A Rare Moment The Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2021

                                                         A Rare Moment

The Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2021

October 17, 2021

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673

Isaiah 53:10-11; Psalm 33; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45

 

The disciples James and John are not bashful to ask for Jesus what they want, even if they are not quite sure they know what they are asking. Jesus gives them a plain answer, and then he calls the other disciples over to instruct them on the proper attitude and disposition to be a minister of the church. In our church today, we are given a rare opportunity to (1.) ask our questions, (2.) share our concerns, and (3.) correct the church’s attitudes so that we have the right disposition for Christian service as the church is not intended to be served but is designed to serve others. 

 

Our church is embarking upon a two-year synod, which is a commission of bishops and experts, to examine how we are to be church in this current time. The originality of this process is that the whole church will go through it together, which means that every bishop in his diocese across the world will involve the laity into a process of study, reflection, and prayer about “how we are to walk together” in our journey of faith united under the Pope but expressing our local diversity. This will not be solely a European or a Western process and it is no longer an event, but an organic process that will unfold over time through various phases. 

 

For some, this is a frightening process. For those who do not like change or want to maintain the status quo, this is an unsettling process because it has not been a traditional way of operating within the church. The goal is to provide an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern together how to move forward on the path towards being a more collegial Church in the long-term. The church refers to this synod as a way of “listening, walking together, being a church that shares.”

 

Father Dario Vitali, a professor of theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and a consultor with Synod of Bishops, says, synodality is “the specific way of living and working of the Church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all members journey together, gather in assembly, and take an active part in the evangelizing mission.” Synodality means listening. It means to re-establish relationships, otherwise there is a hierarchy with no people, and it hopes to address some base problems within the church, this is, identity and belonging.

 

Synodality is a process of trying to achieve a united church capable of thinking and acting together. The synod does not want to impose anything and there is no prescribed result that the Church intends to ready. It will assemble the results of its processes in collaboration with all members of the church at every level the ability to imagine a different future for the church and it institutions in keeping with the mission give to it by Christ. This is a rare moment in the history of the church. This is a new style that respects the inherent dignity of each person. It is a moment in which we can express our heartfelt desires to make our church better, a church that serves, a church that brings the glories of God to a world hungering for a meaningful existence.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Romans 1) Through him we have received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith, for the sake of his name, among all the Gentiles,
among whom are you also, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Tuesday: (Romans 5) For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

 

Wednesday: (Romans 6) Present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life
and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin is not to have any power over you since you are not under the law but under grace. 

 

Thursday: (Romans 6) For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.

 

Friday (Romans 7) I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

 

Saturday (Romans 8) Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 11) At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.

 

Tuesday: (Luke 12) Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.

 

Wednesday (Luke 12) Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

 

Thursday (Luke 12) I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 

 

Friday (Luke 12) You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

 

Saturday (Luke 13) Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means!

 

Saints of the Week

 

October 17: Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr (d. 107) was born around 33 A.D. and became a leading figure in the new church at Antioch. He served as bishop for 38 years before he was persecuted and killed under Emperor Trajan for being a Christian leader. He wrote seven letters about church life in the early second century and is the first-mentioned martyr of Roman heroes in the first Eucharistic Prayer.

 

October 18: Luke, evangelist (first century) was the author of his version of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He is described as a doctor and a friend of Paul. He was a well-educated Gentile who was familiar with the Jewish scriptures and he wrote to other Gentiles who were coming into a faith.

 

October 19: North American Jesuit martyrs: Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, priests, and companions (17th century) were killed between 1642 and 1649 in Canada and the United States. Though they knew of harsh conditions among the warring Huron and Mohawk tribes in the New World, these priests and laymen persisted in evangelizing until they were captured, brutally tortured, and barbarically killed. 

 

October 20: Paul of the Cross, priest (1694-1775), founded the Passionists in 1747. He had a boyhood call that propelled him into a life of austerity and prayer. After receiving several visions, he began to preach missions throughout Italy that mostly focused upon the Passion of the Lord. After his death, a congregation for nuns was begun. 

 

October 23: John of Capistrano, priest, had a vision of Francis of Assisi when he was imprisoned during an Italian civil war at which time he was the governor of Perugia. He entered the Franciscan Friars Minor in 1415 after ending his marriage. He preached missions throughout Europe including a mission to Hungary to preach a crusade against the Turks. After the Christian victory at the Battle of Belgrade in 1456, John died. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• October 17, 1578: St Robert Bellarmine entered the Jesuit novitiate of San Andrea in Rome at the age of 16. 
• October 18, 1553: A theological course was opened in our college in Lisbon; 400 students were at once enrolled. 
• October 19, 1588: At Munster, in Westphalia, the Society opens a college, in spite of an outcry raised locally by some of the Protestants. 
• October 20, 1763: In a pastoral letter read in all his churches, the Archbishop of Paris expressed his bitter regret at the suppression of the Society in France. He described it as a veritable calamity for his country. 
• October 21, 1568: Fr. Robert Parsons was elected Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He resigned his Fellowship in 1574. 
• October 22, 1870: In France, Garibaldi and his men drove the Jesuits from the Colleges of Dole and Mont Roland. 
• October 23, 1767: The Jesuits who had been kept prisoners in their college in Santiago, Chile, for almost two months were led forth to exile. In all 360 Jesuits of the Chile Province were shipped to Europe as exiles.