{"id":161,"date":"2007-09-09T13:54:51","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T13:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/mass-at-st-stephens.html"},"modified":"2007-09-09T13:54:51","modified_gmt":"2007-09-09T13:54:51","slug":"mass-at-st-stephens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/mass-at-st-stephens.html","title":{"rendered":"Mass at St. Stephen’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pope’s homily from today’s Mass in Vienna:<\/a>
\nOf course, if we listen to today\u2019s Gospel, if we listen to what the Lord is saying to us, it frightens us: \u201cWhoever of you does not renounce all that he has and all links with his family cannot be my disciple.\u201d We would like to object: What are you saying, Lord? Isn\u2019t the family just what the world needs? Doesn\u2019t it need the love of father and mother, the love between parents and children, between husband and wife? Don\u2019t we need love for life, the joy of life? And don\u2019t we also need people who invest in the good things of this world and build up the earth we have received, so that everyone can share in its gifts? Isn\u2019t the development of the earth and its goods another charge laid upon us?<\/em>
\n\u00a0If we listen to the Lord more closely, if we listen to him in the context of everything he is saying to us, then we understand that Jesus does not demand the same from everyone. Each person has a specific task, to each is assigned a particular way of discipleship. <\/em>
\nIn today\u2019s Gospel, Jesus is speaking directly of the specific vocation of the Twelve, a vocation not shared by the many who accompanied Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem. The Twelve must first of all overcome the scandal of the Cross, and then they must be prepared truly to leave everything behind; they must be prepared to assume the seemingly absurd task of travelling to the ends of the earth and, with their minimal education, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a world filled with claims to erudition and with real or apparent education \u2013 and naturally also to the poor and the simple. They must themselves be prepared to suffer martyrdom in the course of their journey into the vast world, and thus to bear witness to the Gospel of the Crucified and Risen Lord. <\/em>
\nIf Jesus\u2019s words apply in the first instance to the Twelve, his call naturally extends beyond the historical moment into all subsequent centuries. He calls people of all times to count exclusively on him, to leave everything else behind, so as to be totally available for him, and hence totally available for others: to create oases of selfless love in a world where so often only power and wealth seem to count for anything. Let us thank the Lord for giving us men and women in every century who have left all else behind for his sake, and have thus become radiant signs of his love. We need only think of people like Benedict and Scholastica, Francis and Clare, Elizabeth of Hungary and Hedwig of Silesia, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and in our own day, Mother Teresa and Padre Pio. With their whole lives, these people have become a living interpretation of Jesus\u2019s teaching, which through their lives becomes close and intelligible to us. Let us ask the Lord to grant to people in our own day the courage to leave everything behind and so to be available to everyone.
\nYet if we now turn once more to the Gospel, we realize that the Lord is not speaking merely of a few individuals and their specific task; the essence of what he says applies to everyone. The heart of the matter he expresses elsewhere in these words: \u201cFor whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?\u201d (Lk 9:24f.). Whoever wants to keep his life just for himself will lose it. Only by giving ourselves do we receive our life. In other words: only the one who loves discovers life. And love always demands going out of oneself, it demands leaving oneself. Anyone who looks just to himself, who wants the other only for himself, will lose both himself and the other. Without this profound losing of oneself, there is no life. <\/em>
\nThe restless craving for life, so widespread among people today, leads to the barrenness of a lost life. \u201cWhoever loses his life for my sake \u2026 \u201d, says the Lord: a radical letting-go of our self is only possible if in the process we end up, not by falling into the void, but into the hands of Love eternal. Only the love of God, who loses himself for us and gives himself to us, makes it possible for us also to become free, to let go, and so truly to find life. This is the heart of what the Lord wants to say to us in the seemingly hard words of this Sunday\u2019s Gospel. With his teaching he gives us the certainty that we can build on his love, the love of the incarnate God. Recognition of this is the wisdom of which today\u2019s reading speaks. Once again, we find that all the world\u2019s learning profits us nothing unless we learn to live, unless we discover what truly matters in life.<\/em>
\nsnip
\nIn this Sunday\u2019s Opening Prayer we call to mind firstly that through his Son God has redeemed us and made us his beloved children. Then we ask him to look down with loving-kindness upon all who believe in Christ and to give us true freedom and eternal life. We ask God to look down with loving-kindness. We ourselves need this look of loving-kindness not only on Sunday but beyond, reaching into our everyday lives. As we ask, we know that this loving gaze has already been granted to us. What is more, we know that God has adopted us as his children, he has truly welcomed us into communion with himself. To be someone\u2019s child means, as the early Church knew, to be a free person, not a slave but a member of the family. And it means being an heir. If we belong to God, who is the power above all powers, then we are fearless and free.<\/strong> And we are heirs. The inheritance he has bequeathed to us is himself, his love. Yes, Lord, may this inheritance enter deep within our souls so that we come to know the joy of being redeemed. Amen.<\/em>
\nThis and the other addresses are a\u00a0bit more than, “Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children<\/font><\/a>” or “Pope demands respect for Sundays<\/font><\/a>.” We can only hope and pray that folks are willing to look beyond the headlines and be nourished by the holistic and powerful understanding of faith in Christ offered by Benedict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pope’s homily from today’s Mass in Vienna: Of course, if we listen to today\u2019s Gospel, if we listen to what the Lord is saying to us, it frightens us: \u201cWhoever of you does not renounce all that he has and all links with his family cannot be my disciple.\u201d We would like to object:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pope","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nMass at St. Stephen's - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/mass-at-st-stephens.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mass at St. Stephen's - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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