{"id":797,"date":"2019-07-01T10:58:40","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T10:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=797"},"modified":"2019-07-01T11:04:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T11:04:01","slug":"7-july-2019-c-fourteenth-sunday-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=797","title":{"rendered":"7 July  2019  (C) Fourteenth Sunday of Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>A. <em>The Bible as\nGuide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings)<\/em><\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>B. Reflection &amp; Dialogue:<\/strong><em> Need of true vision to\nsustain Christian life<\/em><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A. <em>The Bible as\nGuide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings)<\/em><\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>First Reading <\/em>(Isaiah 66:10-14). <em>Towards her I send flowing peace, like a\nriver. <\/em>This reading is taken from the concluding chapter and section of the\nbook of Isaiah, in which God comforts and sustains the faith and hope of his\npeople with a vision of a glorious future, culminating in a vision of new heavens\nand a new earth. In this reading the Jewish people are personified by the holy\ncity Jerusalem.\nThey are invited to rejoice with her, as they once mourned her and their\nmisery. Jerusalem\nis represented as mother of her people, of the Jewish people. Peace and the\nprosperity it stands for is represented as flowing to her in streams. She will\nbe the glory of the nations, or possibly the riches of the nations (see Isaiah\n61:6). The suffering people will be comforted by Mother Jerusalem, but really\nof course by their Lord God, here represented as a mother. The Lord God will\nsee to their welfare; to his servants the Lord reveals his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Responsorial Psalm <\/em>(Psalm 65[66]). <em>Cry out with joy to God all the earth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Second Reading <\/em>(Galatians 6:14-18). <em>The marks on my body are those of the Lord Jesus. <\/em>This is the\nconcluding chapter of Paul\u2019s letter to the Galatians, a letter in which he had\nto combat the attempts of Jewish Christians to win over his converts to\ncircumcision and the practise of the law of Moses as requirements for\nsalvation. Paul stresses the central Christian truth that salvation is through\nthe death (cross) of Christ and his resurrection. For this belief he had\nsuffered persecution from various forces, which he can describe as \u201cthe world\u201d,\nthe world being human weakness and all the forces that oppose God\u2019s plan of\nsalvation through the cross and resurrection of Christ. In the verses\nimmediately preceding today\u2019s reading Paul severely criticizes the Jewish\nstress on circumcision of the flesh, and glory in it, in the flesh. Then Paul,\nin today\u2019s reading, turns to the real cause for glory. It is in the cross, in\nwhich Christ dies and in which all the forces inimical to Christ (\u201cthe world\u201d)\nare defeated. In this Paul\u2019s view, circumcision, or its absence, is immaterial.\nWhat matters is the new creation in Christ, through the mystery of the cross\nand resurrection, all that Christianity stands for and on which Paul himself\nwrites so eloquently in his letters. He ends his letter with a prayer, on \u201cthe\nIsrael of God\u201d, by which he probably means all the Jews who believe in Christ\nand all converted from paganism, all these being the true people of God. The\n\u201cmarks of Jesus\u201d on Paul\u2019s body are probably the marks of the suffering he has\nendured in his ministry, signs of his union with the crucified Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Gospel<\/em> (Luke 10:1-12,\n17-20). <em>Your peace will rest on that\nperson. <\/em>We should not forget that this reading forms part of Jesus\u2019 journey\nfrom Caesarea Philippi and Galilee to Jerusalem,\nto his death, his \u201cbeing taken up to heaven\u201d, his exaltation mentioned in last\nSunday\u2019s Gospel reading. It is a journey to his resurrection, and his words to\nhis apostles before his ascension to heaven were that repentance and the\nforgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning\nfrom Jerusalem.\nAll of the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, have an account of the\ncommissioning of the Twelve apostles, of Jesus sending them out with power and\nauthority to preach the good news and to heal this sick. Luke alone has the\naccount of Jesus appointing seventy-two &nbsp;(or seventy) \u201cothers\u201d, others than the Twelve\nthat is, sent to act more or less in the same capacity as the Twelve were\ncommissioned to do. The number seventy-two (in some manuscripts seventy)\nrecalls the number of the gentile (non-Jewish) nations in biblical and Jewish\ntradition. This mission brings to mind the immensity of the task, and the lack\nof ministers of the word. The gap can only be filled by a divine call and\nvocation, indicating the need of prayer. The missioners of the Gospel must be\nprepared for the task before them, of the opposition they may meet, and of the\nneed to have their mode of life in keeping with their exalted calling, in\nsimple attire, wasting no time in conversations along their road. They are sent\nas lambs among wolves. Their message, and the Gospel message, is one of peace\nand reconciliation. They would be expected to receive free accommodation from\nfamilies and towns that would receive them; as labourers they were entitled to\ntheir keep. But they were expected to be satisfied with what their hosts might\nhave to offer, and not succumb to the temptation of moving the houses that\nmight treat them better. They were to bring healing to those accepting them,\nand their message to all, who welcomed or did not welcome them, was to be that\nthe kingdom of God was very near. It was very near in\nthe message of peace, and in the healing work of the missionaries. This is the\nlast time that Luke will mention the kingdom\n of God being near. Luke\nand his readers knew that it had come in keeping with the Father\u2019s will in the\ndeath and resurrection of Jesus, in the sending of the Holy Spirit and the\nspread of the Gospel through the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The\nseventy-two (or seventy) report to Jesus on the success of the mission, and how\nthe evil spirits were subject to them in Jesus\u2019 name. When Jesus says that he\nhas seen Satan fall from heaven, he is hardly speaking of a vision he had. The\ntext rather says that the success of the missionaries over evil spirits\nindicates the fall of the power of Satan and the coming of the kingdom of God, a power that will continue with the\nmessengers of the Gospel. Mention of the names of the elect being written in\nheaven is an expression found in biblical apocalyptic writings (the Book of\nDaniel and the Apocalypse of John).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>B. Reflection &amp;<\/em><\/strong><strong><em> Dialogue<\/em><\/strong><em>: Need\nof true vision to sustain Christian life<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A vision of a nation\u2019s or\nindividual\u2019s past or future is a potent aid toward inspiration towards action.\nEmpires of remote and less remote past have created past history for\nthemselves, sometimes enshrining it in great literature, visions, even if\nimaginary, which inspired and justified imperial conquests. We may pass from\ncivil and profane history to the Bible and the history of salvation, where the\nsustaining vision for the present and the future is belief in the living God.\nFrom today\u2019s first reading we can see how the divine vision of a better, even\nglorious, future sustained Israel\nof old. It was God\u2019s vision for them, and what was foreseen, or foretold, was\nfar removed from their then present reality. Jesus preached that the kingdom of God was very near; at times Gospel texts\nsay that he said it was present. It was future, very near and present all at\nonce \u2013 present in the healing activity of Jesus and of the Apostles and others\nhe had commissioned to preach the good new of the kingdom. Paul, too, preached\nthe kingdom of God, the conquest of human weakness, but\nwas aware that this work of salvation could not be a reality without union with\nthe mystery of Christ\u2019s death and resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Today\nwe need to reawaken our vision of the kingdom of God,\npresent and coming in the Church. Our vision of the Church must be that of the\nBible, of Paul and the epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians. The Church\nas a sacrament is what believers are called to be, and can become through union\nwith the death and resurrection of Christ, as Paul insists on in today\u2019s second\nreading. Today there are so many voices that would have us look on the Church in\nher weaknesses, in the scandals of some of her members. We should resist the\ntemptation to so consider the Church. She is the universal sacrament of\nsalvation. Through her God and Christ should be seen as addresses their saving\nmessage to the world of our day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A. The Bible as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings) B. Reflection &amp; Dialogue: Need of true vision to sustain Christian life A. The Bible as Guide in Life &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}