Saturday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 19, 2024

Luke 12, 8-12

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.  Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”

The context of today’s Gospel Reading is the Lord teaching his followers the necessity of persevering in their belief in him even in the face of bitter persecution: “And I say to you, my friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do” (Luke 12, 4). 

“I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.”  The Lord’s use of the idiom “I tell you” signifies a solemn promise or warning.  The Greek verb translated here as “acknowledge” more precisely means “to express allegiance or declare a truth”.  Thus, we can acknowledge to another the presence of a person without admitting that we have any relationship with that person.  Jesus means, “Everyone who declares that he believes in me before others the Son of Man will confirm as believing in him before the angels of God.”  Since the angels ever minister to Almighty God and stand in his presence, the Lord is saying that he will confirm this to his Father.  If we openly profess to those who hate Jesus our belief that Jesus is the Son of God, the Lord will profess to his Father our belonging to him.

“But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.”  Our belief in Christ is not simply an intellectual exercise.  Baptized in him, we are made members of his Body.  To deny him is to deny that we are members of his Body.  It would be as if an arm denied that it belonged to the body of which it was part.  In the case of a baptized member who denied Christ, this would mean to cease membership in his Body, a condition that would mean that “it is good for nothing anymore but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men” (Matthew 5, 13). 

“Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”  That is, everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man wίll be forgiven if he repents, but not one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit — who rejects repentance.  The Church sees too causes for this rejection: despair that one can be forgiven; and presumption that one needs not repent, as though no sin had in fact been committed, or that God’s forgiveness is automatic.

“When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say.”  Luke’s quote of Jesus here shows the antiquity of his Gospel, for such persecution by the Jewish leaders of Jewish Christians largely ceased by the time of the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.  By that time the preaching of the Gospel had largely turned from the Jews to the Gentiles.  Because this quote would have spoken to a condition that no longer existed and did not pertain to the Gentile Christians for whom Luke was writing , there would be no reason to include it.

“For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”  The most convincing defense of the Faith is not a speech employing the tools of rhetoric but a heart in love with the Lord Jesus, and this heart, prompted by the Holy Spirit will pour forth an irrefutable argument.  The purpose of this defense is not so much to gain freedom for oneself as for the greater glory of God and the conversion of the world.  As St. Paul said during one of his imprisonments: “I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ” (Philippians 1, 12-13).

We must ever be aware that we are on trial in the synagogue of this world so that we may not slip in our faith or even reject it to try and save ourselves.  “You shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake. But a hair of your head shall not perish. In your perseverance you shall possess your souls” Luke 21, 17–19.