Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
13 September 2015
“For
everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall
be exalted.” Lk. 14:11
In today’s liturgy, we are given passages which celebrate the incredible
riches of the coming of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. In the Epistle (Ephesians
3:13-21), St. Paul, although he is in chains in Rome, celebrates “the
unfathomable riches of Christ.” Eph. 3:8 Today’s
Gospel ( Luke 14:1-11), describes the miraculous ability of Jesus to
cure the man with dropsy and shows how
Our Lord’s divine wisdom counteracts the pride of the Pharisees in the “Parable
of Choosing the Lowest Place at Table.” Only divine wisdom could have
challenged the Pharisees in their custom of choosing the first place for
themselves at banquets. By telling them to humble themselves and pick the
lowest place at table, Jesus rebukes them for their prideful attack on Him for
curing the man of dropsy on the Sabbath. He also reveals their own covetousness
for honours and esteem before men. In teaching them the need to be humble, Jesus
reveals the importance of humility in order to enter the heavenly kingdom He
has prepared for them. Earlier, in the first chapter of the Epistle
tothe Ephesians, St. Paul had extolled
this wonderful plan of God for all mankind: “Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing on high
in Christ. Even as he chose us in him
before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish
in his sight in love.” Eph. 1: 3-4 In
today’s Epistle, St. Paul praises the blessed calling of all Christians: “...and to have Christ dwelling through
faith in your hearts: so that being rooted and grounded in love, you may be
able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, in order
that you may be filled unto all fullness of God.” Eph. 3: 17-19
The
Mystery of Christ Dwelling in Man
Dom Prosper Gueranger in his book, The
Liturgical Life Vol. 11 comments on the plenitude of God which is given
to the soul who believes in Jesus Christ. “For,
God alone, as he tells us in the music we have just heard, can strengthen in us
the inward man enough to make us understand, as the saints do, the dimensions
(‘breadth, length, height and depth’)
of the great mystery of Christ ‘dwelling’
in man, and ‘dwelling’ in him for the
purpose of ‘filling him with the plenitude
of God.’ Therefore is it, that falling on his knees before him from whom
flows every perfect gift, and who has begotten us in truth by his love (cf.
Jas. 1:17-8), our apostle (Paul) asks God to open, by faith and charity, the
eyes of our heart, that we may be able to understand the splendid riches of the
inheritance He reserves to His children, and the exceeding greatness of the
divine power used in our favour, even in this life.” Gueranger, p. 359 The Holy Spirit opens to us the riches of
God’s grace for those who will penetrate the mystery of the predestination to
holiness in love for all those who will be “the praise of the glory of his
grace.” (Eph. 1:6) Dom Gueranger
comments on this high calling of the followers of Christ: “It is there that divine Wisdom reveals to the perfect that great secret
of love, which is not known by the
wise and the princes of this
world—secret which the eye had not before seen, nor the ear heard, nor the
heart even suspected as possible (cf. I Cor. 2: 6-9) ...The world was not as yet existing (“before the
foundation of the world” Eph. 1: 4), and already God saw us in His Word
(Christ) (cf. Eph. 1:4); to each one among us, He assigned the place he was to
hold in the body of His Christ (cf. I Cor. 12:12-31; Eph. 4:12-16)), already,
His fatherly eye beheld us clad with that grace (cf. Eph. 1:6) which made
Him well-pleased with the Man-God; and
He predestinated us (cf. Eph. 1:4-5), as being
members of this His beloved Son, to sit with Him, on His right hand, in
the highest heavens.. It is from the voluntary and culpable death of sin (cf. Eph.
2:1-5) that he calls us to that life which is His own life... Let us then be
holy for the sake of giving praise to the glory of such grace (cf. Eph. 1: 4,
6) ...Thus, too, is to be wrought that mystery which, from all eternity, was the
object of God’s eternal designs: the mystery, that is, of divine union,
realized by our Lord Jesus uniting, in His own Person, in infinite love, both
earth and heaven.” Gueranger, p. 361-2 Oh, how exalted is the calling of
men to be Sons of God and “the praise of His glory” in heaven
for all eternity.
The
Heavenly Marriage Banquet
In a metaphorical way, the essential
message of today’s Gospel is the practical fulfilment of what St. Paul is
speaking about in today’s Epistle the predestination of the elect to the heavenly
marriage banquet. Dom Gueranger comments on this calling: “The wedding spoken of in today’s Gospel is that of heaven, of which
there is a prelude given here below, by the union effected in the sacred
banquet of Holy Communion. The divine invitation is made to all; and the
invitation is not like that which is given on the occasion of earthly weddings,
to which the bridegroom and bride invite their friends and relatives as simple
witnesses to the union contracted between two individuals. In the Gospel
wedding, Christ is the Bridegroom, and the Church is the bride (cf. Apoc.
19:7).... But, for the attainment of all
this—that is, that our Lord Jesus Christ may have that full control over
the soul and its powers which makes her to be truly His, and subjects her to Him as the bride to her
Spouse (cf. I Cor. 11:8-10) – it is
necessary that all alien competition be entirely and definitively put aside.”
Gueranger, p. 365.
Loss of Spiritual Ardour
In today’s
Gospel, we see how Jesus stresses the importance of seeking God alone and not the honours of men in order to attain
divine union. In a dramatic manner, as the Pharisees watch Him to see if He
will break the Sabbath by curing the man with dropsy, Jesus not only cures the
man with dropsy, but He reveals the serious sickness in the souls of the
Pharisees. According to Dom Gueranger, quoting St. Ambrose, the man with dropsy
represents “a morbid exuberance of
humours, which stupefy the soul, and induce total extinction of spiritual
ardour.” Gueranger, p. 367-6 Ven. Bede also shows that this loss of spiritual ardour is caused by lustful
desires: “The dropsical man represents
one who is weighed down by an overflowing stream of carnal pleasures, for it is
a sickness named after the watery humour. But specifically the dropsical man is
the covetous rich man who, the more he abounds in riches, the more ardently desires
them, says St. Augustine.” The Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide,
p. 540 Jesus cures the dropsical man of his
covetousness for this world’s goods so that he can seek the riches of God. In
reading the minds of the Pharisees, He also shows how His cure is just exactly
what everyone else would do: “Which of you shall have an ass or a an
ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately
draw him up on the Sabbath.” Lk. 14: 5. The pride of the Pharisees has
blinded them so that they condemn Jesus for delivering a man from sickness,
even though they themselves would do the
same for one of their own animals
“...he who humbles himself shall be
exalted.”
Lk. 14:11
Dom Gueranger commenting on the evil attitude of the Pharisees tells us of
the importance of humility if we are going to be accepted in the heavenly feast
as Christ’s bride: “But, as above all, it is to the constant attitude of humility that he
must especially direct his attention who
would secure a prominent place in the divine feast of the nuptials.”
Gueranger, p. 366 Jesus had spoken the “Parable of the First Seats at
Table” to show that the Pharisees are ambitious and proud to presume to
take the first places at a wedding banquet.“Now
Christ demonstrates how unbecoming it is to vie for the first seat at table,
and thereby he silently demonstrates, by way of analogy, how unbecoming
ambition is in any matter whatsoever. For sin continues to be sin, although the matter
may differ from one case to the next.” A Lapide, p. 341-2. Although Jesus is commenting on the ambition of
seeking the first place, He is primarily teaching us all that the only way to
the heavenly banquet table is one of humility. “For everyone who exalts himself
shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” Lk. 14:11
Those who wrongfully desire
the praise of men will not be worthy to enter the heavenly banquet as brides of
Christ.
“The
Little Number of Those Who Are Saved”
by St. Leonard of Port Maurice
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice was a most holy
Franciscan friar who lived at the monastery of Saint Bonaventure in Rome. He
was one of the greatest missioners in the history of the Church. He used to
preach to thousands in the open square of every city and town where the
churches could not hold his listeners. So brilliant and holy was his eloquence
that once when he gave a two weeks' mission in Rome, the Pope and College of
Cardinals came to hear him. The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin,
the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the veneration of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus were his crusades. He was in no small way responsible for the
definition of the Immaculate Conception made a little more than a hundred years
after his death. He also gave us the Divine Praises, which are said at the end
of Benediction. But Saint Leonard's most famous work was his devotion to the
Stations of the Cross. He died a most holy death in his seventy-fifth year,
after twenty-four years of uninterrupted preaching.
One of Saint Leonard of Port Maurice's most
famous sermons was "The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved." It was the one he relied
on for the conversion of great sinners. This sermon, like his other writings,
was submitted to canonical examination during the process of canonization. In
it he reviews the various states of life of Christians and concludes with the
little number of those who are saved, in relation to the totality of men.
The reader who meditates on this remarkable
text will grasp the soundness of its argumentation, which has earned it the
approbation of the Church. Here is the great missionary's vibrant and moving
sermon. (to be continued next and subsequent weeks)
