Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

R.S.V.P.

“Does it please you to serve the Lord?” Joshua asked at Shechem. “Decide today.” And the people answered: “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods,” going on to name the deeds the Lord had done for them.

Centuries later, after hearing Jesus call himself bread to be eaten, descendants of those at Shechem said: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” And they “no longer accompanied him.” Jesus then asked the Twelve if they would leave, too. Simon answered for all: “We have come to believe and are convinced you are the Holy One of God.”

Our response is a simple but weighty Amen (meaning “So be it”). When the consecrated host is held up, accompanied by “The Body of Christ,” and the cup offered with “The Blood of Christ,” we are asked to put our faith on the line and say, “Amen.”

Has familiarity bred contentment? Are we so used to this mystery that we rarely have a sense of awe or wonder? The first act of faith is believing that God is present in things as ordinary as this bread and wine. We believe that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. What is the change in us that should accompany receiving them?

But of such stuff dreams are made—God’s dream of a family, loving daughters and sons, gathered around a table to say “Amen,” then to live Communion in a world of broken bodies, shed blood, wounded hearts, and crushed spirits. When you say “Amen” to this mystery, who knows what might happen?

Consider/Discuss

What meaning does “Amen” have for you?
Is it a response in word only, or in word and in deed, so that you not only “receive” Communion with Christ and his body but live it daily?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, you came from the Father and returned to the Father and remain ever near the Father’s heart. You remain the Father’s Word of love to us, the Word of the Father’s commitment to us, draw us into being “Amen” as you were also “Amen” to the Father’s will. Amen.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

In his address to the assembly, Joshua places before them a choice that will shape their own self-identity, and will determine the path that they will travel for the rest of their lives and the lives of their descendants. Whom will they serve? They can continue to serve their ancestral gods; they can opt for the gods of the people in whose land they are now dwelling; or they can worship the Lord. Speaking for his own family, Joshua declares: We will serve the Lord. The rest of the people make the same decision. Their choice of a god is determined by the personal involvement of God in their lives.

The responsibilities of husbands in contrast to a traditional patriarchal marriage are the subject of the Ephesian reading. First, Christ loved the church enough to give his life for it. This is the degree of spousal commitment envisioned for husbands. Following the example of Christ who sacrificed his divine privileges for the sake of the church, husbands are told to sacrifice their patriarchal privileges for the sake of their wives. In Genesis the husband and wife constitute one flesh (2:24). Building on this concept, the author argues that when husbands love their spouses, they are really loving themselves. This transformed understanding of marriage is then used to characterize the mysterious union of Christ and the church.

Jesus’ words or deeds were met with disbelief. He responds to the challenge of these unbelievers with one of his own. If they were troubled by the thought of him descending from heaven, what would they think about him ascending back to where he had originated? Both descending and ascending imply that he is a heavenly being, the very claim that scandalized his hearers in the first place. Jesus continues his defense by setting the notion of flesh against that of spirit. He insists that the flesh (the human way of being in the world) cannot give life. On hearing this, some no longer followed him.

Jan 28 2025

The “We” of Life

Excitement is in the air. It is the season of freshman move-in weekend at the University of Notre Dame, where I teach. New friends, new campus, and new experiences begin a whole new chapter in a young person’s life. Beneath the exuberance, there is also worry in the air: Will I fit in? Will I find a solid group of friends? Will I miss my family? Fear of rejection is well-buried amid the sea of smiling faces. Projecting self-confidence is mandatory here.

As I look around at the fresh faces, perhaps a few are asking, “What about my faith?” Parents of deep belief may ask, “Will my child walk out of here in four years with his/her faith strong(er)?”

I have seen yes. I have seen no. Most of the undergraduates I teach in my prayer class are last-semester seniors. They still project confidence. But from their written reflections, beneath the smiles, they have struggled with anxiety and depression, broken relationships, an insufficient self-reliance, the death of friends and grandparents and sometimes the loss or deadening of faith. Others whom I do not see in prayer class have simply walked away.

Jesus asks, in today’s reading, “Will you also go?”

Peter answers, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Notice his very small two-letter pronoun: “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” We. I have seen yes—students who are healthy and flourishing in faith at the conclusion of their college experience. They have found “we” of some sort: brothers and sisters who support each another when life pulls them under, those with whom to rejoice and praise and exalt God. Context matters. When you’re eighteen, you’ve got life under control. Until you don’t. College years are not easy years. God grant these fresh faces the humility to seek out the context of “we.”

Consider/Discuss

There is a pervasive but largely unspoken grief among those who believe: the faith that means so much to us does not matter to those whom we love. Brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews—they have walked away. This living God who is our center, this Jesus of Nazareth who has made our lives worth living, this Holy Spirit who bubbles within us and brings us such peace— we cannot share that richness with those who do not believe, or with those who find us naïve and simple for believing. Find a friend in faith and speak that unspoken grief to each other. Sometimes we move away from a context in which we have been loved and supported and we cannot figure out what is the matter with us. Having friends matters to our health and flourishing. If you are missing friends, how can you find some? If you are awash in friends, how can you reach out to someone who is new and lonely? How can we strengthen the “we” of faith in the context in which we live?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, we pray for those who are making transitions in life at the end of summer—kindergartners going to school for the first time, new freshmen in high school and college, and those who are moving to a new place. Grant them friends of faith, an environment in which they are loved, and a context that glorifies you. Jesus, Bread of Life, you nourish us with yourself. You fill us with everlasting life, your everlasting life, even here, even now. To whom else can we go?

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

The book of Joshua recounts the entry of Israel into the promised land. Here at the end of the book, after the people have gained the land, Joshua—like Moses before him—admonishes the people to be faithful to the God who has given them the land. And like Moses, Joshua sets a choice before the people (see Deuteronomy 30:19–20). The people insist, as the previous generation had done, that they will serve the God who brought them out of Egypt, and no other gods. The passage goes on the describe a renewal of the covenant between God and Israel, presided over by Joshua, who then sends them to their new homes (24:25–28).

Paul continues to develop for the Ephesians the idea of the church as a reflection of the character of God. Husband and wife also reflect God’s sacrificial love by showing “mutual subordination,” that is, a willingness to serve the other. The church loves Christ, its head, by being obedient to him, and Paul (perhaps drawing on Ordinary Time figures of Israel as God’s spouse), sees in wives a figure of the church. Conversely, husbands—in imitation of Christ—must be willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary for their wives. Together, husband and wife reflect the mutual love of the church and Christ.

The Gospel reading picks up from the passage replaced last week by the Assumption, in which Jesus tells the people that unless they eat his flesh and drink his blood, they do not have life in them (John 6:51–58). Understandably, the response is one of confusion and even distress, as Jesus does not qualify his statement as metaphorical or symbolic. He clearly means exactly what he says. Again we have “murmuring,” an expression of disbelief. Jesus responds by calling once again for belief in what he says and who he is, which itself is a mysterious gift from the Father. This all proves too much for some, who leave. But the rest stay, for they recognize, despite (or because of?) what Jesus has claimed, that he is indeed the Holy One of God.

Jan 15 2025

A Life-changing Question

Certain questions change lives, depending on our answer: “Do you take this person to be your husband/wife?” “Do you want this job?” “Can you forgive me?” The question Jesus asks today is one that certainly changes lives. Our response is not simply an academic exercise, a matter of knowing the right answer we learned from a book. Our answer must lead to a commitment that is to be lived out each day of our lives.

Peter’s answer certainly changed the course of his life. Jesus recognized that it was not Peter’s innate knowledge, or that of any other person, that had given Peter his response: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was the Father. And so Jesus declares that Peter will be the one to lead the other disciples and all who would come after. Simon, son of John, fisherman, husband, brother—and one who would deny he ever knew Christ!—he was to be the rock on which Jesus would build the church. His response was life-changing.

Peter’s answer was not a perfect one, as we shall see next week. Even so, Jesus accepts it as an indication that his Father is at work in those called to be with him who would continue his work. The Father chose to work in fallible human beings. We may not think of ourselves as rocks, but the future of the church depends on how well each one of us lives out the answer to this question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Consider/Discuss

Who do you say Jesus is?
Do you recognize Jesus as one who embodies the wisdom and knowledge of God?
How does your answer to Jesus’ question show up in the way you live?

Responding to the Word

We pray that our loving Father will bring us to a deeper knowledge and under standing of his Son Jesus. We ask that this understanding will lead to a deeper commitment on our part to the work of Jesus to bring about in our own day the reign of God in our world.