24th Sunday Ordinary Time
Abbot Raymond’s Homily in Community
No Man is an Island
God’s revelation to us of just who he is and just what he is; his revelation of his love and mercy; his revelation of his promises; of the destiny he holds out to us; all these things took a long, long time, not because of any inadequacy on God’s part but because of our hardness of heart, our dullness of understanding. Inevitably then this long drawn out process of revelation meant that things would become clearer as time went on and we would be led gradually, bit by bit, to an ever fuller understanding of God’s message.
This means that whatever is revealed in the Old Testament will always be put more clearly and more strongly in the New. Take for example the increasing revelation of God’s mercy: It goes from the deliverance of the innocent Maid Susannah in the Old Testament to the deliverance of the guilty adulteress in the Gospels. It goes from the "eye for eye and tooth for tooth" in the OT to the "love your enemies" of the NT, and so on. Always there is a progression, an advance in our understanding of God and the things of the spirit. It is all the more surprising then, in today’s readings, to find that the Old Testament seems to give us a stronger and clearer and richer and fuller picture of God’s patience and mercy than we find in the Gospel story.
The Gospel story tells us about God’s mercy for this or that individual; the lost sheep, the prodigal son etc. But the OT story is about the forgiveness of a whole wayward people, a whole nation. It speaks about God’s patience and loving forgiveness for a whole people; a people for whom he had done such amazing signs and wonders; it speaks about their incredible forgetfulness of all he had just done for them. It shows their ingratitude; their downright apostasy, worshipping a golden calf; hailing it as their deliverer.
The OT story also reveals a dimension of this mercy that was, perhaps, much better appreciated in the OT than in the NT:
The Israelite felt a great security in the fact that he belonged to God’s chosen people. He felt that, no matter how he sinned he had a special call on God’s mercy that others didn’t have…..he was one of God’s favourite people.
Equally, of course, he realised that ‘noblesse oblige’ and he had a greater obligation to keep God’s Laws; Laws which had been specially assigned to his people; Laws in which they glorified. But nevertheless, he knew that if he should sin, he had a special call on God’s loving forgiveness.
Today it is we who are God’s chosen people. It is we to whom he has entrusted the fullness of knowledge of his Laws and Promises. It is we who belong to his One True Church and who are specially obliged to holiness. But, should we sin, have we lost this sense of trust and confidence in God’s mercy that comes from belonging to his chosen people. Must we look back in envy at that ‘sense of belonging to his people’ which was, and still is, so much a mark of the true Israelite?
Truly for the Israelite "No Man is and Island"
However, as Christians of the NT we have this great advantage over our OT brothers: As we stand shoulder to shoulder with God’s people we know that the ultimate cause of our confidence is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with that Greatest One of our Brothers, with him who said to his heavenly Father "Behold, I and the Brethren thou hast given me!"
Abbot Raymond’s Homily in Community
No Man is an Island
God’s revelation to us of just who he is and just what he is; his revelation of his love and mercy; his revelation of his promises; of the destiny he holds out to us; all these things took a long, long time, not because of any inadequacy on God’s part but because of our hardness of heart, our dullness of understanding. Inevitably then this long drawn out process of revelation meant that things would become clearer as time went on and we would be led gradually, bit by bit, to an ever fuller understanding of God’s message.
This means that whatever is revealed in the Old Testament will always be put more clearly and more strongly in the New. Take for example the increasing revelation of God’s mercy: It goes from the deliverance of the innocent Maid Susannah in the Old Testament to the deliverance of the guilty adulteress in the Gospels. It goes from the "eye for eye and tooth for tooth" in the OT to the "love your enemies" of the NT, and so on. Always there is a progression, an advance in our understanding of God and the things of the spirit. It is all the more surprising then, in today’s readings, to find that the Old Testament seems to give us a stronger and clearer and richer and fuller picture of God’s patience and mercy than we find in the Gospel story.
The Gospel story tells us about God’s mercy for this or that individual; the lost sheep, the prodigal son etc. But the OT story is about the forgiveness of a whole wayward people, a whole nation. It speaks about God’s patience and loving forgiveness for a whole people; a people for whom he had done such amazing signs and wonders; it speaks about their incredible forgetfulness of all he had just done for them. It shows their ingratitude; their downright apostasy, worshipping a golden calf; hailing it as their deliverer.
The OT story also reveals a dimension of this mercy that was, perhaps, much better appreciated in the OT than in the NT:
The Israelite felt a great security in the fact that he belonged to God’s chosen people. He felt that, no matter how he sinned he had a special call on God’s mercy that others didn’t have…..he was one of God’s favourite people.
Equally, of course, he realised that ‘noblesse oblige’ and he had a greater obligation to keep God’s Laws; Laws which had been specially assigned to his people; Laws in which they glorified. But nevertheless, he knew that if he should sin, he had a special call on God’s loving forgiveness.
Today it is we who are God’s chosen people. It is we to whom he has entrusted the fullness of knowledge of his Laws and Promises. It is we who belong to his One True Church and who are specially obliged to holiness. But, should we sin, have we lost this sense of trust and confidence in God’s mercy that comes from belonging to his chosen people. Must we look back in envy at that ‘sense of belonging to his people’ which was, and still is, so much a mark of the true Israelite?
Truly for the Israelite "No Man is and Island"
However, as Christians of the NT we have this great advantage over our OT brothers: As we stand shoulder to shoulder with God’s people we know that the ultimate cause of our confidence is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with that Greatest One of our Brothers, with him who said to his heavenly Father "Behold, I and the Brethren thou hast given me!"
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