Find The Honor In Shame

Readings for Sunday August 28, 2011                      

22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Think of your favorite athlete: Where would he/she be without sacrifice and suffering? Odds are they would be watching sports on TV with you and me, instead of being the one on TV.  Just as they apply to sports (or the arts, or studies, or anything that requires effort), sacrifice and suffering are important to our growth in love. Sunday’s Gospel passage is a short lesson in the hard work that needs to go into love. We read that Jesus is gathered with His disciples, and they have just experienced the great power of His teaching and miracles.  

Last week we read that the Lord was going to build His Church upon St. Peter. Yet in the midst of His growing popularity and His big plans for the future, Jesus tells His disciples that He must be rejected, suffer and be killed.  Imagine the looks on the disciples’ faces when Jesus told them this shocking news: No doubt they were expecting to head down to Jerusalem for a big party, declare Jesus King, and get ready for the new world order with Jesus at the top.  Instead, Jesus was promising a tragic end to the good times they had experienced.  

Not only did He promise His own death and destruction, but He laid out an unbelievable requirement for being His follower: If you want to follow Jesus, you have to be ready to die as well.   Wasn’t Jesus thinking about a potential negative image for the religion He was founding?  Didn’t He understand the importance of presenting an exciting message in marketing His program? These strong demands of discipleship show us that Jesus’ first concern was not in making people feel good: Jesus’ first concern is for you and I to grow in love and holiness.  

This Gospel shows us that Jesus’ ways are not the ways of the world. The world looks for immediate satisfaction and quick pleasure: Jesus looks for long-term joy and love. Jesus challenges us to look to heaven as our place of true longing and fulfillment. So don’t allow the fear of suffering and death to hold you back from Jesus, and don’t allow yourself to avoid life’s struggles by running away from them. May we have the grace to trust Jesus with our entire lives by dying to ourselves and allowing Him to bring us to new life.        Summary of the Gospel from YM Ministries

The first reading is taken from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 20:7-9 in which we hear Jeremiah giving voice to this internal anguish of mind; he hates what he has to say to his people, yet he is compelled by God to say it.

First Reading                Jeremiah 20: 7-9

7 You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me. 8 Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; the word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day. 9 I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
Question’s for discussion:

1. Why doesn’t God answer Jeremiah’s outburst?
2. Have you ever done the right thing and then suffered for it? How did it make you feel? What did you say to God?
   
   

The second reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 12:1-2 in which he tells the Roman Christians (converts, for the most part, from paganism) that they must prove themselves worthy of this great favor, they must live truly Christian lives.

Second Reading           Romans 12:1-2

1 I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. 2 Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Questions for discussion:

1. As a young man or woman, how does peer pressure affect the way you dress? How you act?
2. Are you using your gifts in a way that is “Holy and pleasing to God” (v 1)?
   
   
3. What holds you back from using your gifts more fully?
   
   

The Gospel is from Matthew 16:21-27. From all eternity this was God's plan for mankind. But because sin had entered into the world before the Incarnation took place, the Son of God in his human nature had to suffer the violent death of the cross at the hands of sinners. In this very suffering he became the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world, as the second-Isaiah had foretold in his "suffering servant" prophecies (Isaiah. 53: 1-7; 42: 1-9 etc). His death, because he was God as well as man, was a sacrifice, an atonement, of infinite value, and therefore obtained forgiveness from the Father for all the sins of the human race.

Gospel                Matthew 16:21-27

21 Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” 23 He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? 27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Questions for discussion:

1. How do you think St. Peter reacted to being called ‘satan’?  Describe. Why did Jesus decide to speak so strongly to St. Peter?
2. What kind of Messiah was Peter expecting?

3. What does this question mean to you: What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?
4. How does a Christian forfeit his life? What might tempt you to lose your life or exchange your soul?
5. What scares you the most about taking up your cross? Describe. Do you trust that Jesus will bring you to new life if you die to yourself? Why/Why not?
                                                                                                                                   God Bless you all IHN tommy