29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B - October 17th, 2021

The readings at Mass this Sunday certainly lent themselves to a “Passionist” Scripture sharing! One Sister began our discussion with a reflection on the mystery of God’s Will – a favorite theme of St. Paul of the Cross. At the beginning of Mass, the Church placed on the lips of the priest a simple prayer “that we may always conform our will to [God’s] and serve [His] majesty in sincerity of heart.” Simple, perhaps, but unfathomably deep. Human nature since the Fall is instinctively suspicious of God, fearful that His Will is something negative, waiting to be imposed on us from outside. However, Sister shared that the prayers and readings for this Sunday helped her to see in a new way the gentleness and goodness of God’s Will. Obedience to Him is not a matter of force, but of peaceful surrender; He wishes to form us, not to destroy us! “See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope for His kindness, to deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine,” as the Responsorial Psalm asserts. God is for us, not against us – He has gone so far as to take on human nature, so that He may “sympathize with our weaknesses.” Even when His plan for our lives involves suffering, as it does for the Suffering Servant in the first reading, we can take consolation in the fact that our pain is far from useless. “The will of the LORD shall be accomplished through [us]” – that Will which is the salvation of all humanity. Our sufferings, little or great, can be united to the Passion of Christ and truly contribute to the building up of the Church!

Continuing the theme, another Sister drew our attention to a line in the Gospel: “You do not know what you are asking.” So often this is Our Lord’s reply to us in prayer! We may ask for something that seems perfectly good to us, but in our littleness and finiteness we often do not understand the full import of our requests. As a loving Father, God does not want to grant us anything that will ultimately lead to our harm – but we must trust Him and His plan when the reasons for His refusal are not immediately apparent to us. Jesus bids James and John in the Gospel to accept the wisdom of the Father’s plan, which even He Himself lovingly obeys: “[It] is not Mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.” Does this mean that we must fatalistically resign ourselves to whatever may come, refusing to pray for anything because we do not know whether or not it is God’s Will? Not at all! A prayer made in sincere faith never goes to waste, even if it is not answered as we would like. The Lord accepts our good will in love and uses it in His own mysterious way to bring about a greater good. Furthermore, we do not need to simply guess what is best to pray for; God the Holy Spirit longs to pray in and through us. We can and should ask Him frequently to inspire us with what He wants us to ask, because He is always preparing new gifts of grace to bestow on willing souls!

Finally, we focused in on the beautiful and well-known line at the end of our Gospel reading. “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” How astounding and paradoxical … the incomprehensible humility of God leaves us in awe. Jesus is the glorious “Son of Man” from the prophecy of Daniel, and yet His glory consists not in domination but in Self-abasing service. In the hardness of our hearts, we refused to believe in God’s love for us, so He chose to show it in the most unbelievably compelling way: the Incarnation and the Passion. One Sister shared a related insight which she had received in praying over Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “Whoever sees Me sees the Father.” When we gaze upon Jesus Crucified, we are not simply seeing the love of God the Son. We are seeing the Incarnate image of the Father’s Self-outpouring charity as well. Our Holy Founder exclaimed that “the Passion is the wonder of wonders of the love of God” – the love of the entire Trinity. What can we do in return but thank, adore, and love with all our hearts the God Who has given Himself entirely for us?