Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, B,
Opening Prayer of the Liturgy (the Collect)
O God, who in the
humility of your Son raised up a falling world, grant holy joy to
your faithful ones so that you may make to partake of eternal
gladness those whom you rescued from the slavery of sin. Through
our Lord.
Deus, qui in
Filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti, fidelibus tuis
sanctam concede laetitiam, ut, quos eripuisti a servitute
peccati, gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis. Per Dominum.
Meditation
First
Are we among the prophets sent by God? This
reading could make us think about our possible vocation as
a prophet. In what social causes am I involved which make
us feel like a prophet? Or rather in a different direction
are we the ones to whom the prophet has been sent? Isn’t
it more appropriate to see ourselves among those to whom the
prophet has been sent to set them on the path. Right now,
in truth are we the ones in the reading who need the prophet.
The prophet needs to be sent to us to speak to us of our
rebellion, of our obstinacy of heart. Have we not
held a hard face toward God? I know that my face is hard
from my own self-reliance and my preoccupation with my own
agenda. In centering prayer with the daily practice, twice
a day, I appear before the Face of God in silence and love.
In the Spirit I long for the Face of God. “Lord, let
us see the Father, and it will be enough.” Let the
Prophet be on his feet and come to me, Spirit-filled, and speak
with the power of transformation.
And now I ask do I dare to act in the Prophet’s
role? The anointing by the Holy Spirit has sealed me in the
prophetic power of Christ to be His face to others. I act
in the prophet’s role only after I have been
healed of my own rebellion and obstinacy.
Second
It is about time that we recognize the thorn in the
flesh that is peculiarly mine. I know the presence of the
angel of Satan in my life who beats me unmercifully. The
Angel of Satan is my own false self system, the fallen human
condition, “the lump of sin” as the author of Cloud
of Unknowing calls it. The grace from the
buffeting is that I really cannot glory in anything but my
infirmities. I come to experience the perfection of God’s
grace in Christ Jesus, the gift of freedom wherein I find the
will to be in love with God. In my prayer I am quite
content to be present to my powerlessness. The
powerlessness rises quite naturally, spontaneously in silent
contemplative prayer. The contents of my false self when not
repressed become the ground of surrender into God. What a
grace of God! It is in that moment of the arising of the
contents of my weak and misdirected inner workings that the
Sacred Word brings me back to the fundamental intention of my
heart: The Sacred Word says Yes to Christ’s power
within me. This gentle surrender in the intention,
silently, goes beyond all my powers of thought, imagination, of
conjuring-up visions of my spiritual grandeur. This is the
work that the Father accomplishes in us: All for the sake
of Christ, the Beloved of our inner-most being, the center-point
of the divine, Triune Presence within me.
The Gospel
No angel of Satan can come close to our Lord Jesus.
No thorn of the flesh, as a part of fallen nature, clings to the
human nature of Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus faces the
constant external opposition from the angel of Satan.
“Where did he get all this?” The attitude expressed
in this hostile question shows the resistance, the obstinacy, the
rebelliousness that the First Reading describes. It is hard
faces that are turned to the Face of Jesus.
In my prayer my heart is open to You, Lord Jesus, as
you come to me through the humility and hiddenness of your Sacred
Humanity. In my prayer I am one with You in the silence of
my acceptance. It is your Father who draws me unto You; it
is the Holy Spirit Who whispers your name in my heart. I
become silently one with the Spirit that draws me into You, the
Spirit Whom the Father sends to me constantly in my contemplative
prayer. I believe that Your transforming presence is most
powerful in the terrible moments of feeling abandoned . Then
I am like You, with the thorn in my flesh, with the Angel of
Satan in the stream of thoughts, I am like You in that moment in
My contemplative prayer is expressed in the
Psalm: The eye of my inner true self, bathed
in the grace of Christ, rests steadily upon the Face of Jesus
within the Father’s Bosom through the seven-fold Gift of the
Holy Spirit. The eye of the servant is upon the hand
of the master. The master is the Father; the hand is
the Son; the lifting-up is the gentle power of the Holy
Spirit Who accomplishes the Work of Salvation.
It is our powerlessness that we bring to the
communion of our Sunday Holy Eucharist. The Christ who
suffered powerlessness like us in His sojourn now meets us and
brings us in the Spirit into the Father. Mary, Mother of
God, pray for us that our hearts and minds be open to Jesus our
Savior.
--William
Fredrickson, Obl.OSB, D.Min.
Questions or Discussion: Fredrickson46@msn.com