Monday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 13, 2020

I was struck by a thought this morning as I prepared to help distribute Holy Communion at Mass: the folks who are coming to Mass in the U.S.  these days share the same courage as Catholics in parts of Western Africa, in that they are risking their lives.  That is, the virus sweeping our country wounds and kills just as surely as a terrorist’s bullet can.  Now, it is not a certainty that a person who comes to Mass will get sick, and terrorist attacks on believers in the churches on Sunday are not common, but a certain amount of courage and faith are necessary to come to Mass under such circumstances.  Let us pray for such strength be granted to all who believe in Jesus so that our full churches may give good witness to the world of our Holy Faith.

Matthew 10:34-11:1

Jesus said to his Apostles: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple– amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”  When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples, he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”  The Evangelists frequently show Jesus warning his followers about persecutions to come.  Here he even declares that he has come precisely in order to cause persecutions: “I have come to bring . . . the sword.”  But if this is true, how does Isaiah the Prophet call him “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9, 6)?

First, the Lord Jesus brings disruption to the individual.  He comes to, say, Simon the fisherman, who has worked hard all night and only wants to go home to bed.  Or, he comes to a tax collector named Matthew and calls him to leave his tax records and his sacks of coins.  Jesus tells a rich young man to sell what he has, to give the money from the sale to the poor, and to follow him.  The disruption Jesus proposes to this young man is too much for him — or, he thinks it is.  The disruption of following the Lord even gravely affected his own Mother, with the aged Simeon prophesying that a sword would pierce her heart.  Jesus makes extreme demands on each of us.  He wrenches away our precious complacency and leads us into boats overwhelmed by the surrounding sea.  

Jesus disrupts relations between people, even between family members.  So many friends, acquaintances, parents, want a person who is important to them to listen to them, to follow their ideas, to do what they want.  But the Lord Jesus is the Master of his follower’s life and no one else.  The believer must obey Jesus rather than men.  But people will fight back in order to regain control over a person whom they thought “belonged” to them.  They use threats, ostracism, financial pressure, and sometimes physical force in order to do this.  In such cases, the devil is working through them.  But our God is a jealous God and will take second place in a person’s heart to no one.

The Lord even disrupts relations between a person and society, to the extent that a society may impose unjust laws against believers, even engaging in persecution.  Society demands a certain level of conformity among its members, and often regards any sort of nonconformity as a threat against its existence.  While a stable society with just laws may allow for the peaceful spread of the Gospel, few societies remain stable for very long, as history teaches us, and unstable societies tend to look for targets to label as interior enemies.  But the Christian must obey Christ.

All the same, Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace.  Those who strive to do his will know his peace.  Families and friendships founded on his law know his peace.  And societies in which God is freely worshipped and his law is the basis for civil laws abound in peace within and without.  It all begins with the recognition of Christ’s sovereignty.