June 20, 2010
Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; and they shall look on him whom they have thrust through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a first-born. Zechariah 12:10
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27-28
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Luke 9:23-24
Piety
Our piety is our divine connection. Christ tells us (John 15: 9): “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” The Father gives to the Word all that he is. Total Giving becomes total receiving. Jesus in his human life is just like the Father. Christ gives to us all of himself. The only limit on how much Christ we have is in our love. Baptism gave us his life. Each time we receive Eucharist, his life in us is increased. The only limit on how much Christ we are is found in our freedom. We do not have to live up to the Christ we are meant to be. Piety is the exercise of our freedom. The challenge of our piety is to put on the mind and the heart of Christ. We are created to the image and the likeness of God in Christ. When we surrender to Christ, we are not just surrendering to our destiny. We are opening ourselves up to the fullness of who we are meant to be. Our piety allows us to reach out to the fullness of who we are meant to be in Christ.
Study
In our gospel of today the disciples are asked by Christ. “Who do you say that I am?” As long as Christ was with us in the time of his earthly life, Peter had the right answer. Today we have the same answer in a personal form. We are meant to be the presence of Christ whither we go. What Paul said of himself, we need to be able to say of ourselves. “I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me.” We study the events in the life of Christ that we might be able to translate Christ’s response to the problems with his people in his time to what our response would be if we are going to be updates of Christ in our time. What we learn by our study of the life of Christ and praying over the events in his life is how to be transparencies of him. We face life in our time and age with his answer to our problems being our answers. We study how to be Christ in our time.
Action
The seven gifts of the Spirit need to be the driving force behind all that we would do in the name of Christ. Living out the gifts of the Spirit in our lives allows the fruits of the Spirit in us to become the visibility of Christ in our lives. The life of Christ in us can be seen by our patience in adversity, by our kindness and generosity in the face of the needs of others, by the modesty of our lives as we realize it is Christ at work in us that makes possible the good we do. How chaste we are in our lives, how joyful we are with each other, all of these fruits make the Christ of our hearts recognizable. We recognize the goodness of each other by the holiness of life that keeps our tongues speaking t he language of the angels as we give face to Christ in our world. It will not be easy to accept the invitation to follow Christ because the call is to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses daily to follow Christ. We save our life by losing it for the sake of Christ.
