LEARNING CONSECRATION IN THE FAMILY

SAINT JOSAPHAT, BISHOP, MARTYR

Titus 2:1-8,11-14; Ps 37:3-4,18,23,27,29; Lk 17:7-10

The need to grow in our Consecration

The two readings present us with the Christian attitude we need to grow in our consecration. As we stressed in yesterday’s reflection, our sacrifice starts imperfect because it is only faith-driven. But it is meant to grow and develop as we enter deeper and deeper into the mystery of Jesus Christ. The mystery we are considering is important for every Christian; for those called to religious life and those called to marriage or family life. Both vocations are constitutive parts of the Church. Hence, Paul details the sacrifices in the family life as part of the Church. His emphasis yesterday was on the character of those called to play the role of elders or presbyterium in the community of the faithful. Today’s passage dwells on the members of a Christian family. By treating all these aspects together, Paul wants us to understand that we have received the same vocation to holiness of life or consecration. He encouraged Titus to preach the behaviour that flows from healthy doctrine. So, if we misbehave, we have not received a healthy doctrine from the elders/priests in charge of the community or we chose to close our ears to what they taught us from the Gospel. He prescribed the necessary qualities a person must have to be chosen or elected to act as an elder in yesterday’s passage. If that aspect has been taken care of, the other aspect is whether we are practicing what we have heard.

The right behaviour for older men and women, following from a sound understanding of the Gospel is as given. “The older men should be reserved, dignified, moderate, sound in faith and love and constancy.” On a closer examination of this required behaviour, we notice that they are modelled on that of the consecrated men or priests. It is not difficult to understand this since the early Church had no separate institutions or seminaries to train priests. God chooses them from among the older men in the community. Thus, the demand to study and understand the Gospel revelation was required of all and not restricted to those to be ordained. As we saw yesterday, the elder or priest/bishop is chosen from married men in the community. Thus, the moral standard was something handed on to younger men by the older men. They are more morally committed to the Lord and his Church because they have made appreciable progress in the knowledge of the mystery of Jesus Christ and deeper in love with Christ and the Church. The same applies to the women. “Similarly, the older women should behave as though they were religious, with no scandal-mongering and no habitual wine-drinking—they are to be the teachers of the right behaviour and show the younger women how they should love their husbands and love their children, how they are to be sensible and chaste, and how to work in their homes, and be gentle, and do as their husbands tell them, so that the message of God is not disgraced.” The Christian homes are the original convents before the foundation of religious life and convents. Hence, the same standard of morality is expected in Christian homes as in convents, the latter being the formalisation of the former.

In the Gospel, our Lord explains that sound moral behaviour is an obligation for us Christians, which should flow from our internalisation of the Gospel message. We are not to expect praise for being good Christians because all we have are given us from heaven: the Gospel message, the gift of faith, the spiritual life that commences with our profession of faith, the graces we need each day to grow the spiritual life, the opportunities to exercise our faith and make it grow, etc. We should be grateful for all these gifts and joyfully do the good work assigned to us each. “So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty.” The statement of our Lord leads us to the exemplary life of St. Josaphat. Born in what is now Ukraine, he went to work in Wilno and was influenced by clergy adhering to the 1596 Union of Brest. He became a Basilian monk, then a priest, and soon was well-known as a preacher and an ascetic. At a relatively young age, he became both the bishop of Vitebsk and archbishop of Polotsk. Josaphat faced a difficult situation. He tried to unite the Ruthenian Church with Rome through synods, catechetical instruction, reform of the clergy, and personal example. Josaphat won back part of the Orthodox in that area to the union. But many remained dissident; a mob of them shot and killed him in 1623 while on a pastoral visit to Vitebsk. He is the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.

Let us pray: Stir up in your Church, we pray, O Lord, the Spirit that filled Saint Josaphat as he laid down his life for the sheep, so that through his intercession we, too, may be strengthened by the same Spirit and not be afraid to lay down our life for others.