GOSPEL
Mark 7:31-37
Translated
from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio
Don
Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .
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Gospel Reflection)
Jesus
and his disciples set out
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that I am?"
They said in reply,
"John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others one of the prophets."
And he asked them,
"But who do you say that I am?"
Peter said to him in reply,
"You are the Christ."
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
He spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it."
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that I am?"
They said in reply,
"John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others one of the prophets."
And he asked them,
"But who do you say that I am?"
Peter said to him in reply,
"You are the Christ."
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
He spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it."
The
Gospel of the Lord:
Praise
to you Lord Jesus Christ
Kieran’s
summary . . .
Peter
recognizes that Jesus is the Christ but he does not accept that
Christ should suffer. Jesus severely reprimands him: “Get behind me
Satan! You do not think according to God’s ways but according to
human ways”. When Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, he is simply
asking Peter to follow him. He is saying, “You must follow me. I
will not follow you.” Jesus asks us to follow him, to renounce
ourselves and take up our crosses. When we follow ourselves, then we
make our own thinking into an absolute. This thinking might well seem
very rational, but it leads to the horrors of history like Auschwitz.
How different life would be if we followed the Lord and took up the
crosses that come our way! Then life would be beautiful and sublime.
The first reading from Isaiah speaks of a person who opens his ear to
listen to the Lord, and this enables him to accept life’s
tribulations with serenity. The first enemy that seeks to prevent us
from following the Lord is the great god of our lives: our own ego.
When we learn to say “No” to ourselves then we are enabled to
come out of ourselves and enter into love. The house that we must
always seek to escape from is that of the absolutisation of
ourselves. The cross of
coming out of ourselves is
not imposed on us. Jesus invites us to “take it up” - an
expression which highlights that it should be embraced freely and
valued as a gift that leads to growth and self-detachment. Once we
abandon ourselves, then we begin to think according to the logic of
God. We begin to acquire true wisdom.
When
I humbly open my ear to the Lord, then I am able to accept the trials
that life sends me.
The
opening lines of the first reading sound a little strange: “The
Lord opens my ear that I may hear. I have not offered resistance nor
turned away. I gave my back to those who beat me. I did not shield my
face from insults and spitting”. What is the connection, though,
between the Lord opening my ear and me not turning away from the
difficulties of life? This expression regarding the opening of my ear
is a fairly common term in the Old Testament and refers to the
capacity to listen well. In everyday life, we also say things like,
“Open your ears to what I’m saying! Hear me well!” When the
Lord opens my ear and I manage to welcome what he is saying to me,
then I accept the tribulations that come my way. Later on the text
from Isaiah says, “The Lord comes to my aid and for this reason I
will not be shamed”. When I am attuned to the Lord then I do not
descend into the embarrassment of what I am when I am alone, left to
my own devices, incapable of true freedom. When I am receptive to
what the Lord is saying, then I live like a prince or princess.
Because I have opened my ear to the Lord, the wisdom of the Lord has
entered into me and permits me to live well that which comes my way.
Jesus
asks Peter not to think in worldly terms but in Godly terms. When we
make our thinking an absolute and cut it off from God, then we end up
constructing concentration camps and the other horrors of human
history
In
the Gospel, Jesus reprimands Peter very severely: “You do not think
as God does but as human beings do!” How can we make the transition
from thinking according to the logic of this world to thinking
according to the logic of God? How can we pass from the mediocre to
the sublime, to thinking like children of God? Let us consider
the Gospel. Peter has one piece of information correct: Jesus is the
Christ. But he scolds Jesus for not being the kind of Messiah that he
wants him to be. The Christ is the one sent by God and the fulfilment
of the promises. But when Peter hears Jesus talking about suffering
and pain, he cannot comprehend it. The notion of resurrection does
not enter into his head. All he can see is the scandal of suffering.
This prompts Jesus to respond to Peter with the shocking reprimand of
calling him “Satan”. Peter’s error is to think according to the
logic of humanity. So the Lord takes him apart and puts Peter behind
him, saying “Get behind me Satan!” Peter is not to set the
direction in which the Lord is to go. Jesus is saying, “It
is you who must
follow me. I will not follow you”. This is a serious instruction by
the Lord. If we want to come to the Lord, then we must follow him. If
we want to attain true life, the life that goes beyond death, then we
must follow him. If human intelligence makes itself an absolute
value, and does not follow the Lord, then we create the foundations
of everything of which we have been witnesses in recent centuries. We
set the foundations of Auschwitz, the Russian gulags, all of the
horrors of history where human ideas count more than life, where such
ideas are made into absolutes and we follow them more than
Providence.
We
cannot come out of ourselves and enter into love unless we learn to
abandon ourselves and our egoistic preoccupations
The
words of the Lord, “Get behind me!” is actually a call to Peter
to follow Jesus. True life involves this following of the Lord, not
imposing our own rhythms on things. And if we wish to follow the Lord
then we must be open to the discourse of the Lord, the discourse of
providence. Once we put ourselves behind Jesus, then we begin to
affront the true kernel of human life. “If anyone wishes to follow
me, then he must renounce himself”. The first enemy that seeks to
prevent us from following the Lord is the great god of our lives: our
ego. The original meaning of “to renounce oneself” means to say
“No” to something that I had previously assented to. Some
psychotherapists says that mental equilibrium requires a
disassociation from one’s own ego. One cannot come out of oneself
and enter into love without learning to abandon oneself. The house
that we must always seek to escape from is that of the absolutisation
of ourselves.
The
cross is not imposed on us. We are invited to take it up as something
positive that leads to growth and detachment.
Then,
once we renounce ourselves, we are to “take up our crosses and
follow him”. The term
“to take up” does not imply submission or imposition. Rather it
indicates
the positive action of reaching out for something. The cross is
something that we are
to value.
We accept the sufferings that come with our mission in life, and we
transform them into virtues. We do this by the grace of God because
we know that our Lord is the one who brings life from death,
consolation from suffering. We use and value the cross, aware that it
leads to growth, that it represents the moment of abandonment and
faith. It also represents love because we know that the one who has
loved us has done so through the cross, through a sacrificial
offering for our benefit.
If
I follow Jesus, then I take up my cross and renounce my own ways of
doing things. Thus, I begin to think according to the logic of God
and I attain true wisdom
Jesus
adds, “He who wishes to save his life will lose it, but he who
loses his life for my sake and for that of the Gospel, will save it”.
How many lives do we have? We have one only and we must lose it in
order to find the life that is real! In
following Jesus, we take up the cross and renounce our egos; thus
we
lose our introverted
system
of living, and, behold, we discover
that we are entering
into beauty; we enter into life,
into
the sublime; and from that point forward we begin to think according
to the logic of God. Thus,
from
this experience of abandoning ourselves and focusing on being open to
Providence, to the vicissitudes of life, we arrive at new life, and
we become truly
wise.
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