Using the Sunday Readings to reflect on our Journey in Faith in 2017 - 2018
September Readings from the Twenty Third to the Twenty Sixth week of Ordinary Time Year A
The way in which RCIA, the Journey in Faith, has been organised in our diocese is changing. Indeed, the model we have now is very different to the approach I remember from when I first became involved many years ago. Then it was parish based, now we are moving to groups of parishes or even partnership based. Then there were speakers available for meetings and a great variety of input was available; now most of the talks are done in house through lay people assisting a priest and with the use of more electronic support through DVD and PowerPoint presentations. Enquirers have changed, we still see people from other Christian denominations but we now have more people coming forward with less knowledge and understanding of faith. Catechists now play a more prominent role in the journey and take greater responsibility for their groups.
In September, most groups will begin their programmes. In our group, we now begin with an introductory evening followed by three weeks of evenings which are so constructed that, by the end of this first month, our enquirers have the basis of an understanding of how we celebrate our lives in Christ. These weeks introduce enquirers to the Catholic Church. They are given a tour of the church and become familiar with vessels and furniture, with actions and books. During this time, they are encouraged to come to Sunday Mass and the readings are explored and explained to them.
When organizing your journey, you need to be mindful of the dates of the principal feasts and plan ahead so that all aspects of life in the Catholic Church are covered for your enquirers. If you begin in the first week of September there is room for 11 sessions before the Feast of Christ the King and then 4 weeks in Advent before a break for Christmas. This would include a free week for school half term. Then restarting the first week in January there are 6 sessions before the beginning of Lent and 5 weeks in Lent. After Easter, there are 6 weeks of Mystagogia. allowing your group to finish their journey at the Feast of Pentecost. This would allow 21 weeks for enquiry and commitment, 5 weeks preparation for entry into the Catholic Church and finally 6 weeks after entry to cover the questions that arise from the new experience of life in the church.
During each of our sessions we review the readings from the previous weekend and, at the end of the evening, we introduce the readings for the following Sunday. In this way, we can help our enquirers through what can be a very confusing liturgy whilst building within them an understanding of the beauty of the Mass.
The Gospel readings for September are based on the Gospel of Matthew. We begin with two weeks of sermons on mercy and forgiveness followed by two ‘parable’ gospels. The Old Testament passages are from the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the book of Ecclesiasticus. The Second readings are from Saint Paul’s letters to the Romans and Philippians.
The readings for the 23rd Sunday may come a little early for your RCIA programme but, for completeness I have included them. Sometimes today’s readings can be confusing even for those who are already Catholic and they can cause great unease in those who hear them for the first time. It is necessary, especially at the beginning of the journey to be very careful about the way the readings are explained. The way in which someone new to the Word hears what is proclaimed can be very different from the way in which mature Christians hear the same Word. The idea of mercy and forgiveness is central to our faith. We accept that we are vulnerable to the false promises of the world and that we often fail to live up to the high standards we set ourselves. Today’s readings explore the theme of mutual love; love that flows from the Father to ourselves and through us to our neighbour. In the first passage from Ezekiel we are reminded that it is our duty to show our neighbour how to behave by our lives. If we fail to show by word or example then we are at fault. This may at first sight seem very unfair and, if taken literally, difficult to accept. Paul puts it differently; he looks on forgiveness as a form of love. If we love our neighbour then the commandments can be fulfilled. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt our neighbour. Matthew speaks of a discussion with a friend. The approach in the Gospel is through speaking with your brother about what is wrong and trying to come to an agreement. Perhaps in this difficult opening set of readings you should concentrate on the final paragraph of the Gospel. It speaks of prayer and the mass; “Where two or three are gathered in my name I shall be there with them”
The theme of forgiveness continues in the 24th Sunday. There is, it seems, a very great contrast in the language used; last Sunday the tone was very strict, today we have a much more reconciliatory tone. The passage from Ecclesiasticus reminds us that resentment and anger lead us into sin, forgiveness is the way to conquer sinful faults in yourself because the act of forgiveness is a prayer that rises to God. We must stop hating and live by the commandments. Paul reminds us that each of us has an influence on one another. No man is an island; alive or dead we belong to the Lord. The Gospel passage is a parable on forgiveness. Peter asks for a limit on forgiveness but Jesus will not set one. He then tells the parable of the forgiving King. The king has a servant who owes him a great deal but because he asks for leniency with his debt the king cancels the amount owed. However, the servant has a fellow servant who owes him a great deal less. When this servant cannot pay the wicked servant, he refuses to forgive the debt and treats him in a despicable way. When the king hears of this he rescinds the cancelling of the debt and hands the wicked servant over to the torturers. The passage ends on a salutary note; “and that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you forgive your brother from your heart”.
The theme of the 25th Sunday is “The generous love of God” and we begin with a beautiful reading from Isaiah which begins “Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near”. This reading reminds us that God is rich in forgiving; he does not copy our ways, he is always there waiting for us to go to him in prayer and follow him in our actions. Paul reminds us that by our lives we glorify God. We are His image to our neighbours; becoming a Christian means, for most people, a change in attitude. Change is not simply clothing that we can put on or take off, it is a real change, a transfiguration into a new person, one who seeks to serve God always. We finish with another parable. Perhaps tonight you could spend some time to discuss “story”. How we use stories to explain a truth about life and how Jesus used stories to help his listeners understand his message. Today’s parable reminds us that the reward of eternal life comes to those who are faithful to the end. That we are not judged on when we start but how we finish. That with God there are no favourites. This passage sometimes upsets cradle Christians who have lived their whole lives doing what they believe God wants but get upset when some come along at the last minute and appear to obtain the same reward. If God is generous why should we deny anyone the fruits of that generosity.
Obedience is the theme of the 26th Sunday. We tend to see obedience as a force applied so that we do something, sometimes something we do not want to do but are made to comply with. This is not the obedience which we consider in these readings. There are times when we have to do things we do not want to but we know they are the right things to do. Times when our own preferences are over-ruled by what is right. Perhaps what we could call righteous obedience. So, when Ezekiel speaks of the upright man renouncing his integrity to commit sin, he falls out of love for God. Then when he renounces sin he regains God’s favour. He puts himself “at right” with the Lord, he is obedient to God. For Paul, obedience is simply ‘living in Christ’. Paul speaks of Jesus as a man who was God yet allowed himself to be human because through dying for humanity he could be obedient to His Father’s will. Then, through His sacrifice he could bring all humanity to the love of his Father. Jesus uses a parable to teach us about human behavior. There are two sons, one rejects his father’s will but afterwards repents and complies with his father’s wishes. The other says he will do as his father asks but then fails to do it. He is setting a trap for the chief priests and the elders for they are the ones who behave as the second son; they say they are doing God’s work but fail to do so and the ones they despise, the tax collectors and prostitutes, who appear to be not doing the father’s will are actually following the will of God more closely by the way they are changing their lives.