Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
Lk. 9:18-24; Zech. 12:10-11; 13:1; Gal. 3:26-29
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
20 Jun 2010
Last week the Sydney Morning Herald had an article where the author wondered whether the idea of God has been wired into us by evolution and was transmitted through our genes.
The minority of people who deny the reality of the spirit and are materialists have a problem in the fact that religious belief has been almost universal in all cultures and throughout history. Western Europe today is probably unique in history for the high percentage, still a minority, who do not believe in God.
If we are able to pray the psalm refrain honestly "my soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God", then we are in good company, with the overwhelming majority of believers throughout history, although many originally were not monotheists, believing only in one God.
While I believe in personal freedom, I would not be surprised if human nature did possess a predisposition, which encouraged us not only to search for meaning, but to search for God.
Some of our contemporaries are like the author of the S.M.H. article who did not feel obliged to worship God, or subscribe to any set of beliefs about a supreme Being, but could not let go of the idea of God completely.
As Catholics we need more than sincerity, more than a vague interest in religion, more than a set of questions.
As Catholic Christians, we follow Christ because we believe He provided the answers to the central problems and questions of life. Moreover He came among us, lived with us, taught us and suffered and died to redeem us.
After nearly 300 years of intermittent persecution, in 313A.D. Christians in the Roman Empire obtained religious freedom. Constantine the Emperor hoped Christians would bring unity, but in the early years of freedom for the Catholic church in the fourth and fifth centuries there were terrible doctrinal and political conflicts, complete sometimes with riots and strife and ongoing divisions as the Church clarified the doctrine of the Trinity and especially as the full divinity of Christ was defended against those who denied He was divine or claimed He was only semi-divine. An influential priest from Alexandria in Egypt, then the leading theological centre, publicly denied Jesus' divinity.
The answers to Jesus' question in today's Gospel "who do the crowds say I am" have been many and various over the years and remain various today also, where a goodly number of Christians do not accept Christ's divinity. As I have explained many times enormous consequences follow when we accept that Christ is truly divine. Above all it affects the status of His teachings and the reality of redemption.
Just recently after I had preached in a parish, a catechist wrote to me explaining that her pupils understood that Christ was very special, a wonderful son of God, but did not realise He was fully divine as well as human, the Eternal Word, the equal of the Father and the Son in the Trinity. She wanted me to make this point more explicitly.
It is interesting that Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ of God i.e. the one anointed with the oil of chrism (Christ is not a family name like Jones, or O'Brien or Alfredo or Nguyen). Therefore the Messiah, is immediately followed by Christ's prophecy that he was destined to suffer grievously be rejected and put to death.
We are used to the crucifixion story, but that conjunction of divine dignity and ignominious suffering must have been upsetting and baffling to the disciples. I often quote the Muslim taxi driver who said he could not believe in a God who was so weak. To make matters worse Jesus continued on immediately and said that his followers will also have to suffer.
What does it mean to say that we must renounce ourselves, take up our cross every day; that if we want to save our life we must lose it?
These are provocative and profound teachings, worth prayer and puzzling.
Perhaps the first part of the answer is that if we put ourselves first at the expense of those around us we are not following the commandment to love others. This cannot bring us to heaven and it cannot bring us to peace and contentment in daily living either.
To follow the commandments, to respect and help others regularly, to pray daily and go to weekly Mass, all cost us something. They do not represent the easy way out.
Sometimes in our daily life, at work or with our social acquaintances, we shall be disadvantaged because of our Christian principles. Sometimes it is unpopular to tell the truth or to call a spade a spade, however politely, when we insist some activities are wrong. Sometimes it needs courage to resist abortion, to maintain Christian standards of sexual morality before marriage. All this and more constitutes taking up our cross to follow Christ.
Jesus is not John the Baptist, nor Elijah, nor one of the prophets. He is not another great philosopher, not a poet or scholar, not a priest or bishop or pope. Jesus is God's only Son, fully divine as well as fully human. Because of this He brings us the Maker's instructions. We can trust Him.
He is worth following as he calls us to take up our cross, but he has promised us real rewards even in this life and a hundred-fold reward in the life to come.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
