Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

February 26, 2017

Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand.

We pay our respects to them and for their care of the land.

May we walk gently and respectfully upon the land.

or

I acknowledge the living culture of the ……..people,

the traditional custodians of the land we stand on,

and pay tribute to the unique role they play in the life of this region.

or

We acknowledge the traditional custodians and occupiers of the land where we are now gathered, (the Gadigal people of the great Eora nation,) and recognise that it continues to be sacred to them.

We hail them: as guardians of the earth and of all things that grow and breed in the soil; as trustees of the waters – [the seas, the streams and rivers, the ponds and the lakes] - and the rich variety of life in those waters.

We thank them for passing this heritage to every people since the Dreamtime.

We acknowledge the wrongs done to them by newcomers to this land and we seek to be partners with them in righting these wrongs and in living together in peace and harmony.

Readings

First Reading: Isaiah 49:14-15

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 62:2-3, 6-7, 8-9 Rest in God alone, my soul.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

Gospel Reading: Matthew 6:24-34

Penitential Rite

·         Christ Jesus, you remind us to keep seeking God’s will and the good of people around us: Jesus, have mercy.

·         Christ Jesus, you show us in your life God’s never ending care for us: Christ, have mercy.

·         Christ Jesus, you invite us to keep trusting in God’s care for all creation, even our enemies: Jesus, have mercy.

Opening Prayer

Most loving God,

your care surpasses

even the tender love of a mother.

May this word and sacrament

renew and strengthen our trust in your loving care,

that we will abandon all anxiety

and see your reign above all.

General Intercessions

Introduction Let us pray trust to the loving God as we bring before God all the needs and concerns of all people. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).

• For God's people, that they may through the ministry of the church experience the tender and steadfast love of God and share it with others. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).

or

• For the Church: that it may be a living sign of God's caring love for people by its concern for the poorest among us. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For the leaders of the world: that they may look after the welfare of the people entrusted to them and bring them peace, justice and human dignity. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For people who are burdens with problems and worries: may they know the strength that comes from trusting in God. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For asylum seekers and refugees: that they may in their search for security and well-being be afforded true dignity and respect in their places of arrival. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For asylum seekers who have lost their lives in their attempts to find peace, justice and security, and those who have died at the hands of those intended to care for them: that they may find the peace that they never found on earth. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For people who live in situations of poverty, social exclusion, violence and conflict: that they know that God weeps for them in their pain and suffering and longs for us to respond with humanity. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For the people in Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, the Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo: may peace come to the people so that they may live in justice, fraternity and harmony. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).
• For people living in poverty and need: may they experience something of God’s concern for them through the generosity of our hearts. Let us pray: R/ Our help comes from you, O God (or In you we trust, O God).

Prayer: God of love, give us the trust in you that will enable us to live our lives joyfully so that we may complete the work you have entrusted to us.

Prayer over the Gifts

Most loving God,

you have prepared for us,

the gifts before us.

You provide us with food and drink

that lead to fullness of life.

May we continue to offer you our life and efforts,

as a token of our deep and lasting trust in you.

Prayer after Communion

Most loving God,

in this Eucharist you have reassured us

that you walk with us each day.  

Help us to be mindful of all living things,

our sisters and brothers and all creation

and give us the courage to work

for your reign of goodness and mercy,

of integrity and committed justice.

Resources

Further resources

‘I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’

Henry David Thoreau Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light and with a lamp lengthen out the day.’ Henry David Thoreau

‘It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.’

Henry David Thoreau Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

‘What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.’

Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.’

Henry David Thoreau Walden

‘Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.’

Henry David Thoreau Walden and Other Writings

‘I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.’

Henry David Thoreau Walden

‘There is no remedy for love, but to love more.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.’

Henry David Thoreau

‘When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.’

Frederic Bastiat

‘Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know that government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last, has become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed -- first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf.’

Gerry Spence, Lawyer and author - From Freedom To Slavery  

‘Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.’  

Hugo Black U.S. Supreme Court Justice

‘The dissenter is every human being at those times of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.’

Archibald Macleish (1892-1982) Assistant Secretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt

‘The most powerful tool in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.’

Stephen Biko

Reflections on the readings

In the seminary we were asked to a novel by the Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo called Silence. It is being made into a film. It is a beautiful and very disturbing book. It has the marks of a deep grace that overturns things and causes us to question what we thought we knew before. It begins beyond Japan (in every way), and we journey with Portuguese missionaries on a long sea journey until they arrive in a Japan where the threat of capture and torture and death constantly hanging over their heads. We also see what the preaching of the Christian gospel meant for those who embraced it in 17^th century Japan. It is a story of apostasy and also of martyrdom as the characters share something of the terrible silences of God. Elie Wiesel also wrote of this in Night and the Holocaust for the Jewish people.) But the breaking of God’s silence in this novel is striking and transforming. As with contemporary stories of torture, we see just what people will endure under duress whether out of faith, anger or sheer defiance.

Endo shows us a historic clash of cultures in this 17^th century European missionary to Japan and his flock of Japanese converts, as they endure a fierce persecution. It gets down to basics about what Christ’s death means for believers. As we approach Lent, we might also be called to ‘silence’ and darkness, about a Christian who is forced to make a terrible choice in a time of great personal darkness — in a time when God seems silent. Mother (Saint) Teresa of Calcutta wrote about her sense of ‘abandonment’ by God. Today’s readings call us to trust in God’s providential care and love for us in our everyday lives. Faith, though, always tests not just us, but who we think God is, and who God is for us (this God who ‘is love’). How can we know for sure? We have to trust in the God we know. It is not a question of God’s existence but who and what is God.

Maybe Jesus’ ‘Do not worry about tomorrow’ also cause us to question who God is. We could ask what planet is Jesus on. With Syria, Iraq, Thailand, Egypt, the Ukraine boiling over, with random violence evident in many way, unemployment increasing and more people threatened with job loss, natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, fires and typhoons, more young people are under stress and hurting themselves or others, what is Jesus talking about? What do these words mean for people who are fleeing fighting, are persecuted for their faith, when food security, access to water, land for planting or for farming, health care, basic education are far from certain? People worry about their life, if they will have enough to eat, provide health care, and clothe themselves, and Jesus says, ‘Do not worry about tomorrow’.  Most of the people who would have been listening to Jesus would have been those living from hand to mouth, some probably unemployed or sick, with consequent and immediate anxieties about food and clothing for themselves and their families. Jesus is sharing with us his vision of God’s care and providence for all that God has made, and the right response of disciples to the gift of life. His words about birds and lilies are not meant to be romantic. He is leading us to see and trust in God’s care for us. In calling attention to birds, flowers, and other living elements of God’s vibrant creation, Jesus reminds us of God’s care for all creatures. Moreover, such reflection on creation offers one route for re-centering ourselves in the face of challenges.

Where the rich might be worried about money, either because they fear losing it or want to make more, the poor can also be worried about money because they have none. Both rich and poor can be consumed by concern about money; a consuming passion. Jesus is not denying legitimate and responsible concern for material goods, but his concern is the integration of this into every life in a way that does not enslave. We saw in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:44-45) how radical sharing and redistribution of wealth practiced by the early Christians shaped them into a people given to gratitude and generosity, not anxiety. It is something we see amongst the poor in the Philippines and Peru. The refusal to obsess about food and drink and clothing—the basic necessities of life—make it possible to practice true gospel hospitality: does my neighbour (even my enemy) have enough to eat, drink, and wear?

Clearly Jesus is aware of our needs and stresses. He offers a solution and this is the key point of the reading today: ‘Seek first the reign of God, and God’s righteousness (God’s justice).’ We need to begin again, to re-centre ourselves, and build on foundations stronger than fear and anxiety that can lead to greed and selfishness. To really seek God’s reign means working towards the day when everyone can live a fully human life; live in peace. Jesus’ concern is that we ‘seek God’s reign’. God’s righteousness or justice is about our relationships with one another. We live in a world that is interconnected but many live individualistic lives that numb them or leave them indifferent to theirs sisters and brothers. We are constantly confronted with God’s question to Cain, ‘Where is your brother/sisters?’ Many of the troubles people face today go back to the indifference of corporations where profits are more important than people and where governments will bail out banks and financial institutions but fail to support ordinary people who risk losing their home. The global financial crisis a few years ago which impoverished millions of people was largely caused by the indifference and greed of financiers around the world. And those who were most affected were even demonised and further punished with the trickle down cruelty of austerity measures whilst those who caused the crisis were rewarded and even bailed out. They were not held to account. ‘Where is your brother/sister’? God wants us to reflect on our relationship with the goods of the earth. How do we relate to the goods of the earth and to one another in the human family? How do we view them? Do we see them as gifts to be shared or to be possessed? Do we care that the clothes we buy from places such as Bangladesh and other Asian countries are at the price of people receiving barely enough to live on and working in unsafe conditions? Do we care that 14 million children died of hunger every year? Do we care that the people crossing the Mediterranean are escaping extreme and life-threatening poverty? Do we care if they end up at the bottom of sea or those who travel by boat to Australia to escape violence, persecution and conflict, drown?  

We need to focus our attention on right relations, compassion, sharing, truth-telling, righteousness. We need to be people who reflect an alternate way of living besides consumption and arrogance that put first things first.

In the First World we can tend to emphasise individualism over the common good or care for creation and the survival of the planet. Jesus’ words and Catholic Social Teaching steer toward a future that is sustainable and secure. These words run contrary to repeated suggestions that ‘the age of entitlement is over’. It is not over for those with the means to care for themselves and profit at the expense of others. The gospel is saying that ‘entitlement’ comes from the fact that we are cared for by God and that we bear God’s imprint. The common good fosters a situation where people can live in vibrant local communities; where the quality of life for all takes precedence over the accumulation of wealth and possessions by individuals or nations; where diversity is welcomed and protected; and where weapons are replaced by dialogue and diplomacy to resolve conflict locally, nationally and internationally.

The gospel today unmasks our inhumanity and raises some hard questions for us:

Why do people die of hunger, if we have the resources to share with everyone?

Why is there competition when our humanity is bound up in solidarity?

Why does competitiveness define us as people and nations when solidarity is the mark of humanity and Christlikeness?

Why do we continually accept an economic system that is based on unending growth and profit when that system marginalises many and leaves them in poverty?

Why is consumerism more a like a ‘philosophy of life’ knowing that it triggers artificial needs that drain us of our human spirit and sensibility?

Why do we still worship money, power and wealth for our security rather than see that our security comes from caring for the most needy and vulnerable among us?

Jesus calls us to a new kind of reality. His intent is less about judging and more about calling us to understand our motives and our own questions in relation to his question. The dilemma for us as Christians is our particular place in the world and the perspective that it gives us. It is important that we do not numb ourselves, our hearts and our spirits from the reality of starvation, lack of shelter, unemployment, the movement of people escaping violence.  Those who have resources and wealth bear a deep responsibility, especially those who stake out a claim of serving God. Jesus says that this responsibility is never finished and that this question of wealth must be a primary question for us. It requires us to ask ourselves again and again—how did this wealth accumulate? Is anyone in need because of it? Jesus is calling us reflect about our relationship with the goods of the earth. How do we look upon all the creation that God has given to us? Do we see it as a gift, as something that really doesn’t belong to any one of us? Whatever we have, it’s a gift from God ultimately. How do we relate to the goods of the earth and to one another in the human family. If we really seek the reign of God, that means that we’re working towards the day when everyone will have a full human life. Everyone will live in peace, fullness of life and joy.

Still, even in failure, God does not desert us when our projects fail or come up short.

Though many struggle and worry over real concerns, Jesus’s words could broaden our vision and help us focus less on ourselves and more on those in need; less about getting and more about giving; less worrying about our own welfare and turning our attention to others. Choices we asked to make do not happen once in our lifetime. They come daily, in large and small ways.

What will be the consequences of my choices for self and others?

The urgent cry <‘No to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills’> to all people by Pope Francis has often been concealed. In very expressive words, he sums his outrage: ‘it cannot be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two point. This is a case of exclusion. We cannot stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving. This is a case of inequality.’

We live under ‘the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.’ As a result, ‘while the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.’

‘The culture of well-being anesthetizes us and we lose our cool if the market is offering something that we haven't yet bought, while all those lives cut short due to lack of opportunities seem to be a spectacle that doesn't affect us in any way.’

This is the Gospel. It is a message that needs to echoed in our Christian communities if we are not to become incapable of ‘feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor. We no longer weep for other people's pain.’