Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
11
August 2013
“Blessed
are the eyes that see what you see! For I say to you, many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and they have not seen it; and
to hear what you hear, and they have not heard it.” Lk. 10: 23-4
In today’s readings, we have a profound
teaching on the coming of Jesus Christ and the subsequent effects of divine
grace on the soul. St. Paul in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
(3:4-9) contrasts the glory of the Old Covenant of Moses and the Jews with the
glory of the New Covenant which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brought to
fulfilment by sharing His divine
life with each person who is baptized. The glory given to Moses pales in
comparison to the eternal glory
given to men by Christ: “For if there is glory in the ministration
that condemned (Old Covenant), much more does the ministration that justifies
abound in glory (New Covenant).” II Cor. 3:9 In the Gospel (Lk. 10:23-37) Jesus is asked a
question by a lawyer, “Master what must I do to gain eternal
life?” Lk. 10:25 Jesus
replies by telling the lawyer and the other Jews present The Parable of the Good
Samaritan, which is the quintessential gospel message of charity towards one’s neighbour. This message is so important that only those
who practice this charity, which is given at Baptism with divine grace, will
inherit the glory of heaven. Only
they will have the eternal glory that Christ promises to all those who have faith
in him and follow His teachings. This is why Jesus praises those who see him
and believe in Him: “Blessed
are the eyes that see what you see.” Lk. 10: 23
The Glory of the Old and New
Testament
Dom
Prosper Gueranger in his book, “The Liturgical Year,” Vol. II comments
on the differences between the glory of the Old and New Testament: “But
let us examine what is this ‘glory’
of the new Testament, which so fills the apostle (Paul) with ecstasy, and, in
his mind, almost entirely eclipses the splendour of the old. Splendour there
undoubtedly was in the Covenant of Sinai. Never had there been such a
manifestation of God’s majesty, and omnipotence, and holiness, as on the that day, when, gathering
together, at the foot of the mount, the descendents of the twelve sons of Jacob,
He mercifully renewed, with this immense family, the covenant formerly made
with their fathers, and gave them His Law in the extraordinary solemn manner
described in the Book of Exodus. And yet, that Law, engraven as it was on stone
by God’s own hand, was not, for all that, in the hearts of the receivers;
neither did its holiness prevent, though it condemned, sin—sin which reigns in
man’s heart. (cf. Rom. 7:12-3)
Moses, who carried the divine writing, came down from the mount, having
the rays of God’s ‘glory’ glittering
on his face (cf. Ex. 34: 29-35);
but this ‘glory’ was not to be
shared in by the people of whom he was the head; it was for himself alone as
was likewise the privilege he had enjoyed of speaking with God face to face; it
ceased with him, thus signifying, by its short duration, the character of that
ministration, which was to cease on the coming of the Messiah, just as the
night’s borrowed light vanishes when the day appears. And, as it were, the
better to show that the time was not as yet come, when God would manifest His
glory—the children of Israel were not able to gaze on the face of Moses; so
that, when he had to speak to the people, he had need to put on the veil. Though a mere borrowed light the
brightness of Moses’ face represented the ‘glory’
of the future Covenant, whose splendour was to shine, not, of course,
externally, but in the hearts of us all, by giving us ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ
Jesus.’” II Cor. 4:6 Gueranger, p. 292-3
“Blessed
are the eyes that see what you see!” Lk.10:23
How blessed were those who heard
Jesus speak in today’s gospel about how the Good Samaritan truly loved his
neighbour. Only those who have been enlightened by God’s grace can practice
such charity. Dom Gueranger
comments on the interior “glory” given to those who have
faith in Jesus Christ: “Jesus, the
Man-God, of whom Paul was but the servant, reveals to us, in the Gospel, the
perfection of that Law, which He came to give to the world. And as though He
would, in a certain way, unite His
own divine teachings with those of His apostle, and justify that
apostle’s enthusiasm, it is from the very depth of His own most holy soul, and in the
Holy Ghost (cf. Lk. 10: 23-4) that having thanked His eternal Father for these
great things, He cries out, turning to His disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” Lk.10:23 .... Faith, which guides the just man, is
enough to make him estimate the life of the senses for what it really is,--
miserable and grovelling. With the aid of ordinary grace, he easily lives in that
intimate retirement of the soul, wherein he knows that the holy Trinity
resides; he knows it, because he has it from the teaching of Scriptures (Cf.
Jn. 14:23). His heart is a kind of
heaven, where his life is hidden in God, together with that Jesus upon whom are
fixed all his thoughts (cf. Col. 3:3): there he gives to his beloved Lord the
only proof of love which is to be trusted, the only one that this Lord asks at
our hands, keeping of the commandments (cf. Jn. 14:21). Gueranger, p. 298-302
“Faith
which works through charity.” Gal.
5:6
The key to understanding today’s gospel is the
realization of what St. Paul tells us: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision is
of any avail, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through charity.” Gal.
5:6 Dom Gueranger comments
on the absolute need for charity:
“If all perfection be included in
love,-- if, without love, no virtue produces fruit for heaven,--it is important
for us to remember, that love is not of the right kind unless it includes our
‘neighbour’; and it is only after stating this particular, that St. Paul
affirms that love fulfilleth the whole law (cf. Rom. 13:10) ... and we are told
that the love we have for God is only then what it ought to be, when we love
not only Him, but also what He loves, that is, when we love man whom He made to
His own likeness (cf. I Jn. 4:20). Gueranger, p. 303-4. In the parable of “The Good Samaritan,”
Jesus needed to explain this to the Jews who only saw their neighbour as one of
their own race. Dom Gueranger explains how Jesus makes His will known: “This
time, He does not make His voice heard amidst thunder and fire, as on Mount
Sinai. He, as Man living and conversing with men, reveals to them, and in the
most intelligible way possible, the whole import of the eternal commandment
which leads to life. (cf. Baruch
4:1) ...our Jesus describes there was a man who went forth from the holy city,
and how he fell in with a Samaritan, that is, with a stranger the most despised
and disliked of all those whom an
inhabitant of Jerusalem looked on as his enemies. And yet, the shrewd ‘lawyer’ who questions Jesus, and, no doubt, all those who have been
listening to the answer, are obliged to own that the neighbour, for the poor
fellow who had fallen into the hands of robbers, was not so truly the ‘priest,’ or the ‘levite
(though both of them were of their own race), as this stranger, this ‘Samaritan,’ who forgets all national
grudges as soon as he sees a suffering creature and cannot look on him in any
other light than as a fellow-man.
Our Jesus made himself thoroughly understood; and everyone present must
have well learnt the lesson, that the greatest of all laws, the law of love,
admits of no exception, either here or in heaven.” Gueranger p. 304-5
Other
Christs
The charity of the Good Samaritan is only
possible in the Christian soul by the grace of God which has been given in
Baptism, the sacrament of the New Covenant. The Old Testament was only a preparation for the New; only
in the New Testament are all souls, not just Moses, given the “glory”
of God as St. Paul tells us: “But we all, with faces unveiled, reflecting
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his very image
from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord.” II Cor. 3:18
Solemnity
of the Assumption
Thursday,
15 August, 2013
This Thursday, 15 August 2013 is
the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin body and soul into
heaven. It is a Holyday of Obligation. Holy Mass will be a10:00 A.M.
The New
Evangelization VI
Popes on “Outside the Church there is
no Salvation.”
•
Pope Leo
XIII (1878–1903),
Encyclical Annum Ingressi Sumus: "This is our last
lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God's
commandment salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church."
•
Pope St.
Pius X (1903–1914),
Encyclical Jucunda Sane: "It is our duty to recall
to everyone great and small, as the Holy Pontiff Gregory did in ages past, the
absolute necessity which is ours, to have recourse to this Church to effect our
eternal salvation."
•
Pope
Benedict XV (1914–1922), Encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum: "Such
is the nature of the Catholic faith that it does not admit of more or less, but
must be held as a whole, or as a whole rejected: This is the Catholic faith,
which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved."
•
Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), Encyclical Mortalium Animos: "The
Catholic Church alone is keeping the true worship. This is the font of truth,
this is the house of faith, this is the temple of God; if any man enter not
here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and
salvation… Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ, no man can be or remain
who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter
and his legitimate successors."
•
Pope Pius
XII(1939–1958),
Encyclical Humani Generis,
August 12, 1950: "Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of
belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal
salvation."
•
Pope Pius
XII (1939–1958), Allocution
to the Gregorian University (17 October 1953): "By divine mandate the interpreter and
guardian of the Scriptures, and the depository of Sacred Tradition living
within her, the Church alone is the entrance to salvation: She alone, by
herself, and under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the
source of truth."
•
,Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 14: "They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic
Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to
enter it, or to remain in it."
Addenda: Invincible ignorance
•
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) #847: This affirmation (outside the Church there is no
salvation) is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own do not know
Christ and His Church:
•
“Those who, through no fault of
their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless
seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do
His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience –those too
may achieve eternal salvation.”-Catechism of the Catholic Church:
(Please note:) Those who do not know the ten commandments must keep the
natural law i.e. to do the will of God.
This is not easy. This is
why St. Anthony Mary Claret said: “It
is not necessary to be a Catholic per se, but where else are souls to get rid
of their mortal sins.”
•
Note also, this is why the great English writer, Gilbert Keith
Chesterton said that he wanted a
Church in which his sins would be forgiven.
•
CCC #848 “Although in ways know to himself, God can lead those who,
through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith
without which it is impossible to please Him, the Church still has the
obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize men.”
