Saturday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 10, 2020

The Feast Day of St. Benedict of Nursia

Matthew 10:24-33

Jesus said to his Apostles: “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household! “Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

The most important teaching Jesus offers his Apostles and us in terms of preaching the Gospel, as we are all called to do, is: “It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master.”  While the Apostles must know the teachings of the Lord in order to spread them, he must become like the Lord so that he may be afforded to position of doing so.  For instance, few people would be willing to drink even the most delicious beverage if it were served in a dirty glass, or a glass with chipped edges.  In order to convince others of the truth of the Gospel, we ourselves must become beautiful containers and fountains of it.  We must become like Jesus, full of virtue and knowledge, prudent and loving.  We must sacrifice ourselves for others as the Lord sacrificed himself for us.  Our virtue and our good works, our quiet and humble way of life, useful for our own salvation will also bring people to the Gospel.  Our refusal to chase after worldly things, our doing without, will bring people to the Gospel.  

An overabundance of garish, noisy, boastful signs, replete with impossible promises, fills the air these days.  One more such sign will have little effect.  We believers who offer a Gospel leading to a kingdom not of this world must present not signs but reality.  We recall how the Pharisees continuously plagued the Lord, demanding signs.  He would answer, “Why does this generation seek after a sign? Truly I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation” (Mark 8, 12).  The time of signs has passed.  The time of reality has arrived.  In fact, the believer does not become a sign of Jesus, but as a member of the Lord’s Body he manifests the Lord to others.  The believer, baptized into Christ, becomes “like him” in living the Lord’s life rather than the world’s life.  

“Whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”  We “deny” him before others when we publicly apostatize during a persecution, but also when we refuse or neglect to live as the Lord’s followers.  Religion is not private piety conducted entirely in private.  The Christian religion particularly is the public belief in Christ as God.  And when we “deny” the Lord by publicly acting in ways contrary to his teachings, we “deny” non-believers the opportunity of knowing Christ, and in this way compound our sin by forsaking the ultimate commandment the Lord gave to his Apostles on earth: “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28, 20). 

We celebrate today the feast of St. Benedict (d. 543), a man who followed the Lord’s counsel to sell all that he had, gave to the poor, and went after him, which he did in the chaotic years after the end of the Roman Empire in the West.  His charity and devotion drew others to him, and he was obliged to write a rule of life for his followers.  The Rule of St. Benedict contains great spiritual wisdom and continues to inspire Christian life today.  A close study of history shows that without St. Benedict, his Rule, his adherents, and the monasteries in which they lived and worked, together with the libraries in them, western civilization would have vanished completely within a hundred years of his own life.