Twenty-Sixth Sunda y in Ordinary Time – Year A

Collect

O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen. 

Reflection

When reading this Gospel, I find consolation in the elder son because my first response tends to be “No!”—even if, after many complaints, I eventually change my mind and do what is asked of me. And on those occasions when I say “Yes,” let’s just say that I may well end up forgetting about it afterwards. I imagine that we all find ourselves in these situations—otherwise we won’t live to our reputation as Maltese! But that does not work out as an excuse to justify ourselves!

In the meantime, the Gospel is not primarily about which son is best, but rather about the final word of Jesus when he confronts the Pharisees over their lack of faith in the possibility that God is still speaking and still communicating his Word, even through somewhat eccentric people such as John the Baptist. And because they remain unrepentant and do not convert, they remain stuck in their own way of thinking, unlike those who were humbler and more down-to-earth, recognising their sin and repenting. Jesus specifically mentions tax collectors and prostitutes: two categories of people, one male and the other female, who, by the very nature of their occupation or work, were regarded as sinners.

The First Reading shows us the seriousness of this contrast when it makes clear that a good person can never reach a point at which they can reassure themselves that they have accumulated enough points on their Loyalty Card and may therefore relax. At the same time, in the case of the sinful person who converts, God in his mercy chooses not to look at the past but delights in the right path that has opened up, so that the sinner may become a saint.

Hence, as we saw in last Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word, the secret once again lies in the need for our thinking and our way of living not to remain governed by the fashions and ways of the world, but to rise upwards so that, as St Paul says to the Philippians in the Second Reading, we have the same mind of Christ Jesus. And what’s the way of thinking of Christ Jesus?

Paul lists several aspects of Jesus’ way of thinking. First, Paul makes it clear that what a person experiences in their relationship with Jesus—the encouragement, the comfort of love—is not simply personal gain or some kind of promotion that makes them holier than others. It is also a gift for the community, leading to the strengthening of fellowship in the Spirit, to compassion and mercy, to being of one mind without rivalry or boasting, so that they may be one in soul and united in mind in Christ.

Then Paul continues by explicitly describing the mind of Christ Jesus and what he did for us as a model of how we ought to think and act. He places before us the whole mystery of Christ who, although being God, fulfilled the Father’s Word and not only did he not disdain becoming one of us, but obediently embraced death, even death on a cross, as the natural consequence of taking upon himself the guilt of our sins.

Indeed, as Paul explains, Christ’s glorification followed, reaching its fulfilment at the end of time. Yet this glorification itself is also a gift for us because, if we learn to think and live with the humility with which Jesus lived, we too will be united with him in glory. 

Prayer

Lord, your way of thinking has the form of the Cross, and my way of thinking too needs to take the same form. On the one hand, the Cross is humiliation that nurtures humility within me; on the other, it is salvation, if I allow myself to be touched and moved, shaken from being too certain of myself and freed from my sin. Lord, none of this is easy, but surely, through your Word and also through the Eucharistic nourishment you give us, you can accomplish this change within me. Open wide my arms that my way of thinking may take the shape of the Cross—a Cross that humbles, but also saves me, and saves others with me and through me. Amen.