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Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time

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Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

I Sam 26.2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; Ps 102; II Cor 15.45-49; Lk 6.27-38

A RECAP ON THE BEATITUDES

Last Sunday we heard the radical message of the Beatitudes, that those who seem to have least may be the most blessed of all God’s people. The Magnificat says also that God puts down the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly…Those rejected by society and by the religious establishment can find a warm welcome in Jesus’ company and are able to reform their lives and enter heaven.

CHRIST SHOWS US HOW TO LIVE OUT THE BEATITUDES

Our Lord shows a new potential for humanity. It is good, and possible, to love our enemies and live without judging and condemning others. On each occasion that Our Lord is taunted, He forgives. Whenever He is the object of men’s hatred He responds with love. Falsely accused, He does not retaliate. Throughout his earthly life, Jesus converts every negative aspect of the events that befall Him into positive good for others, right up to His saving death.

CHRIST IS THE NEW ADAM

Saint Paul, expresses all this in a simple but theologically profound image. Christ is the new Adam. He overturns all the damage done to it by Adam’s failure. He remained faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation. Jesus fulfils Israel’s vocation perfectly: in contrast to those who had once provoked God in the desert, Christ reveals Himself as God’s servant, totally obedient to the divine will… Jesus’ victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience of his filial love for the Father. (paras 538-9)
RECAPITULATION

Some of the early Christian theologians, basing their ideas on Saint Paul’s doctrine, built a theology around the word “recapitulation”. The Catechism tells us that “At the temptation, Jesus rebuffs these attacks, which recapitulate the temptations of Adam in paradise and of Israel in the desert… He has revisited all the places where we, like Adam, make errors. Our Lady was described as the new Eve. Mary, by her obedience to God’s will, and her bearing of the Son of God, reversed the damage done by Eve.

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

HIS VICTORY IS OUR VICTORY

In his sinless humanity, Jesus could never err. By assuming our humanity and redeeming it, He has opened up the gateway to heaven through his death and resurrection. When we win through in a time of temptation; when we make a just decision in time of difficulty; when we score one of our occasional victories over Satan, then this is not our triumph. It is the victory of Christ, the new Adam, being handed on to us.

NEW DISPENSATION

Before Christ, there were occasional acts of justice, such as David’s restraint in the Old Testament reading. He had the power to kill Saul, but held back out of a sense of what was right. Darkness and error were more in evidence than light and truth. Thanks be Jesus Christ our saviour, sins cast shadows, but they cannot bring total darkness to the world. In the desperate times of history, in warfare and holocaust, in materialism and social decay, the victory and example of the new Adam tower above the worst excesses of the world.

YOU TOO CAN DO IT!

Catholics, like all Christians, should take after the new Adam. He has opened up the possibility that we can live the life set out by Him in today’s gospel. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who treat you badly.” To live this way by our own efforts alone is impossible but thanks to what Christ, the new Adam has already done, we too can do it.

Osho

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