The Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
The Reception of Alex Schattin into the Catechumenate
Dear brothers and sisters,
Every detail in the Sacred Scriptures is important and worthy of our pondering. Take, for example, the beginning of the Gospel passage just proclaimed. As a good historian, Saint Luke knew geography and topography are important to the understanding of human history.
Saint Luke tells us today Lord Jesus “came down with the Twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground” (Luke 6:17). He had previously “departed to the mountain to pray” (Luke 6:12). Throughout the Scriptures, the most astounding encounters with the majesty of God occur on the mountaintop, up in the air, as it were, where the earth reaches toward the heavenly realm. These are the moments we too often demand of God because we forget that such experiences were far from commonplace.
The mountaintop, however, is not the only place God encounters humanity. Because “the earth is the Lord’s and all it holds, the world and those who dwell in it,” God encounters his people high on the mountaintop of glory, deep in the valley of agony, and on the level ground of the ordinary joys and struggles of the human heart (Psalm 24:1). On the level ground, Jesus encountered “a great crowd of his disciples, and a large number of the people” (Luke 6:17).
What is more, those he encountered on the level ground were clearly those “who had been wounded by life.”[1] Among that throng of people are the poor, the hungry, the sorrowing, and the outcast (cf. Luke 6:20-22). The sick and those possessed by demons were also there (cf. Luke6:18). To put it perhaps more simply, each person he encountered hungered for love and companionship. Are we any different than them? Perhaps in one way we are: they knew their wealth, their food, their joy, their inclusion, their health, and their freedom could only be found in him who pronounced them blessed. Do we know the same?
What was it about that crowd that caused Jesus to stop and walk among them? What led him to be present to them? He saw what we too often overlook because his gaze looks into the human heart.
Jesus sees in these people before him the first recipients of this promise of joy; he sees people who will be put in a position to know God. They will come to know Him, not because He will change their destiny for the better, but because of the simple fact that He descended to them; because He descended into the depths of humanity and found them waiting for Him, with their desire to listen to Him and be saved. And there He stopped.[2]
Jesus stops for us, as well, but does he find us waiting for him?
There is one among us today who knows what that crowd knew, one who has also been wounded by life, one who has come to the Church requesting faith because it offers him eternal life, one who desires to be united with Christ Jesus.[3] There is one among us who is eagerly waiting for him.
Alex, Christ Jesus is not simply waiting for you. Rather, he is walking toward you and even with you, even if at times he seems to be a silent companion. He will be with you in moments of ecstasy on the mountaintop and when you weep in the valley of suffering; more importantly, though, he will be with you throughout your daily life, as well. He will always stop to be with you. Do not walk away from him.
If we again pay close attention to the words Saint Luke so carefully chooses to employ, we learn another important lesson. When Jesus descended from the mountain after being with the Father and landed on the level ground,
The first thing Jesus does is not to heal them, to help them, but to go among them and stop. Jesus did not come primarily to change people's lives by solving problems, healing everyone and always. He comes down and remains in their midst, making himself one of them.
Jesus comes down, stops and then begins to heal them. In short, he does not begin with his thaumaturgical work, through which he frees them from various illnesses, but with a Word that gives them a new perspective on their own lives.[4]
We always want Jesus to come to us and immediately remove whatever ails us, but this is not his way. He instead prefers to enter into our difficulties and to accompany us in every moment of life. The Word he gives crowd, the Word he gives us, is his very self. For what more could we possibly ask? What could be better than to be in the company of God?
Alex comes to us today asking for the greatest of the beatitudes, that of the knowledge of God. Alex comes to us seeking his salvation, which he knows can only come through a participation in the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, a union with him that comes through Baptism. He also comes, through the workings of divine providence, as a reminder to us of the supreme importance of knowing the Lord and of clinging to him.
Alex, the Word of God who took on our frail humanity in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is calling you to himself. This is cause for great joy and today you have set your feet upon the road that leads to union with him.
Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become “one body,” completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself.[5]
We should never resist this call; we should instead yield to the pull of his love.
J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.”[6] Alex, this increasing knowledge of God is the goal of your catechumenate, a knowledge that is to increase each day of your life until at the end your knowledge of God is complete because of your union with him. This is why Saint Bonaventure said, “If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing. If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything.” I ask you to learn Christ in such a way that you inspire us to know him more deeply until we are all united in him and can only give praise and thanks. Amen.
[1] Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, Meditation for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 16 February 2025.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Cf. Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, 51.
[4] Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, ibid.
[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, 14.
[6] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 310 to Camilla Unwin, 20 May 1969.
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