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The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Every day of the week, the Mass presents us with several readings from the Bible that correspond with one another, including the responsorial psalm.

Taken together, if you look carefully, you can discern the golden thread that ties each reading together. This overarching theme is what Christ wishes for us to meditate upon and therefore allow both it and the grace received in the Holy Eucharist to change us.

In the end, we are to be converted. This means that the way we think, how we act, what we say, even the very reasons for which we live become identical with Jesus. That is, we are to be continually transformed into the very image and likeness of the eternal Son of God, whose life we have received in the waters of Baptism. Our ultimate destiny and our ultimate happiness lies in Christ and his life.

With this in mind, what could be more practical, more reasonable, and more necessary than a fruitful, active participation in the Liturgy? This is the real meal deal. At each Mass, if we tend our minds and pray with our hearts, serious fruit can be borne that will have lasting effects outside of the Sunday liturgy.

Last week’s theme was the papacy. That is, we learned just where in Scripture we find the Biblical foundations for why we have a “pope.” The first reading from Isaiah 22 corresponded with the Gospel passage taken from Matthew 16.

This week, in his inspired and living word, Jesus asks for us to discern whether or not our Christian life has become a burning sacrifice as that of the Prophet Jeremiah in the first reading. As he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem due to Israel’s continuing idolatry, Jeremiah expresses that his mission brought him derision. He felt as if he were a living sacrifice. To Jeremiah, God’s truth is “like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.” He had to share it publicly, even to his own ridicule! (Jer. 20:9)

The psalmist expresses his awesome longing for the Lord, as if his soul were a parched land without water. To him, God’s love “is better than life” (Ps. 63: 4).

Saint Paul - who lived his message as a living, breathing martyr for the love of Jesus - urges us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. This is impossible without the self-abandonment of heartfelt prayer, the prayer of a Christian in love with Jesus, who discerns that God’s eternal love is better than natural life.

In the end, all of this is a participation in the self-offering of Jesus, expressed in today’s Gospel: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).