A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 41)
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – September 9, 2007
“To Be My Disciple …”
BIBLE READINGS
Wis 9:13-18a // Phlm 10-10, 12-17 // Lk 14:25-33
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
I was a young novice when I saw the film, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”, produced and directed by Franco Zeffirelli. That movie - a powerful idyll on Christian discipleship - touched me deeply. While I was watching the movie, I was transported to a fascinating world of beauty and grace. It evoked in me a great desire to pursue the Kingdom of God and give myself totally and radically to Jesus Christ. In the life of Francis of Assisi I saw a full response to Christ’s challenge, “If you wish to be my disciple …”. Some years later, after my perpetual profession, I would have a chance to go to Assisi and visit the places where St. Francis lived, preached, prayed and communed with God. I would also have the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to La Verna where St. Francis received his “stigmata”. The two most powerful images of discipleship that I saw in Zeffirelli’s movie were the episodes in which Francis overcame his revulsion and kissed the leper and when he stripped off all his clothing to give it back to his father. However, the episode in the film that greatly delighted me was Francis pensively contemplating in a field of poppies (papaveri), in an Umbrian countryside drenched with beauty and ablaze with thousands and thousands of reddish-orange flowers. When I went to Italy and resided there for seven years, the sight of a field of poppies would always make me rejoice and remind me of St. Francis in deep communion with God.
St. Francis of Assisi epitomizes the true and courageous response to the challenges of discipleship uttered by Jesus and reported in this Sunday’s Gospel reading: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple … Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple … Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26-27,33). Having made a radical choice for Christ as the ultimate and absolute value, all other realities became relative and secondary – including family relations, material possessions, and even his very life. St. Francis thus showed us what it means to be a Christian disciple.
This Sunday’s Gospel passage is an incisive instruction on Christian discipleship. The followers of Christ should not entertain illusions, but rather grasp the real demands of Christian life. One radical demand of discipleship is an unconditional preference for Christ that would enable the disciple “to hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life …”. The Christian challenge “to hate” should not be understood in its narrow literal sense, but as a Semitic way of saying “to love less”. It indicates a preference for Christ that is deliberate, absolute, total and complete. The liturgical scholar, Adrian Nocent comments: “Jesus is speaking of a value judgment and a freedom from ties that have nothing in common with a refusal of fraternal love or with self-centeredness. He is demanding an unconditional love of himself that gives priority to everything that concerns him and makes everyone and everything else secondary. He is asking for a preferential love that entails the leaving behind of all else. Human affections are legitimate, but they are subordinate to love of Jesus … the other objects of our affection, even, our own life, take second priority.”
The second radical demand of Christian discipleship enunciated in today’s Gospel is “to carry the cross and come after Christ”. This entails self-surrender to the divine saving will and total participation in the paschal destiny of Christ. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, explain: “To be his disciple sometime involves painful conflicts; not only during times of persecution but also, for example, when one must respond to a vocation, a call, and prefer Christ to all those around him. The Christian life is full of trials, events marked by constraint, uneasiness and suffering. For ages we have spoken of the cross. In this figurative sense, to bear one’s cross means to submit to the divine will generously, even heroically, accepting these various trials as a sharing in the cross of Christ. For the Christian, then as now, to bear one’s cross has a very concrete meaning. The expression evokes the image of Christ, the man of sorrows, walking toward Calvary while staggering under the weight of the instrument of his torment. This is particularly true when, faced with the cross that dominates the altar, one celebrates the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ.”
The third radical demand of discipleship mentioned in this Sunday’s Gospel reading is “to renounce all possessions”. Our choice for Christ calls for the reassessment of our relation to every type of goods. It invites us to evaluate our priorities. It challenges us to cultivate a spirit of detachment, an essential mark of Christian followers. The goods that preempt our loyalty and devotion are to be renounced. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, give us an interesting insight on this Sunday’s Gospel reading from the evangelist Luke: “The importance of this detachment in Luke’s eyes is obvious. His ideal is, if not voluntary poverty and destitution, at least the sharing of goods so that they do not become master to the person … This demand turns our attention to Jesus, who stripped himself of everything, even his grandeur as Son of God, to share in our human condition, to give himself to us, to allow us to participate in his status, as Son, in his inheritance and glory. To be Jesus’ disciple is to prefer him to each and every thing, and to be ready to share with others one’s material, intellectual, and spiritual goods.”
Every Master worthy of the name lays the cards on the table and presents to those who desire to follow him the radical implications of being united with him. The honest and sincere leader gives fair warning of the price of discipleship. With the parable of the man who wishes to build a tower (Lk 14:29-30) and the parable of the king who intends to wage a war (Lk 14:31-32), the Divine Master asserts that we should consider carefully the cost of a venture before embarking on it. Indeed the “price of grace” is costly. The price of discipleship is dear.
On the “costly grace”, the theologian D. Bonhoeffer remarks: “Costly grace is the gospel that must ever be sought; it is a gift for which one must ask; it is the door at which one must knock. It is costly because it calls for obedience; it is grace because it calls for obedience to Christ. It is costly because it may cost a man his life; it is grace because only thus is man brought to new life. It is costly because it condemns sins; it is grace because it justifies the sinner. It is costly grace most of all because it has cost God dearly, because it has cost God the life of his Son – You have been bought at a great price – because what has been costly for God cannot be cheap for us. It is grace most of all because God did not regard his Son as too precious for our life, but gave him for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.”
In order to have the courage to confront and respond to the “price of grace”, we need to be filled with the wisdom of God (Wis 9:13-18a) – the “Holy Spirit from on high” who would enable us “to conceive what the Lord intends”. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, conclude: “We know perfectly well that we do not have enough to pay the price, to go the distance, nor the strength needed to deflect the adversary. But we also know the Spirit is given to us, and thus the grace that leads to doing good, to hold fast till the end of our vocation, to meet all requirements: to bear the cross of the disciple and renounce all our goods. The designs and secrets of God have been revealed by the gift of Wisdom and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Knowing what is pleasing to God, we know the paths that lead to salvation.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. Are we ready to respond continually and progressively to the following demands of Christian discipleship: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple … Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple … Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26-27,33)?
B. How do the parables on the tower builder and the war-waging king impact us? Do we dedicate adequate reflection and consideration on the price of discipleship? Why is the price of discipleship costly? Are we thankful to the Lord for the gift of discipleship and are we ready to pay the price?
C. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in our life of Christian discipleship? Do we pray to God for the gift of divine wisdom and the light of the Holy Spirit that would enable us to give absolute value to Jesus and the kingdom of God? Do we believe that God in his tremendous goodness has sent the Holy Spirit to us to help us meet all the requirements of Christian discipleship? How do we respond to the gift of the Holy Spirit – the penetrating and all-powerful Wisdom of God present to us and at work in the entire creation?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
your Son Jesus Christ calls us to be his disciples.
But the price of discipleship is dear
and the grace that is offered to us is “costly”.
We open our hearts
to the tremendous challenge of Christian discipleship.
We humbly welcome the “costly grace” offered to us in the name of Jesus
and by his paschal sacrifice.
Send forth upon us the “wisdom from on high”
that we may discern with sensitivity your saving will.
Renew the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us.
Give us the strength to renounce
what impedes us from following Christ, our supreme good.
Enlighten us that we may regard the goods of this earth
with a spirit of detachment.
Enable us to uphold him as our absolute treasure,
which surpasses family relations and our very life.
Unite us with his paschal destiny
by giving us the grace to carry our daily cross
with love and devotion.
Help us to follow Christ on the path that leads to life.
We praise and bless you,
in the name of Jesus
and in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple … Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple … Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26-27,33).
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that those who wish to follow Christ may respond to his radical demands with generosity, integrity and total dedication. In your detachment from temporary goods and total attachment to the absolute treasure, Jesus Christ, be open to share generously with the poor and the needy the talents and resources you have received from God.
ACTION PLAN: To help us respond progressively and continually to the challenges of Christian discipleship, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 41): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US