Moses
Michelangelo [Web Gallery of Art]
(First Reading, Exodus 17:8-13)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Readings (New
American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Luke 18:1-8 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)
Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they
ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city
there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept
coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterwards he
said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me,
I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual
coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear
what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his
elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to
them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find
faith on earth?”
St John Henry Cardinal Newman
Sir John Everett Millais [Wikipedia]
The Opening Prayer in today’s Mass starts with these words: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart . . .
This prayer is a synopsis, a summary of what the Christian life is: following Jesus and, with him, submitting our own will to the will of the Father., as Jesus himself did. In John 6:38 Jesus tells us: For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
We receive the gift of faith through baptism and God nourishes that faith through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments. We cooperate with God when we pray.
The First Reading and the Gospel today are specifically about prayer. Moses prays for the Hebrew soldiers as they battle with the Amalekites. He holds his arms outstretched as he prays, Aaron and Hur supporting them. Jesus in the gospel invites us to continually pray for our needs and assures us that God will hear us and respond: And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? (Luke 18:7).
Our baptism and our prayer bring us into relationship with a loving God. Pope Francis canonised St John Henry Newman on 13 October 2019. The saint's motto as a cardinal was Cor ad cor loquitur – Heart speaks to heart. This goes right to the heart of the Christian life in every sense. Pope Benedict spoke beautifully about this at the Mass during which Cardinal Newman was beatified in Birmingham on 19 September 2010:
Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or ‘Heart speaks unto heart’, gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, ‘a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles’.
Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or ‘Heart speaks unto heart’, gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, ‘a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles’.
St Paul puts it this way: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). While Moses didn’t know Jesus Christ, he tried all his life as leader of the Hebrews, the position to which God called him, to have this mind in him that was in God, with whom he spoke heart to heart. And he persisted in praying to God on behalf of his people, most especially when they sinned. While scolding his people he never ceased to pray for them. Like the widow in the parable ‘pestering’, ‘bothering’, ‘wearing out’ - different English translations - the unjust judge, Moses did the same to God in his prayer.
St John Henry Newman was a great theologian, a great preacher and, above all, a great priest. Pope Benedict in his homily focused on how Newman lived the priesthood, a pastor of souls: visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial.
The Pope made reference to the beautiful description of the Christian life that Newman wrote and that recognises the specific, unique call or vocation each of us has: God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.
These words of the English saint expand on our Opening Prayer: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart . . .
Words by St John Henry Newman, music by RR Terry
Sung by The Symphonials, Ghana, conducted by Emmanuel Ayi
Traditional Latin Mass
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-16-2022 if necessary).
Epistle: Ephesians 4:23-28. Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14.
Wedding Banquet
Jan Brueghel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son (Matthew 22:1; today's Gospel).
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