Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time -- Year A

First: Zech 9:9-10; Second: Rm 8:9, 11-13; Gospel: Mt 11:25-30

THEME of the READINGS

Not infrequently, Christianity seems paradoxical, precisely because it unites harmoniously within itself realities that oppose each other. This Sunday’s readings propose one of these paradoxes: the Messiah-king humbly approaching Jerusalem riding on an ass (first reading); Jesus, master and lord, who calls himself gentle and lowly in heart and also claiming that his yoke is easy and his burden light; St. Paul who, in his letter to the Romans, following Christ’s footsteps, reasons in a peculiar way that can be summed up: "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live."

DOCTRinal MESSAGE

Paradoxes are surprising and disconcerting to us. They escape the logic of reason and they "martyr" us by making us lose control of thought. Paradoxes are a product of thought, but they belong to a sphere that is different from logic and reason. They come from the emotional, the intuitive sphere, the logic of the heart and, if they are Christian paradoxes, also from the sphere of revelation and faith. In this sense, the starting point of our homily for today must be the reality of the Christian paradox and the awareness of this reality. From this standpoint, we can reflect on the liturgical texts:

The paradox of the Messiah. The Messiah awaited throughout the Old Testament was the Messiah-king, David’s descendent, who was to enter Jerusalem as a great monarch riding a horse, after having reconquered the whole of David’s kingdom. Zechariah mentions a king, just and victorious indeed, but humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. Christianity saw this prophecy come true in Jesus, the Messiah awaited by the Jews and by all peoples. He is a Messiah-king, but who reigns – what a mystery! – from the throne of the cross in the midst of the most atrocious suffering.

The paradox of love. The passage from St. Matthew reproduces, as in a picture, the paradoxical love of Jesus. This is a paradox that shows the most annihilating humiliation of the most sublime and conscious greatness, that of the Son of God, by means of the incarnation. The paradox is that of the Lord and Master who, in his simplicity and humility of heart, places the burden and the yoke on his shoulders, so that we, his servants oppressed by the weight, might find the burden lighter and we, his disciples worn out by laws and precepts, might find the yoke easier.

The paradox of grace. In Christian life, the terms "to die – to live" are correlative, that is, one must die to live. It is by the death of the deeds of the flesh that the new man is raised, who lives by the Spirit. This is death in the ascetic sense, and, if God wills, also in the real sense to the point of martyrdom, so that Christ may live in us in a way that is not of this world. If this is truly imprinted on him, a Christian is not of this world, but he is in the world as leaven and as light.

PASTOral SUGGESTIONS

Christians are unclassifiable. Human beings have a marked tendency to classify each other, labeling people by contrasting categories. One is left wing or right wing, traditional or progressive, charismatic or institutional, liberal or conservative, and so on. Christians do not fit any of these categories, they are simply Christian. This gives them the freedom to belong to all the categories, if their consciences call them to do so in certain cases. In our pastoral work, we must keep this clearly in mind and break down these oppositions. Sometimes a Christian may appear progressive, because that is what his faith and conscience require of him, and on other occasions he may appear traditional for the same reasons. It is not the categories that count, but the values that are being promoted and preserved; and when values are at stake, no classification matters. Values such as life, public morality, the safeguard of the environment, the dignity of the human person, freedom in general and religious freedom in particular, do not belong to any category and cannot be subordinated to any factious classifications. These are human values and will always have to be protected and fostered anywhere and in all circumstances.

Do not be afraid of being "pigeon-holed," of the fact that people give us a nickname we do not like, that makes us lose friends, that may even put our reputation and our honor at risk. The first to have been categorized by the men of his own time was Jesus, and not very favorably: bon viveur, friend of publicans and sinners, rebel against the laws of his people, etc. Jesus Christ was not concerned by such classifications. The only thing which cornered his interest and was his true concern, the proclamation of the kingdom of God, the inner repentance and the conversion, and the faith that is needed to reach this kingdom. All the rest did not matter to him. We, as priests and pastors, must have the same attitude as Jesus Christ, even if it does not come easily to us and even if our natural tendency would be to follow another course. In addition, as pastors, we must inculcate this same attitude in our Christian faithful, with simple reasoning, with sincere conviction and with persuasive force. When this fear is broken, which is so binding and paralyzing, Christians acquire a great freedom of spirit to act before God and not before men.

Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOA.html by P. ANTONIO IZQUIERDO L.C. (1948-2013)

[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭 교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이: 소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로 마련되었습니다].