4th Sunday after Pentecost 3 July 2022 Frail humanity
We have just celebrated the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, whereby we reflect that God uses human agents to achieve His will. He entrusts to those two saints the leadership of the emerging Church.
We might wonder why Our Lord would do that, knowing that He could run the Church much better than any mere human.
It is part of God’s saving will, however, that we learn to cooperate with Him. He does not strictly need us as He has all power in Himself. He could easily work a miracle or two to bring about any desired result.
He works through us, like a master class where the master seeks to impart knowledge and capability to the students. The hope is that the students will be as good as the master eventually, or at least they will be better for the contact they had.
To share in the joy of creativity, learning to do new things is generally good, best of all when it is a sharing in God's own nature and creativity. God hopes to bless us with a greater share in His life and nature.
This has happened, as in the case of Sts Peter and Paul, and many other holy people. It could happen a lot more if God were seen as He rightly is, at the centre of all our plans and projects.
From God's point of view, salvation of a person is not complete unless that person come to a true self-understanding, not just obeying certain laws, doing certain things, avoiding other things.
We need laws to guide us, but we are not just slaves, employees, or spectators, but children of God. He wants us to see ourselves in this light and come to a voluntary and complete union with Him.
This is the way He made us, and He wants us to reach this full capacity, of understanding and ability. We would settle for less, probably, but we are much better off if we take God's way.
Ask the apostles if they are glad now that they followed Our Lord, with all its consequences, or would they prefer to have stayed as they were?
If we get to heaven we will say it was all worth it, all the suffering, waiting, hoping, disappointments etc - all will be justified. And we will be grateful that God did it this way.
As to human authority running the Church, yes, there have been many problems, as we could have predicted at the start.
That brings in another element – that we must pray for our leaders. We pray that God the Holy Spirit will fill their hearts and minds with heavenly wisdom and courage.
Sts Peter and Paul would have benefitted from that fact that others were praying for them.
We pray for the Pope and local bishop by name in every Mass. We might take that as a somewhat routine thing, but it must make a difference.
Entrusting the Church to human authority will work after all if enough people pray for it to work as God wants.
In general we pray for all other people to become what they are meant to be in God's sight.
For ourselves we work on our own response to God's call and grace.
Our Lord is doing a double act of salvation. One, bring the people in, to be rescued from darkness (the miraculous catch of fish). This is the first part of salvation.
The second part is that those in the Church reach a more complete union with God, whereby we are transformed in grace, becoming wise, mature, complete, charitable, merciful etc
He works through people and on them at the same time.
Thus His glory is reflected in us, and our happiness is increased. Blessed be God.
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