Gospel Reflection of 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2nd July 2017

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 (Sunday 2nd July 2017)

 

 

Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it – (Matthew 10:37-42)

 
 In today’s Gospel reading let’s draw out two points for us to consider:  the first is where Jesus says “Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39).   Now in these words we find a certain principle about human life which is written in the fabric of our being God made us to go out of ourselves and to give ourselves in love to Him and to the people that He has placed in our lives.  In fact at the beginning of the Bible we read how we are made in the image and likeness of God, the Triune God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And God’s very inner life is a trinity which is all about this self-giving love where the Father gives Himself in love to the Son, the Son in return pours out Himself in love to the Father, and that very outpouring of love between the Father and the Son is that third person, the Holy Spirit.  And we as human beings are made in the image and likeness of that God.  We are made to live like the Trinity.  That tells us a lot.  We are made for that kind of self-giving love.  And that is the only place where we are going to find our happiness and fulfilment in life.  Pope St. John Paul II often quoted a certain line from one of the teachings of Vatican II.  “Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others.” (Vatican II – Gaudium Et Spes).

 

So the idea is that if we really want to discover happiness and find our fulfillment in life, we are not going to find it just by getting a great job, or by setting ourselves up with a lot of possessions or by trying to satisfy ourselves with all of the things of this world.  We only find ourselves when we get out of ourselves, when we go out and live what Jesus describes when he says, “Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39).  So whoever is seeking for themselves selfishly is never going to be satisfied, they are always going to be unhappy and restless.  But whoever gives of their life for Christ’s sake, to give their life to follow God’s plan and to give their life to be of service to the people that God has placed in their lives, those are the ones who are actually going to find true life.

The second point that I want to take comes from today’s Gospel where Jesus says to His apostles, “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and those who welcome me welcome the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)  The idea is that there is such a close connection between Jesus and His apostles that He has invested His authority in them, so that if you are receiving one of the apostles, you are receiving Jesus.  Jesus extends this further in Luke’s Gospel where he says that “Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)  Now think about this.  If someone says that they want to have a relationship with Jesus and follow Jesus, but don’t want to have anything to do with His apostles, what would Jesus say about that?  Well, if you accept the apostles, you accept Christ.  Whoever rejects the apostles, rejects Jesus.  And that authority that Jesus handed down to the apostles, was handed down throughout the centuries to their successors and their successors etc all the way down to the Pope and to the Bishops that we have today.  And so this reading reminds us that the successors to the apostles today, those that are standing in the role as our Bishops, are standing as representatives of Christ here on earth.  We are called to accept them, and in doing that we are accepting more fully Jesus Christ in our lives.

In Youth 2000, our three pillars are devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, devotion to Our Lady especially through the Rosary and fidelity to the teachings of the Church.  We need our priests and our Bishops.  Let us always pray for them and give them our love and support.  In doing so, we are loving Jesus.