Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time - November 5, 2023

11-05-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Ralph D'Elia

In you, Lord, I have found my peace. In the world in which we live, perhaps the search for peace can seem like a futile effort. There is so much noise, so many distractions, so much chaos. As ineffectual as it may seem, however, we continue the search. How much money is spent on self-help books, meditation apps, and therapy sessions? Perhaps to some end, these tools may be helpful. But what happens when they fail? How many people today seek to numb themselves with alcohol and drugs, or even by throwing themselves into the alternate reality of social media? In other words, our desire for peace cannot be extinguished.

In the readings the Church proposes to us today we see an interesting dichotomy, one that can be summed up in St. John XXIII’s episcopal motto: obedience and peace. This sage expression connects two concepts that perhaps, without the light of faith, would seem disconnected. But what does Scripture say?

If we were to stop at our first reading, we may get the wrong impression. Following the Babylonian Exile — which the Jewish people saw as a punishment for their waywardness — and their return to the Promised Land, we once again see the people beginning to stray. Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord is calling his people to conversion. If we view these words as the rebuke of a distant, angry god, we miss the point entirely. Instead, Malachi helps us to understand the nature of the relationship the people have with their God: “Have we not all the one father? Has not the one God created us? Why then do we break faith with one another, violating the covenant of our fathers?” (Malachi 2:10). Our relationship with God, then, is not of servants to their master, but of children to their father.

St. Paul continues with this familial language: “We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7b). St. Paul does not seek to impose upon the people, but to draw them into a relation with the Father so that they can be called children of God. Why is this important? Why is it necessary to differentiate the type of relationship we have with God when speaking of obedience?

The fundamental difference between a servant and a son is that the servant’s obedience to the master is for the good of the master, while the son’s obedience to the father is for the good of the son. Obedience and peace. When we understand the nature of our obedience to the Lord, we recognize the peace that can come from submitting ourselves to His will.

This is not an easy practice, though. It requires a great deal of humility. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). In seeking to create our own peace, we run the risk of elevating ourselves beyond that which we are. There is nothing more exalted in life than the birth of a child, simple, innocent, and completely dependent on his parents for life. Think of the peace that child experiences when he stops struggling and allows himself to rest in his mother’s arms, safe and secure.

We pray that the Lord may give us the grace today to humble ourselves like a dependent child who receives all that is good from his loving parents. It is only then that we can experience that peace for which our hearts yearn without ceasing. “O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; I busy not myself with great things, nor with things too sublime for me. Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:1–2). In you, Lord, I have found my peace.