Attaining the spiritual attitude of a child after having grown up in our world requires grace. Our heavenly Father is, even now, Fathering us into eternal life. This new birth already started at our Baptism, and will be completed at our death. Dying to this world is part of being born again, but it doesn’t mean that we are to become cold and callous – stoic. The Love of God mysteriously breaks down our attachment to this world while at the same time making us care more than ever for each other and for God. The wise of this world recognize so much vanity but fail to recognize the revelation of the Father. Worldly wisdom is like a hard leather shoe, worn by the mind as it journeys towards meaning. This shoe on the one hand protects the mind from vain pursuits, but on the other hand makes it lose sensitivity to grace. We have to remove our shoes in the presence of God – becoming vulnerable and childlike again – because we cannot ultimately protect our minds from the apparent vanity of death. Faith gives us immediate access to the Father. The time we spend with Him each day, barefoot and childlike, refreshes our soul with that life which is beyond death. The more we are filled with that life, the less we need to wear shoes or protect our mind with vain wisdom – the less we have to consider daily death and loss as anything other than detachment from what is passing away.
Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor
CHRYSOSTOM:
What sort of peace is it that Jesus asks them to pronounce upon entering each house? And what kind of peace is it of which the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace”? And if Jesus came not to bring peace, why did all the prophets publish peace as good news? Because this more than anything is peace: when the disease is removed. This is peace: when the cancer is cut away. Only with such radical surgery is it possible for heaven to be reunited to earth. Only in this way does the physician preserve the healthy tissue of the body. The incurable part must be amputated. Only in this way does the military commander preserve the peace: by cutting off those in rebellion. Thus it was also in the case of the tower of Babel, that their evil peace was ended by their good discord. Peace therefore was accomplished.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
ORIGEN:
He [the Lord] teaches that the man going down was the neighbor of no one except of him who wanted to keep the commandments and prepare himself to be a neighbor to every one that needs help. This is what is found after the end of the parable, “Which of these three does it seem to you is the neighbor of the man who fell among robbers?” Neither the priest nor the Levite was his neighbor, but—as the teacher of the law himself answered—“he who showed pity” was his neighbor. The Savior says, “Go, and do likewise.”