to prepare for his reception there,
but they would not welcome him
because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,
"Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven
to consume them?"
Jesus turned and rebuked them…
In
today’s Gospel Jesus makes it clear, as he will even on the cross. He rejects
the option for violence unequivocally, for as Pope Benedict once wrote, “In God
there is no violence.” In recent years we have been perhaps over-exposed to the
phenomenon of violence whether in Orlando, in a school at Sandy Hook, in a
church in Charleston and on and on. How shall we respond to these incidences of
random, inexplicable violence and real evil? To respond to violence with
violence would be to perpetuate the cycle of evil. We must access a power
beyond us to reverse the decline that sin and violence induce.
God
in Christ is no stranger to human iniquity, to the surd of sin and its
violence. By undergoing his passion, submitting to the forces of destruction in
his crucifixion, Christ Jesus has transformed them from the inside out. Certainly
this transformational dynamic flowing from divine wisdom and love is beyond our
created intelligence. Indeed through his cross the unintelligibility of sin is
transformed by the transcendent intelligibility of God’s love for us. We must
go to the crucified and risen Lord, for in his forgiveness of the perpetrators
of his own execution, he shows us the way out of the cycle of violence. The risen
Christ, Son the Father of life in his forgiving love poured out through the
Holy Spirit welcomes even his persecutors into a new community of
reconciliation.
Martin Richard holding a poster he created in 2012. Martin died during the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Excerpts from Father Isaac's homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of the Year.
Martin Richard holding a poster he created in 2012. Martin died during the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Excerpts from Father Isaac's homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of the Year.