Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
For believing Jews, the greatest of all events in their long history was what is called the “exodus,” when the ancestors of today’s Jews fled Egypt where they had been enslaved, and eventually reached the land that God prepared for them, called then and now Israel.
The Book of Exodus, one of the books of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, attributed to the authorship of Moses, chronicles this escape from Egypt and the often-difficult journey to Israel.
Central is the fact that it all would have been impossible without God’s merciful help.
Departing Egypt, Jews faced the question of what they should do with their lives. This reading supplies the answer. In a word, they were to be God’s people, loyal to him, obedient and a sign to the nations of how human life should be lived.
St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans is the source of the second reading.
When this letter was written, Rome was the most important city on Earth, at least as people in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East were concerned. It was the economic and political center of the empire that governed everything,
It was also a cauldron of bubbling, lively and often very different ideas, many hostile to the others.
The Christians to whom Paul wrote were challenged. All were converts to Christianity from some other religion. By abandoning the official state religion of paganism, they were breaking the law. Most of all, and they knew it, none was perfect. All were sinners.
St. Paul assured them that in Christ everything would be all right. He had paid the price for their sin, dying on the cross. His sword was perfect wisdom. His love and mercy endure forever.
The Gospel reading, taken from St. Matthew, is set perfectly into the sequence of these lessons.
The Ascension of Jesus, celebrated liturgically about a month ago, left the first disciples worried and unsure. Jesus had returned to heaven. Now, who would lead them? Who would teach them? Who would forgive sins that they would commit in the future? Who would put them in the presence of Christ?
The Gospel reading answers these questions with exactness. The Apostles will fill these roles. They will be critical, exercising a role that no one simply can assume. They must be called, appointed and empowered by Jesus himself. Their personal identities were so important that the Gospel lists their names.
Reflection
The Gospel reading begins by stating a fact that should be obvious, but which humans inevitably tend to dismiss, prompted by a foolish trust in their own judgments and instincts.
That reading tells us that humans are sheep without a shepherd. Sheep fight for nothing. They are not predators, unlike wolves or lions. They are helpless in the face of such foes.
The first lesson to learn from these readings is that every human being, even the wealthiest and most powerful, are like sheep. Humans are vulnerable. They can hurt others and hurt themselves. They can surrender to temptations.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
The great tenet of the Catholic faith is that the benefits of salvation and access to divine mercy were not simply given to the generation within which Jesus lived on Earth.
He lives forever, in the glory of his resurrection. His mercy and truth live forever. He loves each and every person alive today with the same love that shined upon the widow in Nain grieving after the death of her son (Lk 7:11-17), as upon the Good Thief on Calvary (Lk 23:39-43).
Jesus lives yet today in the Church, in its sacraments, teachings and community, still guided, inspired and aided by the living successors of the Apostles so carefully named in the Gospel. †
The Criterion will not have an issue next week due to its summer schedule. The reflection of Msgr. Owen Campion for Sunday, July 6, will be posted at www.archindy.org/campion. †