Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. (The 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time) Year A. READINGS: Exodus 19:2-6, Romans 5:6-11, and Matthew 9:36-10:8.
How the Liturgy Communicates God’s Mercy of Reminder and Mission
Leading up to the Great Theophany; the very first time that Moses led the People of Israel to up meet God at Mount Sinai, the text from today’s First Reading at Mass for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time from Exodus 19:2-6 informs that it was in the third month after their departure from the land of Egypt and on the first day when they came to the wilderness of Sinai by the way of Rephidim and pitched a camp in front of the mountain. It was there that God reminded the Israelites who they were, how far He has brought them since, and who He is now appointing them to be, saying, “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
God’s tendency to remind us about what He has done for us and how far we have come, is not for Him, but for us. He grants us this mercy of reminder to break our tendency of becoming stuck in myopia and becoming cavalier about asking God what have you done for me lately. At times, life’s struggles make it very easy for us to forget both how far we have come and who brought us here. Most importantly, by forgetting who we belong to, we might forget to trust God in the journey of becoming who He has created us to be. This mercy of reminder is intimately connected to both the Passover meal of the Old Covenant where the people were called to remember their delivery out of bondage in Egypt, and in the Passover meal of the New Covenant where we are called to remember our delivery out of sin and death through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Also, in both instances, reminder is connected to mission. God tells, ‘I have saved you, now go do what I saved you for.’ In the Divine Symphony, we find this mercy of reminder communicated to us in the readings of the sacred Scriptures during Liturgy of the Word and the call to “Do this in memory of me,” during the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, which are then connected to the mercy of mission communicated to us at the dismissal of the Concluding Rite, saying, “Ite, Missa est,” go you are dismissed, or another of the four variations found in the Novus Ordo liturgical rite.
This mercy of reminder and mission is also found in today’s Second Reading from Romans 5:6-11, where the Apostle Paul offers a short teaching on the Catholic theology of why we are justified in Christ by faith, and how we are called to live out the faith that justified us by being missionaries of His love. In reminding us who we were and how far God has brought us, the Apostle writes, “For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” For the Apostle Paul, what it means to covert our memory to mission is to live a life that proclaims faith, hope, and love in Christ Jesus. That is, because we now have a faith that has justified us, we, thereby, have a hope in which we boast “of the glory of God,” and because we now have a hope that “does not disappoint,” we, thereby, have had the love of God “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” This love that has been poured into us is not just any love. For, in verse eight, the Apostle writes that this is the same love that God proved “his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Therefore, if by this love God proved His love for us by the work of sacrificing Himself for us, now abides in us, how closely are our missions connected to that same love?
Today’s Gospel Reading from Matthew 9:36 – 10:8 should have been prefaced by 9:35, which begins the narration about the reminder that Christ Jesus was instilling in the people, saying, “Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” This is who the people were and how Christ Jesus found them; sick, troubled, and abandoned. Like the Israelites, these people too were in a type of wilderness; pitching their tent before Mount Sinai hoping to encounter God, and Christ Jesus is the new Great Theophany that comes to reveal Himself to us, not come in a cloud of smoke, peels of thunder, or the loud blare of a shofar. Rather, He comes as us, in us, and with us and sent out His twelve apostles, instructing them to “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” In other words, He sent out His apostles to go find the lost, sick, and troubled, and make them well, so that they can begin their journey and mission into the Kingdom of God. The Apostles of Christ Jesus and the ordained priest who participate in their ministry are still on that same mission today, and through His love Christ Jesus has given us His Church and His Sacraments to communicate to us daily the mercy of reminder and mission.
Another word for the mercy of reminder is ‘tradition’, because it is tradition that informs and connects us with not only the history of what God has done for His People throughout time, but through the Sacraments of the Church, it is the communication and conferral of grace filled tradition that personally unites us with the entire community of God’s People throughout time and space. Although we all experience the love of God in different ways, because He is a personal God, through the Sacraments we are all connected with God in the same way; most particularly through the Sacraments of Initiation; Baptism, Confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist. Succinctly, the divine reminder is that God loves us, and our mission is to be holy.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
