Twenty-fourth Sunday of ORDINARY TIME. 17th September 2000

First: Is 50,5-9a; Second: Jas 2:14-18; Gospel: Mk 8:27-35

THEME of the READINGS

In what does the essence of our being consist? Today’s liturgy gives us an answer. In the first reading, man has three traits according to the plan of God: man is a being "who listens", who suffers, who experiences the presence and help of God. The Gospel presents Jesus as the perfect fulfillment of the human person: the One Anointed by God, the man of suffering, the servant obedient unto his death, he who loses his life to save that of others. Finally, in the second reading James teaches that in man, faith and works are combined in an indissoluble union to achieve perfect human fulfillment.

DOCTrinal MESSAGE

Man according to God. I think that the definition of the person should not be sought exclusively or mainly in man (although this search should not be excluded), since man does not create himself, nor does he give himself life. The most authentic definition of man may be given by the One who created man and called him from non-life to life, from nothingness to existence. In the third Song of the Servant of Yahweh, a theological-anthropological summary is delineated. The first trait, not reported in the liturgical reading, defines the human being as the being who receives from God the gift of speaking words of life for others, especially for the tired and the oppressed. Then three other traits appear in the song of the liturgical text: 1) Man is the being whom God has enabled to "listen", like the disciples. He is a disciple of God, which entails not only theoretical listening, but also the kind of listening that leads to action, to the implementation of what he has heard, of the original voice that precedes him and that regulates his life. In other words, man is an obedient disciple of God. 2) Man is not a being made for death, as Heidegger would say, but a being determined to suffer. Suffering is the anvil on which man is forged; it is the mold in which his personality is shaped; it is the borderline, the extreme condition that reveals his eternal nature; it is the real and mysterious code of the human condition. 3) Man is the being assisted by God, in whom God shows his constant and effective presence. This divine presence is the rock upon which all the great certainties of man are based; the beacon that guides man in the darkness; the banner that enflames him in his battle to be and to become each day. By way of conclusion, it may be said that those who exclude solidarity, listening, pain, and God’s presence in their understanding of man, do not really know who man is.

Christ, the true man. Jesus is first and foremost the Messiah, the One Anointed by God, who subjects his entire being to the mission that God has entrusted to him, going as far as the obedience of the Cross. This is why in Jesus the Anointed One and the Servant of suffering are combined, not like two contrasting titles of his human condition, but like two names of the same person that define and characterize him. Even when Jesus is compared with other figures of the Bible (Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Solomon, Jonah...), he remains distinct, unique. As he himself will say, "Here is someone greater than Jonah, here is someone greater than Solomon." On the other hand, in his condition of suffering, Jesus is not self-destructive. He experiences no denial in the face of death; rather, he continues to have absolute trust in God, who will assist him in his pain and will make him rise from the dead. This is why Jesus calls Peter Satan when Peter tries to make him stray from his redeeming mission and his perfect human condition in accordance with God. Finally, in Jesus we find another trait pointed out by James in the second reading: consistency between faith and good deeds. Here we are not talking about the deeds of the law, but the deeds of faith. We could say that Jesus’ self-consciousness coincides with his self-fulfillment.

PASTORal SUGGESTIONS

A Person and a Christian. These two realities have traveled down separate paths. It seems to some that one cannot be a complete man if one is a perfect Christian. In anthropological terms this is the dilemma which has existed for centuries between faith and reason, between science and faith. In our cultural and spiritual climate, John Paul II, in keeping with Catholic doctrine, has categorically asserted that "faith and reason are like the two wings with which the human spirit elevates itself to the contemplation of truth." Translated into anthropological terms, it may be stated that "the person and the Christian are like the two wings with which the human spirit elevates itself to the fulfillment of its humanity." Perhaps it may be useful to ask ourselves why in the past, and probably today as well, "being a person" has been separated from "being a Christian", and vice versa. What aspects, what traits of Christian life have succeeded in overshadowing and even alienating us from an authentic conception of the person? What models of Christianity have been presented or are presented in our time, that may seem to others, both Christians and non-Christians, less human or even dehumanizing? The Council declared beautifully that Christ reveals man to man, but we should ask ourselves, as Christians, are we all following Christ’s footsteps in this respect? There is no doubt that there is still a long way to go as far as this aspect is concerned. Following this path is a task for each and every Christian.

The Christian paradox. "Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it." This is the great Christian - in other words, human - paradox. In paradoxical terms, Jesus presents the great battle of human existence. It is the battle between selfishness and self-giving, between the seduction of the ego and the attraction of God, between the worshipping of one’s own personality and the worshipping of true humility. Normally, but wrongfully so, one thinks that by being selfish he can fulfill himself, he can save his identity, achieve a great personality. But after some time one becomes aware that he is chasing after the impossible, and then comes the frustration of having wasted so much energy uselessly, of realizing that one has gone down the wrong track. The right track implies an emptying of the self in order to fill oneself with God, giving oneself to others disinterestedly without seeking compensations of any kind, the deep humility of those who know and accept that all that they are and have comes from God and must be placed at the service of others. This is the way of salvation. This is the way of our authentic self-fulfillment. This is the way of the Christian paradox. Let us walk together and be happy through Christ. It is the way that he has shown us, his disciples.

Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOB.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].