October 25, 2021 - Monday, 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Rom 8:12-17

Ps 68

Lk 13:10-17

Christian life implies a decision, a choice: between flesh and Spirit, between death and life. Whoever chooses the Spirit and lets himself be guided by him truly becomes a child of God, Christ’s brother, no longer a slave to the Law. If he is a son, he is also an heir, a co-heir of Christ, on condition that he shares his sufferings. Undoubtedly life in the Spirit is very demanding; it is not comfortable, but this is where life begins - the life worth living. The Spirit continually testifies that we are God’s children; that through the Spirit we may call God “daddy”, that we are walking towards the glory, and that all of our suffering, united with that of Christ, will lead us to eternal happiness:

Brothers and sisters,

we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

For those who have received the fullness of Revelation, the ancient psalm not only sings of liberation from slavery, but recounts the total liberation wrought by God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit: enemies flee, while the righteous rejoice, exalt and sing. Nobody should be afraid anymore, not even the weakest and most disadvantaged, because God is the father of orphans and defender of widows; he leaves no one alone, he frees the prisoners, serves and saves; beyond death, it is He that we find:

God arises; his enemies are scattered, and those who hate him flee before him. But the just rejoice and exult before God; they are glad and rejoice. The father of orphans and the defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God gives a home to the forsaken; he leads forth prisoners to prosperity. Blessed day by day be the Lord, who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation. God is a saving God for us; the Lord, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.

In the episode that the Gospel recounts, we find in Jesus' action the service, salvation, and freedom spoken of in the Epistle and the responsorial psalm. Christ is the true Son, led by the Spirit, the one who accomplishes salvation, who has mercy on the poor, the Lord of the Sabbath, the one to whom the law belongs, the liberator from Satan’s chains:

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.” He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.” The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?” When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.

In this Missionary Month we offer the example of a worthy disciple of Christ, who lived the values we read about in St. Paul and in Luke’s Gospel: St. Peter Chanel, protomartyr and patron of Oceania. He did not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit - with an extraordinary gentleness and meekness. He preached Christ and the freedom of God’s children to those who lived in fear, enslaved by evil spirits. Even during his short missionary life on the island of Futuna, many rejoiced at his preaching and felt impelled to conversion, while his opponents were ashamed and plotted against him, as today's Gospel says. As with Jesus, the fruits of his work and sacrifice would ripen only after his death.

Here is his eulogy from the second reading of the Office of Readings in his optional liturgical memorial, which occurs on April 28, the anniversary of his martyrdom:

Eulogy of Saint Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr

As soon as Peter embraced religious life in the Society of Mary, he was sent at his own request to the missions of Oceania, and landed on the island of Futuna in the Pacific Ocean, where the name of Christ had never before been preached. A lay-brother who was constantly at his side gave the following account of his life in the missions. “Because of his labors he was often burned by the heat of the sun, and famished with hunger, and he would return home wet with perspiration and completely exhausted. Yet he always remained in good spirits, courageous and energetic, as if he were returning from a pleasure jaunt, and this would happen almost every day. “He could never refuse anything to the Futunians, even to those who persecuted him; he always made excuses for them and never rejected them, even though they were often rude and troublesome. He displayed an unparalleled mildness toward everyone on all occasions without exception.

It is no wonder then that the natives used to call him the ‘good-hearted man.’ He once told a fellow religious: ‘In such a difficult mission one has to be holy.”

Quietly he preached Christ and the Gospel, but there was little response. Still with invincible perseverance he pursued his missionary tasks on both the human and religious level, relying on the example and words of Christ: There is one who sows and another who reaps. And he constantly prayed for help from the Mother of God, to whom he was especially devoted. By his preaching of Christianity he destroyed the cult of the evil spirits, which the chieftains of the Futunians encouraged in order to keep the tribe under their rule.

This was the reason they subjected Peter to a most cruel death, hoping that by killing him the seeds of the Christian religion which he had sowed would be annihilated. On the day before his martyrdom he had said: “It does not matter if I die. Christ’s religion is so deeply rooted on this island that it cannot be destroyed by my death.”

The blood of this martyr benefited, in the first place, the natives of Futuna, for a few years later they were all converted to the faith of Christ. But it benefited as well the other islands of Oceania, where Christian churches, which claim Peter as their first martyr, are now flourishing.

What is striking in the figure of this young Marist priest (he had abandoned the secular clergy to enter the Society of Mary, precisely in the hope of being sent on a mission) is the extraordinary meekness and solid realism with which he had faced his assignment in the challengingly remote oceanic island assigned to him as a place of mission. In the first two years, during which he struggled to learn the difficult language, he devoted himself to service, pacifying the hostilities between two warring tribes, caring for the needy and the dying, with kindness, meekness and merciful and humble charity, so much so as to truly deserve the title of “man with an excellent heart”, as the natives called him.

He used to say: “Let no one complain or grieve about us, because I find my lot and that of my brothers worthy of envy, and I wouldn't want to give it up for anything in the world.” and also “Although I am unworthy of the sublimity of my vocation, I would not want to exchange it for a kingdom”.

The cruel martyrdom that was inflicted on him after three years of mission, when he was only thirty-eight, was the culmination of a life lived in the Holy Spirit, in love for Mary, in self-giving, in an extraordinary goodness of soul, in being courteous and heroically patient.

While a hatchet that split his skull was dealing him the final blow, Father Pietro spoke the words: Malie fuai, that is, It is good for me, thus confirming the full acceptance of martyrdom. A few months later, a brother came to Futuna to take his remains and transport them to New Zealand. The natives expressed their sorrow for what had happened and asked for a new missionary for the island.