Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The first reading for Mass this weekend is from the first of two books in the Bible that bear a name suggesting that they are about the kings of Israel. Kings indeed are mentioned, but from a very particular point of view. Kings were judged on how well they led the people to abide by the covenant and to love and obey God.
Nothing else in life was as important.
So, the prophets were very important as they taught the people to follow God. This reading is about Elisha, who visits a household in which lives a wealthy woman. She receives him. She has no children, but the prophet assures her that she will bear a child by divine power.
In the second reading, St. Paul encourages and challenges the Christians of Rome. He reminds them that living with Christ also means dying and ultimately rising with Christ.
Death is inevitable for all human beings, but it had an especially fearful context for Christians in Rome. Being a Christian was a capital crime. Death was the penalty, and unless the Christian was a citizen, as was Paul—and few were citizens—executions were agonizing and brutal.
The Gospel reading from Matthew begins quite solemnly. Indeed, it can be puzzling. Jesus says that if anyone loves father or mother more than the Lord, they are not worthy to be his disciple. He says that the true disciple must also carry a cross.
Put these verses in the context in which they were written. Families were divided, maybe often, when a member converted to Christianity. Anyone convicted of being a Christian literally had to carry her or his cross and be crucified like Jesus was.
When the first Christians heard these words, they knew very well that persons considered very dear, for self-survival, might desert them and even denounce them to authorities to save themselves.
This passage from Matthew, in effect, reassured believers who feared the worst. The terrible consequences were worth the price of being with the Lord forever.
Indeed, many early Christians proved the point. They were martyred, but they live now in glory with Jesus.
Reflection
A line in the musical, Oklahoma!, says that “everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City!” Well, in the first decades of Christianity, everything was up-to-date in Rome, more than in any other place on Earth. It was a glittering city, with every opportunity and comfort the human heart could desire.
It was impossible, however, to enjoy all the wonders and pleasures of Rome while being true to the Gospel.
As if this were not enough, professing Christianity was a major crime, as already noted. Roman justice operated on the hunch, as does American justice today, that the death penalty deterred others from committing similar crimes, namely becoming Christian and living the Christian life.
The example of countless martyrs proved the folly of this hunch, but the temptation to forsake the Lord was still heightened by the aspect of dying for the crime of Christianity, and executions were horrifying in the Roman system. Crucifixion was not the only way criminals in the Roman judicial system were killed in agony and viciousness.
As had the prophets of old, Paul and Matthew insisted that living in obedience to God was the only thing that mattered, and its reward humbled all the glories and the pleasures of mere human existence, even if this existence occurred in Rome, the very crown of human life at the time.
The readings call us to reality. Win the lottery. Receive $300 million. Will it subtract one week from an aging life? Will it erase the pain of grief? Will it give a sense of purpose to life? It will not.
Only the spiritual rewards endure. This world will pass away. †