21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 25 August 2024 Loyalty
To test their love, Jesus challenges the crowd to leave, and many do: they should have stayed with him.
They should have said, with Peter: To whom shall we go? There are many other religions but they are not based on truth.
Other gods cannot save - whether we mean the carved idols of biblical times, or the false gods of our time, such as money and pleasure.
The real God may be mysterious but He is not beyond our reach. We can know certain things about Him, and we can know enough for our salvation.
We follow Joshua’s example (first reading) and resolve to remember always the goodness of God; and let that memory affect all future actions.
Remembering what God has done is very important. If we stop remembering we will stop other things too, such as believing in Him, or obeying Him. Or worshipping Him.
If we do not remember we will forget, and that means we drift away from God. From where we will be further tempted to despair, as we think about all our troubles and forget to call on God who can do all things necessary.
There are many difficulties but God is far greater than all of them put together.
He is far higher than us: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. (cf Rm 1, 33-36).
If we submit to His wisdom we will come through triumphantly.
To be in right relationship with God is always the main point. If united already, we can increase that union, and that is our goal in this life and the next. That is really what salvation means – that we are, at this moment, in union with God.
Our trust in God will increase too and what we found difficult before will suddenly seem a lot easier.
The second reading speaks of married couples. We would expect a married couple to love each other on their wedding day, but even more so at later times.
This will certainly be the case for the Church as Bride to Jesus as Bridegroom. The more we know about God the more we like Him. The more we accumulate memories of His goodness to us, the more faith we have for new challenges.
Unless we are clear about our worship of the one true God we will be allowing different types of falsehood into our lives.
We may be Catholic but that does not mean we are free to throw in other ideas, such as found in New Age practices. (cf as is said of Haiti “70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, and 100% Vodou”.)
There is abroad the hazy notion that all religion is much the same and there is no harm in a little blending of one religion with another.
One God, many gods? What’s the difference, people ask. It is for the same reason that you can have one spouse, but only one.
More than one god is spiritual adultery, certainly not the faithfulness to Christ the Bridegroom, which is so necessary.
There is abroad also a false humility whereby Catholics try not to appear as though they know anything more than their neighbours.
It is good to be humble but not at the expense of revealed truth.
Real humility will help us keep our focus on the one God who actually has helped us, and promises us a lot more to come.
Lord, to whom shall we go?
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