Monday in the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, June 3, 2024

2 Peter 1, 2-7

Beloved: May grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.

St. Peter wrote his second letter around the year 62, within a couple of years of his martyrdom, from Rome to Christians living in Asia Minor.  The main purpose of his letter is to warn these Christians from the false teachings regarding Christ and his Second Coming that arose at that time, a situation which we can glimpse in the seven letters found in chapters two and three in the Book of Revelation.  

“May grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”  St. Peter prays that the Knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus will make the Asian Christians recipients of God’s grace and peace: the grace to live holy lives, and the peace which this world cannot give (cf. John 14, 27).  “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power.”  This grace and power are freely bestowed on us by Almighty God who has called us personally by an exercise of his power to give ourselves to him.  This call is not like a human call that has no power though it may be persuasive.  God’s call provides the offer of grace so that we may follow it in perseverance.  We recall the words of God’s Son: “You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you” (John 15, 16).  “Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises.”  That is, through our response, assisted by grace, to his call, God has bestowed upon us the promise of eternal life with him in heaven, even sharing in his divine nature.  But first we must escape “from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.”  We can understand this corruption as the damage done to human nature through the Original Sin, brought on by the “evil desire” to become “as Gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3, 5).  

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue.”  We fortify our faith through virtuous works in order to make this “escape”, that is, to grow in the holiness made possible through baptism and the forgiveness of Original Sin.  “Virtue with knowledge.”  We should supplement our virtue with knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  “Knowledge with self-control.”  We cannot be saved without self-control, conforming ourselves by grace to Christ.  Our knowledge of the Lord’s life and teachings is supplemented by self-control, which in turn is inspired by this knowledge.  Self-control with endurance.”  Self-control must be accompanied by endurance or it is of very little value, as though we exercise self-control only when convenient.  “Endurance with devotion.”  Devotion assures that our endurance is not a mere mental exercise but is a spiritual one.  “Devotion with mutual affection and mutual affection with love.”  Our devotion to Almighty God is to be coupled with mutual affection, for the Lord Jesus gives us two great commandments: to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The Gospel Reading for this Mass is the Parable of the Tenant Farmers in Mark 12, 1-12.  While Jesus intended the Parable as a warning to the Pharisees, we can also understand it as about the need for “Self-control with endurance”: The farmer who owned the vineyard is the believer in Jesus.  The vine is his faith.  The tenant farmers are the sinful pleasures and habits the Christian used to enjoy before giving his heart to Christ.  The people he sends to collect the fruit are his efforts to overcome the temptations to return to his former wickedness.  He falls time and again but resolves with each fall to overcome them through his cooperation with the grace God gives him.  Finally, through perseverance he succeeds, and destroys the hold his old life had on him.  Now he can grow in virtue and his faith will flourish.