THE  MIND  OF  GOD 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22^nd Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “The Mind of God.”

Today’s first reading ends with these two comments: "For 'who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?' But we have the mind of Christ." [Cf. 1st Corinthians 2: 10-16.]

I would assume that is the dream - that is the hope of all of us - all of us looking for a deeper spiritual life - to have the mind of Christ  - and then to go deeper - deeper into the hope that Christ will bring us into the mind of God.

Now that’s prayer - union and communion - holy communion - not the babbling of words - but getting out of the boat - heading for Christ - sinking deeper and deeper into the ocean of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. [Cf. Matthew 14: 22-33.]

TODAY’S GOSPEL

The first step then would be to follow Christ - to hear Christ in the Gospels - to picture the people who approached Christ and see who Christ is.

We wade into the gospel of Luke today  - moving out of Matthew last Saturday. Yesterday we missed the going into the synagogue in Nazareth to hear Jesus’ inaugural address in Luke - because yesterday was the feast of John the Baptist.

Luke will teach us so much more each year - the mercy of God especially in this year of mercy.  Open up the flood gates….

I loved today’s gospel for starters - that it’s the crazy guy - in the synagogue of Capernaum who first gets who Jesus is - that he shrieks in a loud voice “Leave us alone! What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.”

Can we be crazy enough to say to Jesus: “I know who you are: the Holy One of God.”

FIRST CORINTHINIANS

In today’s reading from 1^st Corinthians, Paul goes another way. He is going to let the Spirit bring us to the Father - to let the Spirit bring us into God.

Come Holy Spirit!

We slipped into the 1^st Letter to the Corinthians last Thursday - and we’ll have this letter of Paul till Saturday September 17^th. This is one of the blessings of daily Mass - we get a chance to hear and get into lots of the holy writings.

So hopefully we want to get into God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the Trinity. 

Augustine tells us he discovered from a little kid on the beach - that you can’t fit and fill the ocean into a little kid’s beach pail - any more than fitting the Trinity into our little minds. Yet we go to the beach to fill our pails and wade into the ocean. We come into church - we come into prayer - to fill our pale little self and wade into the edge of God.

Jesus often tells us, See me, see the father. Hear me, hear the father.

In his words for today, Paul is sort of going a different way - here in today’s first reading.

The commentators on today’s first reading tell us that we all have a spirit - pneuma in Greek. Paul then tells us that we also have a soul - psuche in Greek. Psuche is the life principle in every living thing. We have that gift of life. We see that life in dogs and cats, birds and fish. We know the difference between a dead fly and a live one - a dead another and a live another.

He tells us we have a choice to live by the pneuma or just the psuche.

To live by the spirit is to move into the Spirit of God who will bring us

CONCLUSION

This is long enough for a weekday Mass - so if you have time read today’s readings again.

Let me conclude with Paul’s words for today I hope I didn’t complicate his message up too much.

Brothers and sisters:

The Spirit scrutinizes everything,

even the depths of God.

Among men,

who knows what’s going on within us
except our spirit that is within?

Similarly,

no one knows what pertains to God

except the Spirit of God.

We have not received the spirit of the world
but the Spirit who is from God,
so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.

And we speak about them

not with words taught by human wisdom,
but with words taught by the Spirit,
describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

Now the natural man

[that is the one who lives only with his psuche]

does not accept

what pertains to the Spirit of God,
for to him it is foolishness,

and he cannot understand it,
because it is judged spiritually.

The one who is spiritual, however,

 can judge everything
but is not subject to judgment by anyone.

For "who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him"?"

But we have the mind of Christ.