31st July 2015: Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola
Lev 23:1,4-11,15-16,27,34-37; Mt 13:54-58
Moses, Ignatius and Jesus
We are reading these days at the Eucharist about Moses and the interventions that God made through Moses, the great prophet of God. Today we celebrate another prophet, Ignatius who has some characteristics that he shares with Moses.
Moses was a timely intervention that God had prepared for the sake of God's people. Ignatius was a timely intervention too; he comes in at the disturbed times of Reformation and initiates a Counter Reformation that revolutionises the whole Church and calls her to renewal.
Moses had a history of killing a person; but that was an outcome of the fundamental feeling for the oppressed people that was hidden in his heart and God makes use of that to raise him up as a prophet who would stand by God's people. Ignatius was a soldier, who had ambitions of rising in power and position; but God makes use of that warrior's spirit to raise a soldier of God, who would combat the wiles of the evil one and defend the Church, the people of God.
Moses gives rise to a new community of people, the hebrews who were bound by the Ten Commandments, the sign of their covenant with the Lord. Ignatius gave rise to a new company called the Company of Jesus, later called the Society of Jesus, who bound themselves to total obedience to the Holy Father and resolved to stand by the Church and defend the Church at all cost.
Today Jesus extends to us the same call, the call to be prophets. He warns us, it is not an easy call. It involves struggles which one cannot imagine. It involves rejection, insults and sometimes even persecution as we see it all the time around us. Jesus does not want to deceive us into some dreamland, he calls us today to live a life of commitment and conviction and warns us of all the consequences of such a choice. Are we ready?