{"id":4384,"date":"2023-09-03T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=4384"},"modified":"2023-09-03T13:44:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T12:44:29","slug":"commentary-on-22nd-sunday-of-the-year-a-3-09-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-22nd-sunday-of-the-year-a-3-09-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on 22nd Sunday of the year (A), 3.09.2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/h3>\n

Mt 16:21-27<\/b><\/p>\n

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.\u00a0 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”\u00a0 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”\u00a0 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.\u00a0 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.\u00a0 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?\u00a0 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.<\/em><\/p>\n

We would rather be ruined than changed,<\/em>
\nWe would rather die in our dread<\/em>
\nThan climb the cross of the moment<\/em>
\nAnd let our illusions die.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>
\n(W.H. Auden)<\/p>\n

The word ‘suffer’ comes from two Latin words, ‘sub’ (under) and ‘ferre’ (to bear). There’s a sense of supporting something from below.\u00a0 It is an active vigorous word.\u00a0 It lets you imagine some human being who has taken up his or her burden of pain and is bravely carrying it along.<\/p>\n

There are related words that seem to look at the matter from a different side \u2013 from the outside.\u00a0 The Latin origins of these words tell the story: ‘depression’ (‘to press down\u2019), ‘grief’ (also ‘to make heavy\u2019), ‘affliction’ (‘to knock around’).\u00a0 If I may put it this way: these words seem to look at human life not from the point of view of the sufferer but from the point of view of the burdens that bear down on us.\u00a0 They suggest incapacity and weakness.<\/p>\n

If it were only about words, how easy it would be!\u00a0 But it is about us.\u00a0 We have two ways of living with suffering: we can take it on our shoulders and try to walk with it; or we can just sit down under it and feel like victims.\u00a0 No one pretends that either way is easy.\u00a0 If it were easy it wouldn’t be suffering.<\/p>\n

Our instinct is to run away from suffering, and when we can’t escape from it, to treat it as an enemy that has defeated us; then we are full of complaints and self-pity.\u00a0 This is the harder way in the end: harder for ourselves and for everyone around us.\u00a0 The wisdom of the Gospel tells us to face our suffering, not to treat it like an enemy but like a friend, to learn from it, to let it draw us away from self-centred thoughts and feelings, and ultimately to see it as a sharing in the Passion of Christ.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a striking phrase in John’s gospel, “You will have sorrow, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (16:20).\u00a0 He did not say \u201cYour sorrow will be replaced by joy.\u201d\u00a0 Your joy will somehow be born out of the heart of your sorrow.\u00a0 Then it will be able to endure; it will not see sorrow as a threat and an enemy.\u00a0 It will not be at the mercy of sorrowful circumstances.\u00a0 Sorrow itself will give birth to a strange deep kind of joy.\u00a0 A great meditation teacher was weeping at the death of her daughter.\u00a0 Someone expressed surprise that such a person would weep.\u00a0 “Yes, I weep,” she said, “but every tear is a jewel.”\u00a0 Her suffering was real suffering, yet it did not lead her into desolation, but into greater depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word of the Lord has meant for me insult, derision, all day long,\u201d said Jeremiah (today\u2019s first reading).\u00a0 For Jesus it meant crucifixion.\u00a0 But neither of them turned back, neither of them was silenced.\u00a0 Jeremiah said, \u201cThere seemed to be a fire burning in my heart.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cI came to bring fire to the earth\u201d (Luke 12:49).\u00a0 It was that inner urgency that drove them forward in the teeth of great suffering. \u00a0It was inner but it was also a call from beyond.\u00a0 We are inclined to see these as opposites.\u00a0 How could it be both?\u00a0 In experience that is just how it is.\u00a0 There is a clear expression of it in the Confessions<\/em> of St Patrick (another man who suffered greatly for the word of God).\u00a0 \u201cI saw God praying within me, and I was as it were, inside my own body, and I heard Him above me – that is, above my inner self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus did not turn back from death; he went through the heart of it, and it was transformed into resurrection. “Your Son the royal path of suffering trod,” says the hymn.\u00a0 Our faith does not hold us back from life or life’s sorrows, but it enables them to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Mt 16:21-27 Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.\u00a0 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7922,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions\/7922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}