Revelation and Its Reception Matt 11:25-27
Sacra Pagina
Dear, William,Sacra Pagina
Thank you.
Your appreciation of Fr. Edward OP's Homily.
Interesting is today's repeat the Gospel as on the Sunday of 14th Sunday.
The Commentaries of Benedict XVI and Sacra Pagina give me the enriching appreciation of repeating readings.
(See previous Post Fri July 2011 Comment Matt:22-30 and Sacra Pagina)
Not finding flowers for the Church, the attached pictures give me a different insight from the Feverfew Herb/Weed flourishing from the crevice between the concrete yard and the garage wall. Jesus spreads his parables or inner wisdom to 'infants'.
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| Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium; syn.Chrysanthemum parthenium (L.) Pers.,Pyrethrum parthenium Sm.) is a traditionalmedicinal herb which is found in many old gardens, and is also occasionally grown for ornament. The plant grows into a small bush up to around 46 cm (18 in) high, with citrus-scented leaves and is covered by flowers reminiscent of daisies. |
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| Feverfew (Herb) is called a WEED. It becomes a rare flower to ornament the sanctuary. |
We are in the good company of the "infants". Thanks to Fr. Edward.
Good wishes.
Donald
Good wishes.
Donald
Fr Edward Booth OP, Iceland
14 Sunday 2011
In this Gospel passage from Saint Matthew Our Lord first details some of the relationships between himself and the Father, together with the relationships which are given a kind of primacy between the Father and this world. The Father is "the Lord of Heaven and Earth," but he is behind the inspiration of revelation in the minds of men. Our Lord addresses him saying, "You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent". He knows intimately the minds of the supposed wise and prudent, who have spoilt their relationship between themselves and him, evidently because their knowledge which should have opened them to God, through some impurity in their intention of learning which was based on pride, was not completely open to God in the highest purity of which they were capable. Instead of that, God had revealed depths of wisdom, priceless in themselves, to those who are by comparison "infants".
So according to Our Lord, not only did the Son, who was His Word, inspire men with true wisdom, and the Holy Spirit, who was the inspirer of men with his gifts and his fruits which included the heights of spiritual joy, but the Father was also active. They were active together, with a suggested slight differentiation. They were all three Divine Persons active in their inspiration of men - and, we could add here, primarily of Jews at this stage. And the knowledge which the Father communicated in his wisdom was communicated as a result of his reflection. He was aware of the spiritual state of men at their deepest and most intimate, being guided by his goodness: "for so it seemed good in your sight".
From which human communication he passes to the direct communications to Himself from the Father. "All things are delivered to me from my Father". After which he falls into those equalities which are taken up especially in Saint John's Gospel: "All things are delivered to me from my Father;" He as Son is not known adequately to anyone "except the Father". They are both transcendent and are equally transcendent: the Father is not known by any man, but he is known to the Son, because of their equality, but not exactly for that because one meaning of equality is a description of space. But the privileged state of men and the privileged state of divine knowledge makes it possible for the Son to reveal to men the divine Truth which had been communicated to him. The Son has, like the Father, a reflective power such as also guides the Son in his illumination of men. So the Father is also present in the revelation of divine Truth to men. From these statements it becomes clear how the communications to men from the Father and the Son are made with total liberty, by which the truth is revealed with its essential freshness as it was at the moment of their Creation, and so it communicates perfect liberty.
And the Son, with his personal Mission of revelation has a personal reflectiveness though which by a loving choice of his recipients and of what he wishes to pass on, he fills, easefully, the dry souls of humanity with a connatural food for mind and heart. He is aware of the nature of the hard journey of searching and discovery with the intensity of effort which it requires to extract from what seemed its slight and semi-hidden traces. But he himself will make that discovery of what they were seeking because it will exist in its purest state in his mind and heart. He asks for humility in the face of a truth which is more precious than the truth that is natural to men; this truth has all the fresh vitality of its divine source; it is Wisdom itself in its original divinely Personal nature as it emerges from the Lord who stands behind heaven and earth. It is destined to convey that rest which men need after a long search for spiritual light. Ease of soul is the first gain as men wait for a highly illuminating revelation which opens out the roots and sources of what they are prepared to search out for themselves, with great self-denial. The labour is easeful, which makes what is the highest knowledge in itself to be totally unburdensome. Their vocation to pursue the divine Wisdom is confirmed, and they are communicated with a far higher knowledge than they would have expected. That is a mark of divine favour, introducing them to within the most universal and delicate love in which things now appear within the Tri-une God in their essential timelessness and endlessness. Amen.
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