XXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Sequela Crucis

Readings: Jer 20:7-9; Rom 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27

All of today’s Readings (Jer 20:7-9; Rom 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27) emphasize to us that the cross is nothing other than the complete gift of love, emptying oneself for others, following the example of Jesus. In the Eucharist, we too, transformed in Christ, must become like him a total oblation of love. This is how Pope Benedict XVI commented on the second Reading (Rom 12:1-2): “In Greek, spiritual worship is called «logikè latreia», «logical» («reasonable») worship… In Greek mysticism… the divine Logos prays in man himself and thus takes man into his belonging to God… May Christ take us into his offering, «make us logos»… May his presence take us with him, so that we become with him «one body and one spirit»… Let us pray to become ourselves Eucharist with Christ and thus pleasing to God… For this reason we are invited to offer our bodies as worship according to the Logos, that is, to be drawn in all our bodily existence into communion with Christ, into the communion of love with God. This means our «metamorphosis», our transformation from the pattern of this world, from sharing what is thought, said, and done, into insertion into the will of God”. That is, we must oppose worldly logic (“Do not conform to the pattern of this world!”: Rom 12:2), which is a logic of selfishness, oppression, and power, and live in the Eucharistic dimension of giving and service. Towards the prevailing culture, therefore, a radical non-conformism is needed; we must be centers of “resistance”, striving only for the “tèleion” spoken of by the apostle (“what is perfect”: Rom 12:2), which is love alone (Col 3:14).

The Gospel (Mt 16:21-27) reminds us that there is no “sequela Christi” that is not also “sequela Crucis”. The cross is a call for everyone: it is a cross to accept the time of illness, of misunderstanding, of persecution, of death; it is a cross to be marginalized because one is a believer, to not advance in one’s career because one refuses compromises; it is a cross to be mocked because one refuses premarital relationships; it is a cross for an unwed mother to forgo abortion, to accept a child born of violence, to refuse for oneself even important medical treatment that could harm the unborn child; it is a cross, if abandoned, not to remarry, remaining “eunuchs for the Kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12), or to forgive an adulterous spouse; it is a cross to maintain the sometimes costly fidelity of a married person or a consecrated celibate; it is a cross for a remarried divorcee to obey Eucharistic abstention; it is a cross for a homosexual believer to be called to chastity; it is a cross to share one’s goods with the poor; it is a cross to stand in every case on the side of the little ones, the suffering, the oppressed…

Brother Christian, the prior of the seven monks killed a few years ago in Algeria, wrote: “Christ was asked to choose between two stabilities: the throne or the cross. Christ chose the cross: he made it his throne, the footstool of his kingdom. Unfortunately, throughout history, the Church has often preferred the throne. Especially after the Edict of Constantine”. Bishop Pierre Claverie, Bishop of Oran, proclaimed in a homily about forty days before being killed: “People have often asked me: «What are you doing down there? Why do you stay?». We are there because of this crucified Messiah… The Church deceives itself and the world when it sets itself up as a power among others, as an organization, even a humanitarian one, or as a spectacular evangelical movement. It may shine, but not burn with the love of God, «strong as death» (Song 8:6). Indeed, it is precisely a matter of love, first of all of love and only of love. A passion of which Jesus gave us a taste and traced the path: «No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends» (Jn 15:13)”.