‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.’
This week’s Gospel almost comes as a bit of a relief after some very difficult parables and scenes of Jesus being put on the spot. This week Jesus is challenged again. His answer isn’t contentious in the strict sense. He does however make an explicit link between two well known commands of the Torah. This is Wisdom Jesus who takes the received tradition and invites his hearers to go deeper. Loving God with all your heart, soul and mind is now bound together with love of neighbour. Where you have one, you have the other.
Writing in the Sixth Century, at a time of instability, St Benedict’s Rule is in many ways an embodiment of today’s Gospel. In the pages of the Rule we find practical incarnational wisdom, where love of God is assumed and love of neighbour cannot be avoided. In Chapter Four, The Tools of Good Works, St Benedict offers his monks a kind of spiritual tool box, containing seventy four tools which are to be used in the monastic craft. The chapter opens like this:
First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.
I read this as St Benedict making clear from the outset that loving God in the monastery cannot be separated from love of neighbour. It is love and consideration for the other which are the guiding principles in St Benedict’s practical arrangements in the monastery. Whether it’s showing consideration and asking the cellarer for what you need at the appropriate times, or not grumbling when something is not to your liking, these are the ways in which you love God with heart, soul and strength in the monastery.
How is Christ calling you to love in the coming week?
When I sat down to read today’s Gospel I had a few ideas about how I understood the passage and I turned to my usual commentaries. No pennies dropped and I was getting close to giving up and writing something on the First Reading from Isaiah 25 instead. Something made me persevere and I looked up a lectionary website which uses the work of Rene Girard as an interpretative key.
For what follows I am indebted to the insights of James Alison. Last week I offered the idea of finding an interpretative key to help us unlock the Gospel. This week its as if we have found a key but the parable is one of those tricky locks where you have to persevere if you want to open the door. You might not do it on your first attempt.
As we open the door of Isaiah 25 we are invited to a huge banquet. The imagery paints a beautiful scene of bounty and inclusion. God has saved his people and this lavish banquet puts the seal on the whole history of God’s promises:
On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines.
At this banquet it’s not just our hunger that will be satisfied but there is a promise of God wiping tears from our eyes too. It’s a holistic vision.
As we move to the Gospel scene we might picture the preparations for the wedding banquet. These preparations are lengthy and involve sending out a first invite, seeing who responds, estimating the food needed and then sending a second invite. Commentators suggest that it is at this second stage that the rather puzzling responses are made: ‘one went off to his farm, another to his business’
I have always been left wondering why anyone would turn down an invite to a party given by a king. This is where the work of James Alison provided an insight. He comments that in Hebrew a summons to war and a summons to a feast (to share bread) are very similar linguistically. The Hebrew word for ‘bread’ (lechem), shares a root with the words for ‘fight’ (lehilachem) and ‘war’ (milchama).
The reasons for the guests declining the invite are more fitting to a summons to war than a feast. Deuteronomy 20 gives several legitimate reasons for declining a summons to war:
‘Is there any man here who has built a new house and not yet dedicated it? Let him go home lest he die in battle and another perform the dedication. Is there any man here who has planted a vineyard and not yet enjoyed its fruit? Let him go home lest he die in battle and another enjoy its fruit. Is there any man here who has betrothed a wife and not yet taken her? Let him go home lest he die in battle and another take her.‘
James Alison suggests that one of the things that is at issue in this parable is the mishearing or misunderstanding of the invite. Responding to a summons to war is a choice to remain in the world of vengeance, whereas accepting an invitation to a feast opens up a world of grace.
I am left thinking about the many invitations in my own life. Am I seeing them as a summons to war or an invitation to a feast? Am I bracing myself for a battle or anticipating a rich feast. Likewise too in our global church as we journey together in the synodal process, there will be those who see it as a battleground and those who see it as a feast.
What are the invitations in your own life? How do you respond?
When we open the Scriptures, we open a world of story, poetry and metaphor. Origen, a Third Century theologian, likens the Bible to a mansion. The various books of the Bible are doors which we need to unlock. Outside each door is a key which will unlock one door. Our task is to match each key to a door. This can be the work of a life time. In public liturgy the Church will help us to open a door by laying Bible passages side by side. We can see this very clearly in today’s Liturgy of the Word.
We begin with a passage from the First Book of Isaiah. The first thing to note is that this is a song, a love song for God’s vineyard. It tells the story of God’s relationship with Israel. Every care has been lavished on Israel. The vineyard is God’s pride and joy:
He dug the soil, cleared it of stones and planted choice vines in it.
The love song changes to a lament as things haven’t gone according to plan. God expects a fruitful harvest and instead finds only ‘sour grapes’. God threatens to destroy the vineyard.
When we come to read the Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard Isaiah’s imagery gives us one interpretative key. It isn’t a perfect fit. Unlike in Isaiah’s song, destruction of the vineyard itself is not part of the parable, but instead judgement at the way in which the tenants have managed it is. This doesn’t make for very comfortable reading at all. What message can we take from this? Most commentaries will suggest that Jesus is speaking principally to the faith leaders. If we take this at face value, then this lets us nicely off the hook. Very few of us are faith leaders. If we dig a little deeper we find that the texts from Isaiah and Matthew share a background in covenantal theology. God’s self gift in the Torah and the Incarnation bind us in relationship. God has taken the initiative and awaits our response. God has entrusted us with the ‘vineyard’ of baptism, family, community, personal vocation and many more things. Each gift has built into it the dynamic of call and response.
What fruit will God find in your ‘vineyard’ of your life?
Revelation 11:19,12:1-6,10 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 Luke 1:39-56
The older I get the more time I need to spend on paying attention to my body and making sensible choices. This is anything but self indulgent. When you live in community your own well-being is linked to the whole. There’s something of an implicit understanding that what you do or don’t do will affect the whole. While the monastic path might be an overtly spiritual choice, there’s no escaping the fact that this choice is worked out in a very physical way each day. Bodies matter. In what is considered the spiritual heart of his Rule, St Benedict urges his community to live in such a way that they are ‘supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behaviour’ (Ch 72). Benedictine life is incarnational at its core.
When I come to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption I bring to the liturgy my own questions about my bodily life and death. In the Liturgy of the word today the Church offers me some interpretative keys. These are not keys that unlock the mystery straight away. For me these are well worn keys and I need a certain patience to unlock the various doors of mystery.
The first reading from Revelation invites me into the realm of apocalyptic literature. Today the ‘woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown.’ is Mary of Nazareth. I need to suspend what I understand to be the context and meaning of these words of Scripture and allow the text to have a meaning specific to the feast. Here we have Mary, Queen of heaven and bearer of our Saviour.
Today’s text from Corinthians plunges us into the mystery of the physicality of resurrection. There is a reassuring order in which things happen:
‘Christ as the first-fruits and then, after the coming of Christ, those who belong to him.’
This text gives me such hope. Despite our weaknesses and our failings we know that we ‘belong to him’. In the Church’s understanding of the Assumption, Mary is so closely related to Jesus in mind and body that it is unthinkable that she her body should know decay. Legend has it that, perhaps in Ephesus, she falls asleep and is bodily assumed into heaven. In the bodily Assumption of Mary we find our hope too. I think there’s a case for understanding the Assumption as a sign that Mary’s body and our bodies too are places where God’s grace can take hold and where God’s power and glory can be seen. Our destiny, as those who belong to Christ, is to be resurrected with bodies that are glorified.
When we come to the Gospel text from Luke we are on familiar territory. This door opens easily for me. Two pregnant women meet in a sharing of joy and thanksgiving for the new life that they bear within them. Both women know that their bodies are channels of God’s promise and grace.
Poet Malcolm Guite expresses this so well in his sonnet, Visitation.
Two women on the very edge of things Unnoticed and unknown to men of power But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
As we look at this scene from the vantage point of the feast of the Assumption we see the dynamic of Mary’s faithfulness in mind, body and heart.
‘Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’
With Mary’s ‘Yes’, this promise takes shape in flesh and blood. What God has done in and through Mary, is God’s desire for each one of us. In celebrating the Assumption we celebrate redeemed humanity. Theologian John McQuarrie sees the Assumption as an on going event:
‘…whenever here on earth there is a gleam of true glory, a faithful act of discipleship, a prayer offered in faith, a hand stretched out in love, there is assumption, human life is being lifted up to God by God.’
How can you be open to the graces of the Assumption this week?
If the Lord set his HEART on you and chose you, it was not because you outnumbered other peoples: you were the least of all peoples. It was for LOVE of you and to keep the oath he swore to your fathers that the Lord brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
The Book of Deuteronomy is a favourite of mine. Commentators have drawn my attention to the fact that ‘heart’ is mentioned forty-one times. For the biblical writers the heart signifies the interior mystery of each person. It is here that love, trust and faithfulness have their roots. The heart of God is the place of deep mystery and of love. When God sets his heart on the people of Israel it was from a place of pure love. There is risk involved in this covenantal love.
In the First letter of John we hear echoes of the covenantal love outlined in the text from Deuteronomy. God’s choice of Israel calls a new community into being. For the writer of the First Letter of John the imperative to love has its roots in God’s initiative:
My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
In the Gospel text from Matthew we hear some of the most consoling words in Scripture:
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’
The imagery of the yoke prompts several different avenues of interpretation. Yokes were traditionally fitted to enable two oxen to work together. Some suggest that a younger ox was paired with an older ox so that the younger could learn from the older. This image has much potential. When we yoke ourselves to Christ we will learn the gentleness and humbleness of Christ. Whatever our burden, Christ doesn’t say that he will take it away, but rather he will show us how to carry it. The yoke relied on two oxen being able to work together. In time the younger ox would be paired with another ox and so pass on the learning.
As I have worked with each of these texts I have heard resonances with the Rule of St Benedict. In his touchstone chapter on Good Zeal (Ch 72) St Benedict speaks in three different ways about love. To each other the monks are to show ‘the pure love of brothers’, to God ‘loving fear’ and to their abbot ‘unfeigned and humble love’. We can find each of these modes of love in the readings today.
Wherever we find ourselves today, whatever our circumstances, the invitation is the same: love one another.
Exodus 34:4-6,8-9 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 John 3:16-18
The mystics believed that we are all born with a capacity for God (Capax Dei). St Augustine believed that this capacity makes it possible for the human person to be re-formed through God’s gracious gift.
It has become common place for society to be described as ‘post Christian’ or as ‘secular’. While it may appear that Christian values are all but forgotten in the way in which our ordinary lives are ordered, I think we may have lost sight of the fundamental truth that we all carry within us the capacity for God. This capacity won’t always be expressed in the traditional ways, but I do believe that in the heart of every human being is the desire to know that they are part of something much bigger than themselves. Every human being wants to be connected to someone or something that gives meaning to their life. We are made for connection.
St Augustine sees our re-forming in terms of the image of the Trinity. Just as there is unity among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so too, there is unity in a person’s memory, understanding and will. At the core of each human being is a mystery which reflects the great mystery of the Godhead. In the ordinary run of life it’s easy to lose sight of this mystery that we carry within us. We are often more of aware of our failures than our triumphs. Maria Boulding, expresses this so well in her book, The Coming of God, which has become for me a personal spiritual classic:
All your hopes and disappointments, your joy and suffering, your achievement and failure, your ups and downs: none of it is wasted. Provided only that you consent without qualification, the work of grace is going on in you through the whole business of living, to hollow you out, to make you Capax Dei, as the old mystics used to say, able to receive God. You yourself are the place of desire and need. All your love, your stretching out, your hope, your thirst, God is creating in you so that he may fill you.
When we celebrate the feast of the The Trinity we celebrate connection. Each of the readings for today highlights the quality of that connection:
‘Lord, Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness.’ (Ex 34)
Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Cor 13)
God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. (John 3)
How can you live out this Trinitarian love this coming week?
It is I who have set up my king on ZION, my holy mountain.
Eastertide invites us to live in the full glory of resurrection. We are to stand in the light of Christ’s victory over death, even as the world still trembles with uncertainty. Christ’s death and resurrection are cosmic. Christ’s kingship is cosmic. What was hidden in humility is revealed in glory. The cross, which seemed like defeat, becomes the very place where his authority is secured.
Zion, the “holy mountain,” represents more than a physical place. It is the meeting point between heaven and earth, where God’s purposes are made known. In Eastertide, we come to see that this “mountain” is no longer confined to geography. It lives wherever Christ is acknowledged as King. It is found in hearts awakened by grace, in communities shaped by love, in lives that bear witness to resurrection hope.
With this final letter of the alphabet we are almost at the end of Eastertide. What signs have you seen in your own life of the hope of the resurrection during this Eastertide?
(Ps 2, Responsorial Psalm, Friday in the Fourth Week of Eastertide)
Simon son of John, do YOU love me more than these others do?
In John 21 we have one of the most intimate dialogues in the Gospels. The focus is entirely on Peter and his relationship with Jesus. In English we have one word ‘love’ and it can mean a whole variety of things. If we want to be specific we have to qualify it. Greek has at least 7 words for love. Our passage from John’s Gospel uses two of these: agape and philia. Agape is unconditional, sacrificial love. Philia is the affectionate love of friends.
When Jesus asks Peter the first time if he loves him he says ‘agapas me?’.
Peter replies, you know that I love you (philo se).
Jesus asks Peter a second time ‘agapas me?’ and he replies ‘philo se’.
By the third time a shift has occurred. Jesus says ‘phileis me?’
And Peter replies ‘philo se’.
It’s that simple. Jesus has come to Peter’s level. Jesus meets Peter where he is and doesn’t demand a type of love that he isn’t able to give.
This Gospel challenges me to make space for others. It challenges me to remember that you can’t demand love from another. People need space.
Can you be like Jesus, can you meet people where they are?
They preached everyday both in the Temple and in private houses, and their proclamation of the Good News of CHRIST JESUS was never interrupted.
When you make Solemn Profession as a Benedictine as part of the ceremony you sing a verse from Ps 118(9), ‘Receive me Lord, according to your promise, and I shall live: do not disappoint me in my hope.’ In these words you put your whole trust in the promise of Christ to uphold you. You make concrete your desire that everything you undertake within the monastery will have only one goal: ‘to prefer nothing to Christ’ (Rule of St Benedict).
When the apostles set about proclaiming the Good News of Christ Jesus they put their full trust in the cosmic power of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are upheld by His promise to be with them always, even to the ends of time. The relationships they each had with Christ now become public. In their preaching and their daily living they show that they prefer nothing to Christ.
WONDERFUL LIGHT You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of darkness into his WONDERFUL LIGHT.
During Covid I remember walking in the fields behind our monastery and watching as dawn broke. As I stood in the brightness of that light I prayed that God’s power to heal would be manifest. I have always been drawn to morning light and during Covid the pull was stronger. Researchers tell us that morning light is beneficial in several ways for the human body.
I love the idea of being called into God’s wonderful light. This is a light which invites me to step forward where I am and to see the world as God sees it. This light invites and doesn’t force. In this light I am beckoned forward. I don’t need to retreat. In this light hidden things can be revealed, a path can be illumined and what has grown cold can be warmed.
How is God inviting you to step into his ‘wonderful light’?
