Work!
Pope Francis greets
16-year-old Swedish climate activist
Greta Thunberg during his general audience
in
St. Peter's Square April 17 at the Vatican. (CNS/Yara Nardi, Reuters)
Piety
And take courage, all you people of the land says the LORD, and
work! For I am with you, says the LORD of hosts. This is the pact that I made
with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit continues in your midst; do
not fear! Haggai 2:4B-5
Then he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter
said in reply, "The Christ of God." He rebuked them and directed them
not to tell this to anyone. He said, "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and
be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed
and on the third day be raised."
Luke 9:20-22
Study
Jesus puts Peter to the test. The first level exam is just an oral
comprehensive. Jesus grills him with the question, “Who do YOU say that I am?”
But soon enough, the review shall be one of the practical following and
physical trials that will end as badly for Peter as it does for Jesus. The end
is the same: imprisonment and execution.
Through the exam and trials that he will endure, Jesus prepares Peter
(and us) for what lies ahead.
In our first reading Friday, the verses emphasize that God keeps his
word. The total fulfillment of God’s
promises to Israel is on the horizon. When God intervenes, it is not always good
news. God does not promise a rose garden. He doesn’t guarantee us that things
will be easy. But, as one Cursillo team member says in his talk, only that the
trials with be worth it.
When Jesus warns the disciples about the trials that he will suffer, he
also is teaching us that we must follow (imitate) him. Therefore, we, too, may
be asked to endure the challenges we face on behalf of the Gospel.
Action
Pay attention to what Jesus is telling and fear not because the trials
that he will suffer lead to redemption as do the tests that we will experience
when we pick up our cross and follow his path.
Lately, it seems that young people are trying to lead the adults onto
the right path. In his homily for last Sunday, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton points
out two key issues where young adults are at the forefront:
This year between Memorial
Day and Labor Day, this very summer, there were 26 mass shootings in our
country. In three months — 26 mass shootings. Violence seems to be overwhelming
us. There were 126 people killed, including a 3-year-old girl and a 90-year-old
man. Hundreds of others were wounded during these 26 mass acts of violence.[i]
Leadership comes, according to Gumbleton, from those young people who,
a couple of years ago, had a mass killing in their high school in Parkland,
Florida. They are still working to change our laws to prohibit the kind of
assault weapons used in these killings.
Millions of young
people, again, were involved demanding that we make international treaties to
stop what's happening to our planet. We're destroying this world that Jesus
taught us to love. Do you remember how he spoke so fervently about the flowers
of the field and the birds of the air? God takes care of them, Jesus says,
because God loves them. We destroy them.[ii]
According to Bishop Gumbleton, Pope Francis has written a beautiful
encyclical letter, “Laudato Si,’ (praise God for this earth), that’s built on a
canticle of St. Francis of Assisi. He urges us to become sober, become children
of light. He asks us to follow the
leadership of children throughout the world — all of those who took time off
recently to make public statements and take action on every continent.
“We need to listen; we need to follow that lead. Jesus urges us to love
the world God gave us, just as God loves this world and provides for the birds
of the air and the animals on the planet.” It will take work on all our parts
(even if we do not want to contribute to gridlock in Washington, DC).
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