May the Eyes of Your Hearts Be Enlightened
Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. "Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Luke 12:8-10
Piety
May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. Ephesians 1:18-21
Study
The beauty and meaning of the Thanksgiving Prayer that Paul offers to the Ephesians help put the Good News into context.
As we learn from the notes in the New American Bible and the text of the prayer itself, the devotion moves from God and Christ to the Ephesians and the church. Paul asks that the blessing imparted by God the Father to the Ephesians will be strengthened in them through the message of the gospel. Then he delivers the key points: Those blessings are seen in the context of God’s might in establishing the sovereignty of Christ over all other creatures and in appointing him head of the church.
u8iPeople who have faith in that Church which Christ leads as the head get these blessings. Pretty powerful stuff.
While we think that all sins are forgive-able, there is one sin, sin against the Holy Spirit, that is not. What exactly is such an unforgivable act?
Blasphemy against the Spirit is the sin of attributing to Satan what is the work of the Spirit of God. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit commits an everlasting sin because it attributes to Satan, who is the power of evil, what is actually the work of the Holy Spirit, namely, victory over the demons as the head of the Church.
It is one thing to lack faith. People can change. However, if they give in to the power of Satan and deny the Spirit of God, there is no turning back.
Action
Luke joins together sayings contrasting those whose focus and trust in life is on material possessions, (symbolized by the Parable of the Rich Fool) with those who recognize their complete dependence on God. Radical detachment from material possessions in this world symbolizes their heavenly treasure.
Our newest saint, St. Oscar Romero, is a prime role model for someone who
turned his back on the powers of the world and trusted in God.
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| Illustration from The Atlantic article cited below. |
Romero did not start out as a reformer. Paul Elie writes in the Atlantic,[i] that when first appointed as a bishop, Romero "shifted the content of the weekly archdiocesan newspaper from calls for social justice to calls for personal improvement, honing in on drug use, promiscuity, and alcoholism." He criticized Jesuit priests in the region for promoting "political theology."
However, after his friend and former seminarian colleague, Fr. Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit, was killed for organizing sugarcane workers, Romero had a transformation. He more forcefully challenged unjust political structures and used the archdiocese's radio station to take on the regime. This new stance made conservative bishops in El Salvador and Vatican officials, including Pope John Paul II, nervous. His canonization process moved along at a painfully sluggish pace over the past three decades. Some church leaders worried that Romero's assassination made him a political martyr, rather than a martyr of the faith, a flawed argument given the archbishop was killed for applying the Gospel in light of the social realities around him as the Second Vatican Council instructed, and was literally gunned down in the most sacred of spaces.[ii]
“I implore you, I beg you, I order you, in the name of God: stop the repression!” He preached that on March 23, 1980. The next day, Bishop-to-be Saint Romero was assassinated.
When the archbishop denounced the military government for its campaign of violence against its opponents—and called on soldiers carrying out the violence to disobey orders—some men in the military decided that it was time to kill him.
As John Gehring writes in NCR:
[St. Oscar] Romero's legacy challenges Christian leaders today to consider the costs of a transactional faith. If winning elections and holding on to power at all costs becomes the new orthodoxy, Christians trade away our most precious treasures at a cheap price. "A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a Gospel that does not unsettle, or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of society, what kind of Gospel is that?" Romero once asked. It's an uncomfortable question more pastors need to be asking from their pulpits.
How can the eyes of our hearts be enlightened like St. Oscar? How can we be faithful to the call of Jesus as the head of the Church and not seduced by the false prophets of power, wealth and the other sinful temptations of the world?
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