by Father Alonzo Cox
As a teenager growing up, I developed the practice of going to daily Mass during the summer. It was an opportunity for me to continue to grow and mature in my faith. It allowed me to begin developing a regiment of prayer and ultimately spending time before the Lord. One summer, I was fortunate enough to have a summer job in Manhattan, where many of the parishes in the area had multiple daily Masses.
Around the corner from where I was working for the summer was the Capuchin parish of St. John the Baptist.
I would go to Mass on my lunch hour. The church was filled with people from all over the city! People like me who were on their lunch hour, tourists, and the regular parishioners. I was so drawn to the tremendous faith that people had in making time to attend Mass and to spend some time with the Lord. One afternoon, as I was leaving Mass, there was a group of protestors outside the church. To this day, I do not recall what the demonstration was about, but they were yelling and, to a degree, lambasting and degrading those of us who were leaving the church after Mass. The person next to me said, “Thank God Jesus tells us that when we are degraded like this, our reward will be great in heaven.”
It is our faith that allows us to courageously proclaim and live out the Beatitudes we hear in today’s Gospel. Our faith in the Lord calls us to look at the Beatitudes as a guide to living lives of goodness and holiness. Just as Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God, the Lord teaches us that we must build up the kingdom of God here and now. To be a person of faith, we must look at the here and now. We see the poor, the hungry, the lonely, and the downtrodden in our community. The Lord reminds us that they are a reality in our world, but it will be different in the kingdom to come. As we build up the kingdom of God here, we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Christ as he leads us to the eternal kingdom.
St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading from his Letter to the Corinthians that Christ is preached as raised from the dead. It is the tremendous gift of our faith that allows us to proclaim Christ as raised from the dead. It is our faith that allows us to live in the sure and certain hope that Christ will come again in glory and majesty. To be a disciple of Christ, we must be people of faith and hope.
Our Scripture readings today allow us to reflect on the importance of faith, on making time to be with the Lord at Mass or adoration, and on allowing our hearts to be reconciled through the sacrament of reconciliation. The Beatitudes show us that Christ must be at the center of all we say and do, especially as we minister to the poor, the hungry, the lonely, and the downtrodden.
Christ continues to shower his abundant blessings upon all of us. It is our prayer that all of God’s people will rejoice and be glad, for the kingdom of God is theirs.
Readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 17:5-8
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26
Father Alonzo Cox is pastor of St. Martin de Porres Parish, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and coordinator for the Vicariate of Black Catholic Concerns for the Diocese of Brooklyn.