21st Sunday after Pentecost
In today’s epistle, St Paul reminds us that to be a Christian is to be a soldier. Like any soldier, we must have armour, helmet and weapons. Unlike the soldiers of this world, our weapons are of a spiritual nature: truth, justice, peace, faith, the Spirit, prayer. Armed with these, we overcome all the efforts of hell to conquer and destroy us.
It is in this context that we must read all the historical accounts of war in the Bible. They prefigure the struggle of the Church of God and of each soul in particular to defeat Satan. Such are the efforts of the Maccabees to reconquer Jerusalem, as well as those of the Jews to resist all their enemies at the various moments of its history. Today’s liturgy gives us an excerpt from the prayer of Mardochai, in which he affirms his absolute confidence that all things are in the hands of the divine will. O Lord, Lord, almighty king, all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou determine to save Israel. Thou hast made heaven and earth, and all things that are under the cope of heaven. Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that can resist thy majesty (Esther 13:9-11).
Like it or not, we are engaged in a tremendous battle of which our soul is the prize, but if our faith is firm, we are marvellously refreshed and recreated by the Holy Spirit. A powerful image of this found in the story of the three children thrown into the fiery furnace in Daniel chapter 3. Even though the furnace had been heated seven times more than was customary, the power of God transformed the situation into one of delight. The angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace: and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm (Daniel 3:49-50).
It is an amazing occurrence we are given to contemplate here. The three children are in the midst of roaring flames that should have killed them in an instant, but not only are they alive, they are even refreshed by a pleasant breeze and dew. The Fathers of the Church see in this the presence of the Holy Spirit who protects the soul thrown into the midst of deadly passions and gives it to sing the divine praises with a joyful heart.
We all know by experience that we are not able to avoid the motions of our passions. Even though there are moments of respite, sometimes even long periods of tranquillity, all of a sudden, anger and envy inflame us, gluttony and avarice entice us, lust and sloth allure us. We feel like we are being drawn into the abyss and there seems to be no escape. The presence of the Holy Spirit, however, in our soul, being that of Omnipotent God, is capable of allowing us to march unscathed through the torment of the fiery passions. This is why in the sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus that we sing at Pentecost, we say to this Divine Spirit, that he is in aestu temperies, that is to say, refreshment amidst the heat.
Nor are we able to avoid the persecutions of the just. That too is part and parcel of truly Christian life. There too the Holy Spirit is at work and can give true peace in the midst of the harshest reproaches. The offertory verse of today’s Mass portrays the holy man Job as being tortured by the enemy and scolded by his friends. There was nowhere to turn, but the Spirit of God strengthened him and gave him the words of wisdom that cause our admiration today.
In this warfare, we have a formidable weapon called mutual forgiveness. And that is the lesson of today’s Gospel. If the unforgiving servant had pardoned his fellow man as the lord pardoned him, all would have been well. And if we forgive our debtors, even our persecutors, it turns out that we are the true victors. It is in this light that we can read once again the marvellous story of the patriarch Joseph. His victory over his brethren who sold him into slavery is seen not so much in their kneeling prostrate before him as the lord of Egypt, as in his forgiving them their crime without seeking even to admonish them. Joseph proved himself stronger because he knew how to forgive. The victor in an argument is not the one who yells the loudest, but the one who is able to disarm the other by means of meekness and forgiveness. This example of Joseph came long before our blessed Lord promulgated the Law of the Gospel. By loving those who hated him, by doing good to those who did him so much harm, he was able to give us the example of how to win our spiritual battles with the sword of the Spirit and the armour of faith.
