’s love will help us shed our fears and live in the freedom of God’s children, let us pray to the Lord.
For members of Parliament, District Assemblies and Congress: that God will inspire them to find new ways to provide for the homeless, the unemployed and those with mental illness in our society, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are working to promote racial and inter-religious harmony: that God will guide their efforts and help all to recognize the dignity of each other
For the members of the military: that God will protect them in their service and bring them home safely to their families, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are traveling home from the Olympic games: that God will guide them safely on their way and reunite them with their loved ones, let us pray to the Lord.
For peace: that God will inspire those working for peace with new insights and energy as they promote respect and safety for all people, let us pray to the Lord.