October 23, 2021 - Saturday, 29th Week in Ordinary Time
Rom 8:1-11
Ps 24
Lk 13:1-9
Chapter VIII is the nucleus of the letter to the Romans, quoted most frequently by the Fathers of the Church. Opening with a triumphal declaration that we are no longer under the dominion of the ancient Law but in Christ Jesus who works in the Church, we understand that we are under the law of the Spirit, who imbues life, freedom and peace.
The Spirit guides us to justice and will provide us with life after death. Essentially we must remain in Christ, under the Spirit’s guidance - not living according to the flesh:
Brothers and sisters:
Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit. The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace. For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.
After reading of the Epistle, we need to Christianize Psalm 24: the Lord’s mountain is Christ, who for us made himself the way, the truth and the life. When we abide in Him it is equivalent to staying in God's holy place. Only by living in Him will we be able to keep innocent hands and pure hearts, obtain blessings and righteousness, and belong to the generation of those who seek God.
The Lord's are the earth and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who may stand in his holy place? He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, a reward from God his savior. Such is the race that seeks for him, that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
The Gospel warns against hasty and unjust judgments, which are purely human, but instead highlights the need for conversion: “if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did” is repeated twice. On the other hand, the parable of the barren fig tree, which follows immediately, also announces that God's timing and infinite patience are not that of humans. He knows how to wait, because he knows fruitfulness is ensured, even if only those who cultivate the tree are the ones who will aid in its fruitful production. The warning of condemnation (“It may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.”) and the patience and mercy of waiting, particularly emphasized throughout Luke’s Gospel, are clearly highlighted.
Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.'“
Christ gave his life for us and, after his resurrection from the dead, he sent forth his Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s mission targets conversion, that is, via his direct calls to engage the human heart, he elicits a change in mentality and self-conduct. The Spirit gives true freedom, takes away all fear, and makes us brave in the face of danger or death with his assurance: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.”
The Spirit’s liberating invasion totally liberated the heart and mind of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Bishop of San Salvador, when he was 60 years old. It certainly cannot be said that his priestly and episcopal life did not bear fruit, in contrast to the barren fig tree in the Gospel. However, the image used by Jesus may be adapted to Archbishop Romero in the sense that for many years his “clerical mentality”, (including being fearful overly prudent) prevented him from bearing all the fruits that God requested of him. His environmental circumstances initially prompted him to not oppose the unjust continuous human rights violations and repressions in his homeland, but the murder of his close friend, Jesuit Rutilio Grande alongside two peasants completely changed his attitude. Since then his sermons have always been a clear denunciation of the oppression and a decisive alignment in favor of the poor and the lowliest people. He was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating the Eucharist. He is the first holy martyr in Central America.
(From the homily delivered for the funeral of the Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande, assassinated on March 12, 1977).
If this were a simple funeral, dear brothers, I would be speaking about human and personal relationships with Fr. Rutilio Grande, who was like a brother to me. In very key moments of my life he was very close to me, and I will never forget those gestures; but this isn’t a time to think about those personal aspects, but to retrieve a message from that corpse for all of us who continue our pilgrimage.
I want to take this message from the Pope’s words who is present here in his representative, the nuncio. I thank him for giving our Church structure that sense of unity that I am now feeling in the Archdiocese, in these tragic hours; that sense of unity, as a rapid flowering of these sacrifices that the Church is offering.
Paul VI’s message, when he speaks to us about evangelization, gives us the parameter to understand Rutilio Grande. “What does the Church contribute to this universal struggle for liberation from so much misery?” And the Pope recalls that at the 1974 Synod the bishop’s voices from all over the world, represented mainly by those third world bishops, cried out: “The anguish of these hungry, destitute, marginalized peoples.” And the Church cannot be absent from that struggle for freedom; but her presence in that struggle to lift up, to dignify man, has to be a message, a very original presence, a presence that the world will not be able to understand, but that carries the seed, the power of victory, of success. The Pope says: “The Church offers this liberating struggle in the world, liberating men, but to whom it gives an inspiration of faith, a social doctrine that is at the base of its prudence and its existence to be translated into concrete commitments and, above all, a motivation of love, of brotherly love”.
This is the Church’s liberation. That is why the Pope says: “It cannot be confused with other liberating movements without a supernatural scope, without a spiritual scope.” And Father Rutilio Grande, above all, is an inspiration of faith: a priest, a Christian who at his baptism and priestly ordination made a profession of faith: “I believe in God the Father revealed through Christ his Son, who loves us and invites us to love. I believe in a Church that is a sign of that presence of God's love in the world, where men shake hands and come together as brothers. An illumination of faith that sets it apart from any kind of political, economic or earthly liberation that does not go beyond ideologies, interests and mundane things”.
Brothers, it will never occur to any of those present here that this gathering around Fr. Grande has a political, sociological or economic atmosphere: by no means. It is a meeting of faith, a faith that opens up to eternal horizons through his corpse that died in hope.
The liberation preached by Fr. Grande is inspired by faith, a faith that speaks to us of eternal life, a faith that with his face raised to heaven, accompanied by two peasants, he now offers in its entirety, in its perfection. This liberation ends in happiness in God; this liberation stems from the repentance of sin; this liberation finds support in Christ, the only saving force. This is the liberation that Rutilio Grande preached, and that is why he lived the Church’s message. It gives us liberating men with an inspiration of faith, and alongside that inspiration of faith. Second, men who put doctrine at the base of their prudence and their existence: the social doctrine of the Church; the social doctrine of the Church that tells men that the Christian religion is not only a horizontal, spiritualistic feeling that forgets about the misery that surrounds it. It is to look upon God, and from God to look at your neighbor as a brother and feel that “everything you did to one of these you did to me.” A social doctrine that I hope the movements that are sensitive to social issues would know about. They would not expose themselves to failures, or myopia, to a myopia that can’t see beyond mundane things, structures of time. And as long as there is no conversion of heart, a doctrine illuminated by faith to organize life according to God’s heart, everything will be weak, revolutionary, temporary, violent. None of those things are Christian […] The social doctrine of the Church! That was what Fr. Rutilio Grande preached; and Father Rutilio Grande died because many times it is misunderstood to the point of murder. A social doctrine of the Church that was confused with a political doctrine that hinders the world: A social doctrine of the Church, which wants to be slandered, as a subversion...