Bishop Thomas Gumbleton's blog

Now as we try to listen for a few moments within the depths of our hearts to what God is speaking to us today, there are a number of things that we can reflect on. The first thing, I think, comes from that passage, St. Paul's letter to the Church at Thessalonica, where Paul reminded the people that God's message that they had received, they accepted it, not as some human thinking, but rather as a living power among them because they accepted what God spoke not as a human word, but as God's word.

Now as we continue our reflection on this part of Matthew's Gospel that we've been considering for the last three or four Sundays, we find once more that through a confrontation with the religious leaders, Jesus is teaching us something very important about ourselves, about God and about our relationship with God. Today, probably, it's the most fundamental part of the teaching of Jesus that we really need to take to heart because this has to do with the most basic of our relationships: our relationship with God and then with our brothers and sisters in the human family.

These words of Jesus at the end of today's Gospel are perhaps among the most misunderstood words of Jesus in all the Scriptures, in all the Gospels because many, many people, and perhaps some of us, interpret these words as Jesus declaring there are two totally separate realms. There is Caesar's, the political, human realm, and then there is God's. There are two separate forms of our existence, what we might call in current terms the religious and the political, and they should never be brought together. They are totally separate.

When we reflect on the Scriptures today, especially the Gospel lesson, it will not be very helpful for us unless we remind ourselves of the context in which this Gospel lesson, this parable, is told by Jesus.

As we begin our reflection on the sacred Scriptures today, it seems very clear first of all that these lessons are lessons about conversion, about changing the direction of our lives in some minor ways, perhaps, but as always with Jesus, it means radical conversion -- a profound change.

I have an idea that almost every one of us who hears this Gospel, and we've heard it before, feels more in touch with the workers who worked that whole day and then watched as others who worked only an hour received the same thing they did.

We are all very much aware, of course, that today is the 10th anniversary of the terrible act of terrorism perpetrated against us 10 years ago. Isn't it very challenging to try to hear what God is speaking to us today?

In fact, I think we might be most surprised by the passage from the Book of Sirach because don't we often think of the Old Testament as a testament where God is revealed as being a very harsh God almost, a warrior God. He acts against enemies and allows the Chosen People to do that.

In order to draw deeply from the Scriptures today, especially the Gospel, it's important for us to connect it with what we've heard in the Gospel on the last couple of Sundays, and I think you'll remember very readily a couple of Sundays ago when Jesus challenged his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" They were fumbling around until Peter stepped up and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus praises him.

I’m sure we remember last Sunday’s gospel because it was so dramatic, where Jesus had asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” and they were fumbling around trying to come up with an answer. They said, well, one of the prophets, maybe Jeremiah, Elijah. Then Peter steps up and says, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” Jesus was very excited about that, that Peter recognized who he was, but then at the end of the gospel, Jesus says something quite strange for the disciples -- and for all of us -- because he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Going all the way back to my grade school days when I was in a Catholic parochial school, we studied religion. I can remember this particular text very well: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church."

If we listen very carefully to the scriptures today, especially this gospel lesson, we will discover more about Jesus, especially in his humanness, but also we will be challenged by the story of the courageous faith of this woman and the boundary crossing that happens in this incident.

In order to listen deeply and carefully to the lesson of this Liturgy of the Word, it's important for us to remind ourselves of the context in which these three lessons are provided for us today.

It goes back a number of Sundays where Jesus first began his public life and proclaimed the Good News. "The Reign of God is at hand. Change your lives. Something new and important is going to happen."

To begin our reflection today, I thought I might call attention first of all to those inspiring and encouraging words from Paul's letter to the Church at Rome that we heard as our second lesson.

As we begin to listen carefully to our Scriptures of today, it’s important to remind ourselves what we mean by this Reign of God. Sometimes it’s called the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Reign of God is really the best terminology because when you say Kingdom of God or Kingdom or Heaven, you think of a place. That isn’t what Jesus is talking about. When He began His public life, He said, “The Reign of God is at hand. Change your lives.” It’s something that we can enter into, a relationship, if we change our lives. One Scripture commentator has described the Reign of God as the dynamic rule of God’s saving or healing love, that which makes us whole and all that we can be. That’s the Reign of God.

In order to hear deeply the words that Jesus proclaims to us today, I think it’s important once more to remind ourselves that at the beginning of his public life Jesus had proclaimed, “The reign of God is at hand” -- and then he said, “change your lives.”

Every so often, I get in the mail (and probably some of you do also) notices about retreats, workshops and various kinds of activities like that, that will enlighten us and strengthen us in our faith.

John and the other first disciples had this insight about God: God is love. Love is something that goes out and becomes an interaction. So if God is love, then somehow within God, there is a beauty of life. We know if we experienced love, there is God. God is love. So we begin to have the beginning of an understanding of what we celebrate today, and the kind of God we celebrate, who is love, is proclaimed very beautifully in our first lesson.

Remember last weekend when there was great concern among many people -- in fact, throughout our country -- because there were those who were saying that last Saturday was to be Judgment Day, the day when the beginning of the end of the world would happen.

Once more during this Easter season, on this third Sunday of Easter, we are receiving instruction about the deepest meaning, about the most important mysteries of our faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, the resurrection is the event that we mostly celebrate and rejoice in, and our Easter season is filled with joy, but this morning, we are being pushed a little bit further and being asked by this Scripture passage today, this Gospel lesson, to look back at the death of Jesus.

Why did He die? Why was He executed? What does that tell us about how we are to live with His risen life?

Now as we begin our reflection on the readings this morning, I think it's appropriate, first of all, for me to say how much I appreciate this opportunity to celebrate with the very family of St. Donald Parish this Sunday liturgy, the second Sunday of Easter, and especially to celebrate with you as you join with the young people of your parish in celebrating the sacrament of confirmation.

I think if we ask the question, "Why did Jesus die?" most of us would say, "He died for our sins and He saved us from the consequences of our sins," but in fact, there's only one very brief reference in the Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus that would indicate that He died for our sins.

You may remember in the Eucharistic Prayer that I usually use when I celebrate the Eucharist here, there is a part where the confirmation says, "Jesus now lives with you — that is, with God — but He is also here on Earth among us." We proclaim that during the Eucharistic Prayer. Jesus is with God, but He's also here on earth among us.

We have begun now, the most solemn week in our liturgical year. It's the week in which we bring to conclusion all that we have been doing during the season of Lent and of course, it ends later in the week with our celebration of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and then the resurrection of Jesus on Easter.

My dear candidates,

Both of your pastors have said very strongly that they are convinced that you are ready for the Sacrament of Confirmation, and I have read your letters in which you asked for the sacrament and I was very impressed with what I read there. It gave me real assurance that you have prepared and you know what's happening today. So I can accept that recommendation and from what you said in you letters.

Now, as we listen to this Gospel lesson, I think it becomes very clear to all of us that there is more going on here in this incident and the interaction between Jesus and the blind man, and the blind man and the Pharisees, and then Jesus and the blind man.

There is more going on than simply a physical healing of physical blindness. There is also a spiritual blindness present in those who refuse to see.

In the first lesson this morning, from the Book of Exodus, we're told about how the Jewish people, on their long journey through the desert, came to a place where they were without water, and they complained and accused Moses of falsely leading them out of the slavery of Egypt with false promises.

They got very angry and then, as we're told, they said, "Is Yahweh, God, with us or not? Is God with us or not?"

Moses was able to find a way, with God's help, to provide water for the people, and so he settled that quarrel but the question, "Is God with us or not?" is a question that is answered in a very powerful way in our other lessons today.

Today’s Gospel comes immediately after a very important event in the life of Jesus, where Peter had just proclaimed that he and the disciples recognized Jesus as the Son of the Living God.

Then Jesus said to Peter, “Blessed are you, Peter,” and urged Peter to follow Him as He went on to Jerusalem to His suffering and death. Then Peter rejected that demand of Jesus and said, “No, it doesn’t have to be that way.”

We've been listening to this long discourse that we call the Sermon on the Mount over the past several weeks. It's the most basic teaching of Jesus that brings together all the values that He proclaimed as the way to live according to the Reign of God. The Reign of God is at hand. Change your lives is what He said to us at the beginning of this public teaching, and now He shows us in this long sermon how we make that Reign of God begin to happen.

Over these past six or seven weeks, we have been listening to that sermon we call the Sermon on the Mount, the part of the Gospel where Jesus really sets forth his values of what he expects of his followers -- and a good part of this sermon has been a challenge for us to go beyond, to go deeper.

A few weeks ago, you remember we started this series of gospel lessons with Jesus calling together his first disciples and then, with them, beginning to proclaim his message, the good news, “The reign of God is at hand.”

Then he goes on to tell them, “You must change your lives.”

If the reign of God is to happen in my life, I have to begin to live differently. That’s what Jesus was telling his disciples and for the last few Sundays, Jesus has been giving us more specific direction on how we must change our lives.