Pastor’s Reflection

“Piercing the Heart”

“Who do people say that I am?” This weekend’s readings reflect the early church’s struggle to understand the crucifixion of Jesus.  How was it a victory over sin and death for the redemption of the world?  Like us when we hurt,  they turned to the ancient scriptures, the Law, the prophets and the psalms.   Looking from hindsight, they saw Jesus’ life and passion from a different angle.

The Orlando murders of last weekend have left many of North American Christians in shock and grief.  Our hearts stood broken with the the LGBT community of our country and world, targeted again by hate.  “And they shall look on him whom they have pierced,” sang the ancient prophet Zechariah from this weekend first reading.  The words gave light to the violence and tragedy of Jesus’s passion on the cross. Candle light vigils, banks of memorial candles, flowers and eulogies reflect our struggle to make sense of the senseless.

“How could we have done this?” the early Christian community had asked.  We keep asking it.  Slowly their hearts and minds were opened to the truth that somehow Jesus had suffered and died for them.   Zechariah’s image of a people grieving as over a firstborn child, an only son, is heart-rending.  This great grief mingles with the families of those who lost loved ones.   St. Luke’s Gospel earlier uses the image of a sword piercing the heart of Mary, at the realization of what was ahead for her child.  Jesus, the most loving person imaginable, became a sign of contradiction, rejected and killed by those he had come to save.

Jesus’ question to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” is the same question asked of every disciple in every age.  The quality of our response to this question is the best gauge of the quality of our discipleship.  If we can say, “You are the Christ, the Messiah of God,” and be fully aware of what that implies, then we have arrived at a faith that can change the world.

Luke’s Gospel, challenges the church again and again toward a fundamental conversion.  We will be asked over and over to give up old ways of thinking, attitudes of hate, to open ourselves totally to the vulnerability of being human – in short, to lose our lives in self-giving…. so that we may save them.   It asked us to be clothed in Christ. So there is no reason to lose heart in the face of whatever life throws at us.  Christ has walked ahead of us with his cross… paving the way and making it possible for us to carry ours.  And someday perhaps… bring an end to crucifixions.

I am off for much of the coming month for retreat with our novices.  Let us pray for each other.

A gentle week,
Fr. Michael Weldon, OFM

My thanks to Celebration’s Pat Marrin for some of the shape of this reflection.