In the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)
ecclesial jurisdiction, the Sunday before the last Sunday
of October is recognized as the World Mission Sunday.
This year (2016), during the week leading to the Mission
Sunday (October. 23), we have commemorated three feasts relevant to the
Church’s world mission: the memorial feast of St. Luke the Evangelist on
Tuesday, October 18, the memorial feast of St. Isaac Jogues & his companions on Wednesday, October 19, and
the feast of St. John Paul II on Saturday, October 22.
Upon commemorating these feasts of saints important to the
Church’s world mission, we reflect on St. Paul’s personal retrospection over 30
years of his challenging but meaningful missionary experiences in the second
reading for Mass on the World Mission Sunday, which is the 30th
Sunday in Ordinary Time on Cycle C in 2016.
The reading is taken from St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy (2
Timothy), 4:6-8, 16-18. In this reading,
St. Paul makes it clear that engaging in mission is challenging and thus
demands extraordinary strengths, physically, mentally, and spiritually. To
complete a mission with success, a missionary must have endurance, as it is
required for an athlete needs enduring resolution to win a race. He also
explains that he was able to endure all hardships on his missions until
completion because of his faith. By attributing his success to his faith, St.
Paul does not take credit for his accomplishments but makes it clear that he
was helped by God, in whom he puts his
faith-trust (pistis). Because of
this, all the obstacles on his mission journeys, including being subjected to “the lion’s mouth (v.17) and many evils
threats (v. 18), could not deter or prevent him from continuing his missions to
completion.
What St. Paul reflects and shares with his successor,
Timothy, on mission near his martyrdom in Rome in his epistle to Timothy also
touches the first reading (Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18). In this excerpt from the
wisdom book written by Jesus ben Sirach shortly before the successful Maccabean
Revolt against Hellenistic Seleucid Empire during the 2nd Century B.C., an emphasis
is made on extraordinary power and benefits of enduring prayers. In vv. 17-18,
it is explained; “The prayer of the lowly
pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it
withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right”.
Certainly, St. Paul, who says, “I have
completed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith”(2 Timothy
4:7) on his completion of missions, must have prayed so persistently throughout
his missions, as his enduring prayers reflect his faith with forbearance. At
the same time, Paul have kept his humility as he has called himself as “servant of Christ Jesus”(Romans 1:1). Thus,
it is evident that his humility has contributed to the strengths of St. Paul’s
enduring prayer, and this characterization of St. Paul’s prayers echoes Jesus’
teaching on humility in the 30th Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke
18:9-14). St. Paul regarded himself as
lowly man and prayed with forbearance, which is both a fruit of the Holy Spirit
(Galatians 5:22), grown out of his faith, which is one of the gifts of the same Holy
Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9). It is also important to remember that St. Paul’s
strength in faith, thus, his endurance to have sustained him on his
30-year-long challenging “race” – mission is not a mere humility but rather his
resolution of ego, as reflected in these words of his, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ
lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). And, St. Paul
offered his remaining life to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he humbly and loyally
served with forbearance in Rome, though he was not crucified for his Roman citizenship
but as he was beheaded in 67 A.D..
On this World Mission Sunday, we must juxtapose ourselves on
the heroic lives of missionary saints, including, St. Luke the Evangelist, St.
Isaac Jogues and his companions, St. John Paul II, and St. Paul the Apostle, in
light of important teaching from the scripture readings for this Sunday, as I
aforementioned and reflected above. For
this, let us briefly go over the lives of the missionary saints, whose heroic
lives of extraordinary faith, we have commemorated during the week preceding to
this Sunday.
********
St. Luke has been known for penning the Gospel of Luke, one
of the synoptic gospels, and the Acts of
the Apostles. However, what is less
known about him is that St. Luke also served on the Church’s early missionary
as a loyal companion of St. Paul on his later mission all the way to his
martyrdom in Rome. Therefore, St. Luke is also a missionary saint. In 2 Timothy
4:11, St. Paul writes of Luke as his loyal companion to him on his mission,
while Demas deserted him as he could not overcome his worldly attachment. St.
Luke was martyred through beheading, just as the one whom he accompanied
loyally, St. Paul, was.
St. Isaac Jogues and his companions served on the Jesuit
missionary in then the New France around the Lake Huron in the 17th
century. At that time, the area was rather hostile to the missionary, and they
were martyred, though they strived to live peacefully not only with the Huron
tribes, many of whom were amicable, but also with the Mohawk tribe, who were
often belligerent to the Huron. Though St. Isaac Jogues was able to escape from
the torture on his first mission and returned to the safety at home in France,
he could not help but return to his missionary in the same hostile environment
of New France. This time, he was martyred.
St. John Paul II served the Lord as the 264th
Pope from 1978 until 2005. His papal
reign is longest among the 266 popes, from St. Peter to Pope Francis. During
these 26 years as pope, St. John Paul made 104 pastoral visits on the globe, in
addition to 146 visits in Italy. There
is no other pope who reached out to as many places on earth as he has. In
regard to his missionary spirit, St. John Paul II is more like a 20th-to-21st-century
ecclesial mission successor of St. Paul, though as pope, he was a successor of
St. Peter. In this regard, St. John Paul IL uniquely possesses not only the
papal spirit of St. Peter but also the missionary spirit of St. Paul. Not to
mention, there is no other pope in the Church’s history who has written as many
encyclicals and pastoral letters as St. John Paul II has. Adding his addresses
to general audience, which includes his Christian anthropological opus of the
Theology of the Body to offer fresh insights on Paul’s view on the flesh and
the spirit, the voluminous amount of his writing makes St. John Paul II in par
with St. Paul, whose epistles to the churches he built on his missions take up
the largest volume in the New Testament.
Though St. John Paul II was not martyred, he was shot by an
assassination attempt in 1981. His recovery from this gunshot was like what St.
Paul calls being saved from “the mouth of
the lion”(2 Timothy 4:17). St. John
Paul II endured increasingly debilitating health condition toward the end of
his papal reign. While today’s secular pseudo compassion may encourage euthanasia
or assisted suicide as a solution to such terminal health conditions, St. John
Paul II demonstrated his faith-based strengths to live his life fully in spite
of his agonizing condition, reflecting his own papal magisterium on the dignity
of life, such as Evangelium Vitae.
The faithful find this to be encouraging and helpful even our lives may make
unwanted turns to such challenging life.
Now, how we see ourselves? Is our faith strong enough to
enable us to pray in the way to pierce the cloud or to move the mountain?
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