Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Luke 14:25-33 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India).
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned
and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does
not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete
it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able
to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was
not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in
war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten
thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great
way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does
not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Manuscript of St Paul's Letter to Philemon Yet for love's sake I prefer to
appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ
Jesus—I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment.
I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.
In the late 1980s when I was based in Cebu City, Philippines, I bumped into a friend of mine from Mindanao, Miriam (not her real name), a devout Catholic, generous and wealthy. She had come up for her grandson's birthday and invited me to the party, which was in a gated community. Her son was a doctor.
I was sitting beside Miriam at the party when she asked her daughter-in-law if their driver had eaten yet. She then turned to me and said, 'I would never have even noticed him before.'
Miriam's late husband, whom I will call 'Miguel', had lingered for ten years after a severe stroke. Shortly after his stroke members of the prayer group in the parish who knew Miriam and Miguel but weren't in the same social circle asked her if they could visit and pray with her husband. She made them welcome and they began to go regularly and continued to do so until Miguel died. Miriam joined them in their prayer. This whole experience gradually transformed how she saw those around her who weren't as privileged financially as she and Miguel were, including her own staff and those of her son. The prayers of those who had regularly visited her husband had slowly transformed her understanding of how we are related as Christians, through our baptism.
St Paul's Letter to Philemon, used in the Second Reading today, is one of the shortest books in the Bible, with only 25 verses, and one of the most 'subversive'. It brings us right down to the implications of our baptism.
Onesimus was a runaway slave, it seems. (The Greek word doulos can mean 'slave', 'servant', 'bondsman', 'attendant'. Here it does not mean the type of slavery endured by people kidnapped or sold in Africa and taken to the Americas.) St Paul speaks of himself as a prisoner of Christ and writes, I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. It would seem that St Paul had welcomed Onesimus and had helped him to reform his life to the extent that he considered the young man his own son. Paul had, as we say in Ireland, 'put manners' on Onesimus
Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, sending my very heart. It would seem that during his stay with St Paul Onesimus came to understand what it is to be baptised, to be a brother of Jesus and therefore a brother of Paul and of Philemon, whose servant he had been. And Paul saw him not only as a brother in Christ but as a son.
In the Office of Readings in the Breviary for the feast of St Anthony the Abbot on 17 January there's a beautiful line from St Athanasius about Anthony: And all the people in the village, and the good men with whom he associated saw what kind of man he was, and they called him 'The friend of God'. Some loved him as a son, and others as though he were a brother. St Paul saw Onesimus as both as a brother and as a son.
And St Paul is inviting Philemon, without putting pressure on him, to accept Onesimus back no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.
This is what baptism does. It makes us sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus and therefore brothers and sisters of one another.
This is our deepest identity. Through the prayers of those who came every week to pray with her sick husband Miguel, Miriam discovered her true identity and of those around her. In calling Philemon to receive Onesimus as a beloved brother, Paul is calling each of us to do likewise with all who are baptised.
Not only that, Paul, by implication, is calling each of us and all of us who are baptised to carry out the commission given to us by Jesus before he returned to heaven: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).
Traditional Latin Mass
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-4-2022 if necessary).
Epistle: Galatians 3:16-22. Gospel: Luke 17:11-19.
Dearest Father Seán,
ReplyDeleteA very good reading and it is short but powerful for others to follow likewise and accept each other as brothers and sisters, or sons and daughters.
Hugs,
Mariette