Today's gospel begins the fifth section of the Gospel of Luke, the Journey Section, the climactic narrative of the ever-ascending journey of Jesus to the Father. Last Sunday, because of Corpus Christi's special gospel, the normally read gospel was not heard. That gospel, Luke 9:22-27, is important for the proper understanding of what the journey embarked upon in today's gospel is about. Last week we would normally have heard St. Peter call Jesus the Christ or the Messiah of God, and we would have heard Jesus correct any erroneous notions that Peter and ourselves might have about that. Jesus claimed for himself the title The Son of Man who must suffer greatly, be killed and raised on the third day. Furthermore, he said that anyone who wishes to follow him must deny himself, take up his cross daily and thus follow him. The opening verse of our gospel today which is Luke 9:51 forms with Luke 24: 51 what is called a literary inclusion—these are like literary bookends that aid in the understanding of the passages between them. Luke 9:51 reads, “When the days for Jesus's being taken up were fulfilled, he set his face (here translated as “resolutely determined”) to journey to Jerusalem. Luke 24:51 reads, “As he blessed them, he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.” These verses both refer to the mystery of Jesus's Ascension—his being taken up into heaven, but they surround a journey narrative that takes us up to the heights of the preaching and teaching of Jesus—think of the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son-- which inspire us to take up our own cross daily.
The journey of Jesus will take him up to the heights of Mt. Zion and the city of Jerusalem where all God's messengers have been rejected and slain. Thus, Jesus, like the Suffering Servant of the Lord in Isaiah, has to “set his face” to go to Jerusalem. The journey will take us up Mt. Calvary, Golgotha, where Jesus is taken up upon a cross to suffer and die for us, but then in three days to be taken up, raised up, “He has been raised!” Finally, the journey reaches its fulfillment as the risen Jesus leaves Jerusalem for Bethany, and there, as he raises his hands over his beloved disciples in blessing, (there he) is taken up to heaven by the Father. We are all of us on a significant journey—one called LIFE, better called Life, Death, and Eternal Life.
We are being poignantly reminded of this lately each day in the refectory as we reflect on Francie Nolan's life as a parable about our own lives growing up—I doubt that any of us felt it was easy, and as we get older and life's experiences become more challenging, we, like Jesus, have “to set our face,” that is, resolutely determine to continue on the Way in our prayer and in the way we live. This important Christian word “Way” was lost in translation this morning as we heard, “As they were proceeding on their journey...” The Greek, if translated literally, says, “As they went in the way...” The word “way” was used in the early days of the Church to describe Christianity itself which was seen as a following of Jesus who is the only “Way” to salvation. Today in the global Church renewal process called Synodality, the concept of the People of God being together on the Way has been emphasized. The word Syn-odality is derived from two Greek words meaning simply, “together on the Way.” The document from the bishops that introduced the process speaks highly of our particular way, the Rule of St. Benedict, with its remarkable chapter three about calling the whole community together for counsel - everyone from oldest to youngest. We know as followers of St. Benedict who followed Christ that our strength to persevere by the grace of God is enhanced immeasurably by our being and living here at the Abbey as a small but Spirit-filled manifestation of the Body of Christ, the whole People of God journeying together along the way—each one of us bearing his particular cross along the Way, but together with his brothers and sisters, not in isolation from one another.
Two other sections of Chapter Nine in Luke illuminate how we journey together with Jesus along the Way. One is Luke's description of the Transfiguration of Jesus in Luke 9:28-36, where we hear the voice of the Father telling us, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” We find the strength to follow in the very listening with goodwill to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, in the teachings of the Church, the words of our Church leaders and the Abbot, the anointed words of our brothers and sisters, and sometimes the words of our worst critics and even enemies. Listen to Him! So, we are nourished and strengthened along the Way by our brothers and sisters, by the Word that we hear and obey, and finally and perhaps most especially, the Eucharist, which is also present in Luke's immensely rich Chapter Nine in the prefiguration of the Eucharist in the miraculous feeding of the five thousand that Fr. Dominic spoke about so beautifully last Sunday, Corpus Christi. Every Mass, like this celebration right now, is a milestone on our own ever-ascending journey to the Father—a milestone where there is time for the leisure that is liturgy where we are refreshed and made ready for the rest of our journey by the gathering of the community in the love of God and by the celebration of God's Word and Eucharist, the bread of wayfarers going to God. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them, and I will raise them up on the last day.
There is one more heavenly grace that strengthens us on the Way to the Father that is emphasized by far more in Luke's Gospel than in the others. Whereas the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Mark 3 times, four times in John, 5 in Matthew, the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Luke 13 times explicitly and many more times if you count the references to the Spirit of God and The Spirit of the Lord which one would, of course, do. The introduction to Luke in the latest version of the New American Bible points out that “no other gospel writer is more concerned than Luke with the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus and the Christian disciple.” The fact that in Luke the Holy Spirit is so intimately associated with the Virgin Mother Mary makes his gospel spirituality all the more attractive and life-giving. It is the Holy Spirit that gathers us to celebrate the Eucharist. It is the Holy Spirit that imparts life-giving power and meaning to the words we hear in the liturgy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Epiclesis of the Eucharistic Prayer is that prayer in which we “petition God to send the Holy Spirit so that the offerings at the Eucharist may become the Body and Blood of Christ and thus the faithful, by receiving them, may themselves become a living offering to God.” Fr. Thomas Stegman remarks in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans that the Holy Spirit is “the empowering presence of God.” St. Paul, in this morning's reading from Galatians, exhorted us to LIVE BY THE SPIRIT! The Spirit gives us the power to “set our face” to go to our own Jerusalem to die to ourselves through, with and in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus and so live for others and for God who, at the end of our journey on the Way, will take us up in glory to the Kingdom.
Photograph by Father Emmanuel. Today's homily by Father Luke.
