5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Is 58:6-10
Second Reading: 1 Cor 2:1-5
Gospel Reading: Jn 8:12
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus tells his disciples in this Sunday’s Readings. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works.”
It is a compliment that lays a burden on us.
“I’m not perfect,” we might argue. “I’m not trying to tell others how to behave. Besides, didn’t Jesus say we’re supposed to hide our fasting and good deeds?”
Certainly we must not behave well so as to win glory for ourselves. However, we must behave so that others will “give glory” to God the Father in heaven. If we really believe what we say in the Creed every Sunday, how can we justify keeping it to ourselves?
Christ told us to spread the good news. He said: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you.”
“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” he said. “I must lead them, too, and they shall hear my voice. There shall be one flock then, one shepherd.”
Our witness to Christ “makes an extraordinarily valuable contribution” to society,” said Pope St. John Paul II: it helps to ward off “a headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis” that can afflict the world: namely a “confusion between good and evil.”
St. Paul stresses that “the mystery of God” is not proclaimed by “lofty words” or “plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit.”
The First Reading tells us how: to loose the bonds of injustice, let the oppressed go free, share our bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into our homes, cover the naked, offer our food to the hungry, satisfy the needs of the afflicted, and stop the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil.
In our society today, we cannot follow Christ without making ourselves conspicuous, for it means no extramarital sex, immodesty in dress, salacious talk, or indecent movies, jokes, or magazines. It means sticking with one spouse for life, even after legal divorce, planning one’s family naturally rather than artificially, and “accepting children lovingly from God.”
It means being honest in business and public service, avoiding illegal strikes, reporting all our income, and obeying all the traffic laws.
It means no calumny, detraction, or backbiting, always telling the truth, and never looking as though we approve what is wrong by either speech or silence. It means going to Mass every Sunday and to confession regularly.
It includes “little” things like saying grace before and after meals, even in restaurants, avoiding meat on Fridays, and making the Sign of the Cross when we pass a church. For priests and nuns, it means wearing identifying dress.
It sometimes means being put to death. However, following Christ in any of the ways I have listed means a kind of daily martyrdom, for it exposes us to raised eyebrows and questioning looks, if not outright scorn and ridicule, sometimes even from fellow Catholics.
To make our light “shine before others,” we do not have to preach, we just have to live like Catholics. However, we must always be ready to justify our belief and trust that by living Christ’s way in this world, we will be happy with him for ever in the next.
If we have learned our faith as children, we have probably learned it in childish language: if you’re good you’ll go to heaven and if you’re not you’ll go to hell. However, to pass the faith on to other adults, we have to understand it as adults.
Too many of us have stopped learning our faith after Grade Seven. How many of us are satisfied with a Grade Seven education in any other field?
It is never too late to learn.
Father Hawkswell teaches “The Catholic Faith in Plain English” free of charge every week: Sundays, 2–4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre (33rd and Willow, Vancouver); Mondays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Parish (2347 Inglewood, West Vancouver) and 7–9 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre; and Tuesdays, 7–9 p.m. in St. Clare’s Parish Hall (2888 Delahaye Drive, Coquitlam).
