July 4, 1999 |
The Gospel this Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time contains both dogmatic passages and pastoral teachings. This section of the Gospel sounds very much like St. Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus reveals the Father. At any rate, it is a teaching of Jesus, and the early church that Jesus and God the Father are one, and Jesus reveals this to those who wish to believe and respond. The second half of the Gospel is a reminder to turn to the Lord in every circumstance of our life for comfort and consolation. I would like to offer these reflections from the DAILY STUDY BIBLE, by William Barclay, concerning this passage:
Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulders. The Jews used the phrase the yoke for entering into submission to. They spoke of the yoke of the Law, the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of the Kingdom, the yoke of God. But it may well be that Jesus took the words of his invitation from something much nearer home than that.
He says, My yoke is easy. The word easy is in Greek chrestos, which can mean well-fitting. In Palastine ox yokes were made of wood; the ox was brought, and the measurements were taken. The yoke was then roughed out, and the ox was brought back to have the yoke tried on. The yoke was carefully adjusted, so that it would fit well, and not gall the neck of the patient beast. The yoke was tailor made to fit the ox.
There is a legend that Jesus made the best ox yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country men came to buy the best yokes that skill could make. In those days, as now, shops had their signs above the door of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth where he had worked throughout the silent years.
Jesus says, My yoke fits well. What he means is: The life I give you is not a burden to gall you; your task is made to measure to fit you. Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly.
Maria Goretti was 12 years old when she died. She was born in Corinalda, Ancona, Italy, on October 16, 1890. Her father died of malaria and her mother had to struggle to feed the children. In 1902, an eighteen-year-old neighbor, Alexander, grabbed her from her front steps and tried to rape her. When Maria said that she would rather die than submit, Alexander began stabbing her with a knife. As she lay in the hospital she forgave Alexander before she died. Her death did not end her forgiveness. Alexander was captured and sentenced to thirty years. He was unrepentant until he had a dream that he was in a garden. Maria was there and gave him flowers. When he awoke he was a changed man, repenting of his crime and living a reformed life. When he was released, he went directly to Maria's mother to beg her forgiveness, which she gave. When Maria was declared a saint in 1950, Alexander was there in the crowd to celebrate her canonization. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII for her purity as a model for youth. She is called a martyr because she fought against Alexander's attempts at sexual assault. However the most important aspect of her story is her forgiveness of her attackerher concern for her enemy even beyond her death. She is the patroness of youth and for victims of rape.
Each year on this day, we gather with family and friends to celebrate our American heritage. This heritage includes our individual and collective independence to live free from oppression and injustice and to live freely for God, for family and for country. This is the birthday of our nation and although ours is far from a utopian society, we can be proud of the example most Americans give to the rest of the world. May we all feel a healthy sense of pride in being American and may all of us do our part in safeguarding and pro- moting our precious freedom. God bless America!
Last year I inquired about shooting off fireworks in Grandview. I was told "Absolutely not!" So, this year, I will walk around all day quietly saying: "Boom!"
The Fourth of July, of course, is far more than fireworks. It celebrates a dream of freedom achieved. We need to recover our forefathers' (and mothers') spirit of liberty. Only in the Spirit of the Lord can we find that true liberty that gives the endurance and vision needed today. "Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Make your pledge of allegiance today to that spirit of liberty that made our Country great. Make your pledge of allegience to your God as well. As William Penn said, "Men must be governed by God, or ruled by tyrants."
Father Murphy
"The peace of the Lord be with you always." "Peace" is second only to "love" in words often used without depth of feeling. But ours is a faith in the Prince of Peace. Our gentle Lord comes to us in meekness to banish warfare (1). The burden we are asked to bear is not all that onerous. (3) Every child knows that things will change when childhood ends. Anything we are asked to bear in the nature of a burden will pass as we pass into everlasting life. Our stewardship is prelude to our retirement. If we work industriously to accomplish the Lord's work while we live, we will enjoy the peace of the Lord which passes understanding when the kingdom is fully come.
Paige Byrne Shortal
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
On this day when we celebrate the goodness of our country, the nobility of the dreams on which we are founded, the land of hope that we are to so many, as I hear this Gospel I can't help but be reminded of another text. Recall the words of Emma Lazarus, whose poem is inscribed on a plaque within the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
What a heavenly vision our founders had! And heavenly it was: we were and are an experiment with Utopia, with creating a Colony of Heaven on Earth. Consider another noble text, this from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all (men) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Created we are and endowed by the Creator. It means that the inherent and essential dignity of the person that is given to one is given to all. And we have slowly learned that there are no borders when it comes to human dignity - no borders of race or gender or wealth or nationality or religion. We have not always been so wise.
Last week I visited the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC. It's a holy place, oddly quiet for a museum, like a church or a shrine, which indeed it is. There was a memorium to the passengers of the St. Louis - a ship that sailed in 1939 with 950 hopeful Jewish immigrants from Germany to Cuba. But when they got to Cuban shores they were refused entry, and, turned away again from the United States, they were returned to Europe where most of them perished in the death camps of the Nazis.
Did they know about the statue Emma Lazarus calls Mother of Exiles? Did any of them know of her poem? Or know that Emma Lazarus was herself Jewish?
Several years ago I read a description of the 200-year cycle of great societies:
From bondage to spiritual faith.
From spiritual faith to great courage.
From great courage to liberty.
From liberty to abundance.
From abundance to selfishness.
From selfishness to complacency.
From complacency to apathy.
From apathy to dependency.
From dependency back again into bondage.
Can the cycle be broken? And what will break it? Perhaps only our welcome of the immigrants and others whom Jesus calls the little ones. They may renew our nation by their gratitude and remind us of our blessings.
AS WE DRAW NEAR TO THE YEAR 2000, many people are beginning to ask what meaning this unique historical time has for us. Throughout life, we celebrate different rites of passage which mark significant life events. In the final years of the 20th Century, we find ourselves with this opportunity to mark the passage from one millennium to the next. Many questions frame this journey: What meaning does this time in history have for us? What are our hopes for the future? What do we need to do to make the future a life full of hope and promise? -- John Paul II, in Tertio Millennio Adveniente, paints a picture of these years as a time to deepen our faith and strengthen our witness. As Christians, the year 2000 is a celebration of 2000 years of Christianity - of Christ's presence in human history. As a jubilee year, it is an opportunity to begin anew. Thus, John Paul II invites us, as we open the doors to a new millennium, to open wide the doors of our hearts to Jesus Christ. And to do this through personal conversion, building reconciling and faith sharing communities, and by working to create a more just and peaceful world.
THEME: FREEDOM: A certain independence rings through the readings today, and how timely as Americans celebrate 223 years of freedom. Young soldiers of the Revolution who fought for our freedom and soldiers throughout the years since who fought to protect that freedom were unburdened by many concerns and worries of older men. The eighteen-year-old of the battlefield was young and idealistic. While all of us value freedom, the young soldier feared less. Generally he did not have the responsibilities of a family and others who depended on him for care. He had fewer commitments than older men to support another person. In a sense the burdens of life had been hidden from the young so that they could risk fighting for freedom.
I've been thinking about
THE MYTH OF BEING AMERICAN
In the Gospel today Jesus utters those famous words, Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.
In the context of the Fourth of July, our U.S. Independence Day, the contrast between what Jesus says and what we see the American dream to be is most striking.
So much of our American myth is built upon rugged individualism, capitalistic consumerism, and get-ahead competition.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls for personal dignity through community, fulfillment through sharing, and holiness through collaboration, especially in reaching out together to take care of the needs of those less fortunate.
Even though we hold onto to Benjamin Franklin's words, God helps those who help themselves, we still more strongly rely on the words of Scripture: If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure (Ps 37).
Even though we make a buck to save a buck and save a buck to make a buck, we nonetheless make Jesus' words our primary guide: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides (Mt 6:33).
Even though, in the words of the commercial for the Army, we strive for that self-interest to be all that we can be, our first priority is the teaching of Jesus: Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate (Lk 6:36).
This, then, is how we learn from Jesus to be meek and humble of heart: We acknowledge that we are immensely, unconditionally loved by God. We choose to enter into that love by our own surrender and dedication. We make the effort to share that love as abundantly as possible by our outreach of kindness and helpfulness, justice and peace.
We might not be realizing the American myth, but surely we would be achieving the Gospel truth in the American context. And this is evangelization!
Father Benet OFM
There are times of trial, tests of national character, in the history of every country. America has not been immune to them. One such time of trial is closely connected with St. Louis. Here, the famous Dred Scott case was heard. And in that case the Supreme Court of the United States subsequently declared an entire class of human beings people of African descent outside the boundaries of the national community and the Constitution's protection.
After untold suffering and with enormous effort, that situation has, at least in part, been reversed.
America faces a similar time of trial today. Today, the conflict is between a culture that affirms, cherishes, and celebrates the gift of life, and a culture that seeks to declare entire groups of humans beings the unborn, the terminally ill, the handicapped, and other considered unuseful to be outside the boundaries of legal protection. Because of the seriousness of the issues involved, and because of America's great impact on the world as a whole, the resolution of this new time of testing will have profound consequences for the century whose threshold we are about to cross. My fervent prayer is that through the grace of God at work in the lives of Americans of every race, ethnic group, economic condition and creed, America will resist the culture of death and choose to stand steadfastly on the side of life. To choose life as I wrote in this year's Message for the World Day of Peace involves rejecting every form of violence: the violence of poverty and hunger, which oppresses so many human beings; the violence of armed conflict, which does not resolve but only increases divisions and tensions; the violence of particularly abhorrent weapons such as anti-personnel mines; the violence of drug trafficking; the violence of racism; and the violence of mindless damage to the natural environment.
Only a higher moral vision can motivate the choice for life. And the values underlying that vision will greatly depend on whether the nation continues to honor and revere the family as the basic unit of society: the family teacher of love, service, understanding and forgiveness; the family open and generous to the needs of others; the family the great wellspring of human happiness.
Pope John Paul II
We celebrate each year at this time the freedom and the privileges we have in this great land. God has indeed blessed America. This day we also celebrate the freedom God has granted to us and the great privilege of serving our living Lord. We hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday!!
God, source of all freedom, this day is bright with the memory of those who declared that life and liberty are your gift to every human being.
Help us to continue a good work begun long ago. Make our vision clear and our will strong; that only in human solidarity will we find liberty, and justice only in the honor that belongs to every life on earth.
Turn our hearts toward the family of nations; to understand the ways of others, to offer friendship, and to find safety only in the common good of all.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen
A Reflection Celebrating Our Faith... The famous American Catholic Archbishop John Ireland said at the beginning of this century: America declared itself a republic; its government is organized democracy. In America, according to the sole legitimate government; to the republic Catholics are in conscience obliged to yield sincere and unswerving obedience. God is the giver and source of all power; of themselves men have no authority over other men. The authority of parent over child is from God, who willed that men should live within the fostering embrace of social organism. In that sense, but in no other, a government whatever the form rules by divine right. It is God who gives power, but the people choose those who hold it. This is supreme democracy; it is the understanding of Catholicism. Our combats, if combats there be, are never against the liberties of America but in defense of them; never against America but against such of its sons whose souls never have thrilled in full response to its teachings and inspiration.
Reprise on Independence... The Gospel records Jesus' words about following Him as He makes the Father's will His only goal. This challenge found an echo in the very words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States that all men are endowed with inalienable rights which are inalienable because they are God's law written in the very make-up of humanity. The very pledge of allegiance states it clearly: One nation under God. To become forgetful of God destroys the inalienability of all human rights, and even our national identity. This is a significant fact to ponder as our national conscience sorts out the issues of the right to life from conception until natural, unassisted death! If the God-given right to life is not respected in the child/person because the child is not yet born even though the child is alive, then the God-given right of anyone and everyone is not respected.
Respect For Life... On this day of celebrating freedom and independence, pause to consider the perversion of the whole concept of freedom by pro-choice advocates. Freedom of choice has become a woman's freedom, under the law, to choose death for an unborn human being. Promises of women's liberation have clouded the human heart and mind, both of which know that for this kind of independence to be achieved, a dependent baby must be killed.
by Pope John Paul II
Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is prayer offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children together. Communion in prayer is both a consequence of and a requirement for the communion bestowed by the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus promises. His presence can be applied to the members of the Christian family in a special way: Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt 18: 19-20].
Family prayer has for its very own objects family life itself, which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a filial response to His call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations and homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are dear...all of these mark God's loving intervention in the family's history. They should be seen as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven. The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as the domestic Church can be achieved only with God's unceasing aid, which will surely be granted if it is humbly and trustingly petitioned in prayer....
By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer, introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with Him. The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by praying together with their children can a father and mother-exercising their royal priesthood - penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface. [FC 59, 60]
