Sunday, September 17, 2023

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

(Sirach 27:33-28:9; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35)

Let us turn one more time to Paul's magnificent letter to the Romans. We have been reading it since June. But today is the last Sunday of this liturgical year that it is used.

The reading is taken from the last part of the letter, which provides the appropriate response to salvation in Christ. Paul has said that Christians are to conduct themselves in holy ways. They must not conform to the present world. Rather they have to be transformed so that they think and act according to the will of God. As a guide, Paul provides them with the law of love: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Now Paul wants to cover a problem that has evidently arisen in the community. Some eat everything laid before them without wondering if the food was offered to idols. They don't care about the issue.  Meanwhile others feel that if it were offered to idols, it would be tainted and unacceptable to eat. Although Paul himself has no difficulty in eating such food, he recommends that each person be respectful of others.

We see the sensibility that Paul wants to foster when a host today gives his guests a meatless option on Friday. He knows and respects that some Catholics maintain the tradition of abstaining on this day throughout the year as in Lent.

Along with the requirement of love Paul is emphasizing another great Christian value -- unity in Christ. Baptism has united us to Christ as our first reference of existence. (This can be difficult for some.  Please pay attention.) More than we are black, white, or of another race; more than we are Mexican, American, or Chinese; more than we are Rodríguez, Olson, or Biden; we belong to Jesus Christ. We should never allow ourselves to be separated from him or from one another in him. Therefore, Paul says: “None of us lives for himself, nor dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord”.

As always, the living of the word of God can be seen in the saints. Pierre Claverie was bishop of Oran, a region of Algeria plagued by Islamic terrorism in the 1990s. Bishop Claverie knew of the danger of staying in the country, which was his native land, but he rejected the possibility of fleeing. He expressed his perspective to the nuns of a cloister in France: “We are here for this crucified Messiah. For nothing else and no one else! … We are here like someone who is at the side of a friend's bed… sick, silently squeezing his hand and wiping the sweat from his forehead”. Evidently, he could see Christ in the surrounding Muslims who were also being victimized by the terrorism. As he lived for Christ, Monsignor Claverie died for Christ. He was martyred in August 1996.  At his funeral the Muslims who filled the cathedral said: "He was our bishop too."

But it is not only for the reason of being in solidarity with the suffering that we adhere to Christ. Paul says that Christ is Lord of the living and the dead. The dead are not exterminated but live in Christ. Furthermore, since he rose from the dead, those who adhere to him will rise again. We do not care that many do not recognize this hope. Two realities bear witness to it: the testimony of the Bible and our experience of God's goodness. Come what may, we will live for Christ until the promise of his eternal life is fulfilled.

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