MEDITATION
ON SUNDAY'S LITURGICAL READINGS
Collect
for the Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
(A literal translation from
the Latin. The English translations adopted
by the Bishops committee for the
translation when the Liturgy was changed did not
give a literal translation, and in fact, changed
the sense of the prayer in most instances.)
O God, Who in the humility
of Your Son lifted up a falling world, grant holy
joy to Your faithful, so that, You may make those
whom You rescued from the slavery of sin to enjoy
eternal gladness to the full. Through our Lord.
Latin: Deus, qui in Filii tui
humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti, fidelibus tuis
sanctam concede laetitiam, ut, quos eripuisti a servitute
peccati, gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis. Per Dominum.
Fourteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time, B
Readings:
Ezekiel 2.2-5; 2nd Corinthians
12.7-10; Mark 6.1-6
First
Reading
Am
I the prophet sent by God? We read the
lines of this reading and think about
our possible vocation as a prophet. What
acceptable social causes am I involved in which
makes me feel like a prophet? Or rather am I
the one to whom the prophet has been sent? Isnt
it more appropriate to see ourselves among those
to whom the prophet has been sent to set them on
the path. Right now, I am the one in the
reading who needs the prophet. The prophet
needs to be sent to me to speak to me of my
rebellion, of my obstinacy of heart. I
have held a hard face toward God in prayer.
My face is hard from my own self-reliance and my
preoccupation with my own agenda. In
centering prayer with the daily practice, twice a
day, I appear before the Face of God in silence
and love. In the Spirit I long for the Face
of God. Lord, let us see the Father,
and it will be enough. Let the
Prophet be on his feet and come to me,
Spirit-filled, and speak with the power of
transformation.
And
now I ask do I dare to act in the Prophets
role? The anointing by the Holy Spirit has
sealed me in the prophetic power of Christ to be
His face to others. I act in the
prophets role only after I have
been healed of my own rebellion and obstinacy.
Second
Reading
It
is about time that we recognize the thorn
in the flesh that is peculiarly mine. I
know the presence of the angel of Satan in my
life who beats me unmercifully. The Angel
of Satan is my own false self system, the fallen
human condition, the lump of sin as
the author of Cloud of Unknowing
calls it. The grace from the buffeting is
that I really cannot glory in anything but my
infirmities. I come to experience the
perfection of Gods grace in Christ Jesus,
the gift of freedom wherein I find the will to be
in love with God. In my prayer I am
quite content to be present to my powerlessness.
The powerlessness rises quite naturally,
spontaneously in silent contemplative prayer. The
contents of my false self when not repressed
become the ground of surrender into God. What
a grace of God! It is in that moment of the
arising of the contents of my weak and
misdirected inner workings that the Sacred
Word brings me back to the fundamental intention
of my heart: The Sacred Word says Yes to
Christs power within me. This gentle
surrender in the intention, silently, goes beyond
all my powers of thought, imagination, of
conjuring-up visions of my spiritual grandeur.
This is the work that the Father accomplishes in
us: All for the sake of Christ, the Beloved
of our inner-most being, the center-point of the
divine, Triune Presence within me.
The
Gospel
No
angel of Satan can come close to our Lord Jesus.
No thorn of the flesh, as a part of fallen
nature, clings to the human nature of Jesus, the
Son of God. Jesus faces the constant
external opposition from the angel of Satan.
Where did he get all this? The attitude
expressed in this hostile question shows the
resistance, the obstinacy, the rebelliousness
that the First Reading describes. It is
hard faces that are turned to the Face of Jesus.
In
my prayer my heart is open to You, Lord Jesus, as
you come to me through the humility and hiddenness
of your Sacred Humanity. In my prayer I am
one with You in the silence of my acceptance.
It is your Father who draws me unto You; it is
the Holy Spirit Who whispers your name in my
heart. I become silently one with the
Spirit that draws me into You, the Spirit Whom
the Father sends to me constantly in my
contemplative prayer. I believe that Your
transforming presence is most powerful in the
terrible moments of feeling abandoned . Then
I am like You, with the thorn in my flesh, with
the Angel of Satan in the stream of thoughts, I
am like You in that moment in Nazareth. In
the Nazareth of my daily life, in the tasks and
encounters of daily living, I remain with You and
You in me by the faith, hope and love infused
into my soul at Baptism and renewed through the
Sacrament of Reconciliation.
My
contemplative prayer is expressed in the
Psalm: The eye of my inner true
self, bathed in the grace of Christ, rests
steadily upon the Face of Jesus within the
Fathers Bosom through the seven-fold Gift
of the Holy Spirit. The eye of the servant
is upon the hand of the master. The master
is the Father; the hand is the Son; the
lifting-up is the gentle power of the Holy Spirit
Who accomplishes the Work of Salvation.
It
is our powerlessness that we bring to the
communion of our Sunday Holy Eucharist. The
Christ who suffered powerlessness like us
in His sojourn now meets us and brings us in the
Spirit into the Father. Mary, Mother of
God, pray for us that our hearts and minds be
open to Jesus our Savior.
--William C.
Fredrickson, Obl. OSB, D. Min.
|