Monthly Archives: June 2010

Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem

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Click here for today’s Scripture readings.

1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

At first reading of this gospel we might think that Jesus was having a bad hair day. He sounds so gruff and crotchety. Luke tells us that Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. There is an intensity in those words. A determined Jesus heads to the holy city where he knew he would fulfill the mission his Father gave him; bear witness to the truth of God’s love for all of us. The next ten chapters in Luke’s gospel tell us what happened on that journey as Jesus went about the spiritual formation of his disciples, preparing them for the crisis they would all face in Jerusalem.

Going back to the words, ‘Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem’, we hear words of determination. He wasn’t going to let himself get caught in a hassle with the Samaritans, he wasn’t going to let himself be impressed with the enthusiastic young man who promised he would  follow Jesus where ever he went nor did he have time for those who wanted to negotiate how and when they would follow him.

This gospel is all about commitment. Jesus was committed to his father’s will and he expected that same commitment from those who would work with him in proclaiming the kingdom of God. Commitment is not a popular word or concept these days. Keeping one’s word is more and more difficult. It’s easy come and easy go. I’ve heard it explained this way; we are a throw away society, nothing is meant to last, everything has its own built in obsolescence, there is always a new and improved product coming down the line. We trash things and then we end up trashing relationships. Things are disposable, people are disposable. A valid question is, can anybody say ‘forever.’

Jesus was committed to doing his father’s will and he demanded that same commitment from those who wanted to be his followers. He warned them it would not be easy, he told them it would mean taking up the cross every day, in some way or other.

Every year on Easter Sunday we are asked to renew our baptismal vows, our commitment to living a Christian life. We renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty promises. We renew of faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We renew our faith in the church. Hopefully we mean what we say but we are realistic enough to know we will still struggle with our faults and failings. So often its one step forward and two steps back but, with the help of God’s grace, we still keep trying, we still keep on trucking.

Our fidelity is not totally to those baptismal vows but to our trust in Christ’s being our Savior. That’s what we hang on to, the truth that we are loved no matter what our faults and failings. But it’s not easy to not be discouraged with ourselves. How can we live with ourselves who so constantly are not constant? To whom are we faithful? With St. Paul we moan that all the good we want to do, we do not and those things we would rather not do, well, we easily do them. Our baptismal promises center on Jesus’ being our personal and the universal Savior. We live with ourselves, because Jesus lives with us and for us. To paraphrase St. Paul, ‘gladly will I glorify in my infirmities, my weakness, my failures, that the strength of Christ may be in me, for when I am weak, then I am strong.’

Let us pray for ourselves and for each other that strengthened by the Bread of Life we receive at Mass we will try again to set our face toward Jerusalem, we will try again and again to be faithful to the vows we made on Easter Sunday.

Father Paul Cusack, C.P. is the pastor of St. Gabriel Passionist Parish in Toronto, Canada.

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I am not worthy

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Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19
Matthew 8:5-17

I notice the prayer before receiving Communion has been changed slightly in the new translation of our Mass. We say now: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

The new text keeps a little more to the exact words spoken by the Roman centurion to Jesus in today’s gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

It’s a beautiful prayer when we consider its origin, isn’t it? There wasn’t a more powerful–or feared– person in Capernaum than the Roman centurion, the commander of troops, the representative of Caesar, the one who decided questions of life and death.

But in the case of his servant who was paralyzed and suffering terribly, the soldier could do nothing and he realized his limits. He was a humble man. You can hear humility in his words to Jesus who offered to come to his house to cure his servant. He wasn’t worthy to have Jesus come under his roof. He trusted that just a word from him would be enough.

I sometimes wonder what happened to the centurion afterwards. They say that soldiers, like tax collectors, often found their way into the church after Pentecost. Did the centurion from Capernaum influence others like him? What about the one at the cross of Jesus who testified that “Truly, this man was a just man?” And the one at Caesaria Maritima who sent for Peter, seeking baptism for himself and his family?

So many in the gospel who met Jesus, like the centurion, were touched by his grace. We wish we could be like him. At Communion the Lord comes to us; in many ways we’re paralyzed like the servant. We are not worthy, yet he comes.

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and a member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.

Thanks be to God

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2 Kings 25:1-12
Matthew 8:1-4

“Thanks be to God.” It seems strange to end a reading like our first reading today from the 2nd Book of Kings thanking God. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, marches on Jerusalem with all his army and lays siege for almost two years until famine grips the city, “the people had no more bread, the city walls were breached.”

The Jewish King Zedekiah and his army, the strongest souls left in the city, escape but are pursued and captured. Brought before Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah’s two sons are slain before their father’s eyes. Then Zedekiah himself is blinded so that the last thing he would see was his sons’ cruel death. And he’s led off to Babylon.

Then Nebuchadnezzar’s captain and his troops devastate Jerusalem, leveling its temple, its buildings and its walls. Any Jews left in the city are rounded up and led into slavery in Babylon. Only a remnant of the poor are left. Everything is destroyed.

“Thanks be to God.”

It’s not the story of cruel destruction depicted here that we thank God for; it’s the power that rebuilds the fallen city, the light of hope that cannot be extinguished.

Today is Friday, a day we remember another cruel tragedy when all looked destroyed: Jesus Christ was crucified and died an awful death. “Thanks be to God,” we say again. God’s power raised him up. He gives us hope when all seems destroyed.

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and a member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.