Breaking the Word

Feast of the Sacred Heart, Friday – 16^th June 2023 – Deut 7,6-11; Mt 11,25-30

Passionate Choice to Love

The solemnity of the Sacred Heart is a moveable feast, always celebrated on the third Friday after Pentecost. It is a feast that gives importance to love – the key characteristic of a divine relationship; an essential quality of God which demonstrates God’s desire to be in relationship with all of us. At the same time, God desires that we be in relationship also with others. Love is not necessarily the warm and gushy emotion that one person has for another. Love is the choice to do whatever is best for another without counting the cost to oneself. God did not have to create the universe and humanity, but God chose to do so for our Good. God did not have to save us when we failed to return love to God, but God made the decision to send the Son to share life with us, to teach and heal us, and to die for us. That’s how God loves us. If God cares for us so much, must we not care for one another in our world? In our dealings with others, we are called to imitate the love which Jesus showed to humanity right from his incarnation until his death and resurrection. Today, Let us have a passionate choice to love our neighbour, even though it may be hard and painful in practice.

10^th Week in Ord. Time, Thursday – 15^th June 2023 – 2 Cor 3,15-4,1.3-6; Mt 5,20-26

Light, Knowledge and Glory

In 2 Cor 4,6, we read “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” This statement not only summaries the message Paul preaches, it phrases the gospel in universal terms. Only the light of the gospel can penetrate the darkness of unbelief in Jesus. Here Paul alludes to his own dramatic calling on the road to Damascus, when the light shone on him from heaven and the voice of the Lord spoke to him. That was the beginning of Paul’s call to serve the Gospel of Jesus. That’s when God shone the light into Paul’s heart, and it was the light Paul showed to all who would listen to the gospel of salvation from sin through faith in Jesus. The above quotation is also an echo of the creation of light at the beginning of the Book of Genesis 1,3 and that Paul is presenting his apostolic ministry as a new creation. There may also be an allusion to Isaiah 9,1 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”, thus suggesting his prophetic calling as servant of the Lord and a light to the nations.

In the second part of the statement, Paul describes the gospel as the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Every culture has a “theme”, i.e. to say, an idea summarizing what the culture truly values. In Paul’s era, the Hebrews valued “light.” Greeks valued “knowledge,” as the culture of philosophy. Roman culture prized “glory,” the empire attempting to conquer the world. Here Paul’s statement incorporates all of these: light, knowledge, and glory. In this sense, Christ is the source of light and the glory shone from his face, never fades.  Paul also adds a crucial detail to the gospel: the idea of God giving mankind a person, rather than an idea, as our salvation. The three elements: light, knowledge, and glory are reflected “in the face” of Christ. Rather than assigning values or virtues to mankind, God intended that human beings establish a relationship with His son.