Episode 96: Year B – 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we focus on four apologetical themes for this upcoming 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The first theme, which is the nature of justification as interior righteousness, comes from the entirety of the second reading, which is taken from James 3:16-4:3. The other three themes map on with specific details from the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 9:30-37. The topics are as follows: the divinity of Jesus, the Papacy, and the good of children.
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on four apologetical themes for this upcoming 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The first theme, which is the nature of justification as interior righteousness, comes from the entirety of the second reading, which is taken from James 3:16-4:3. The other three themes map on with specific details from the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 9:30-37. The topics are as follows: the divinity of Jesus, the Papacy, and the good of children.
Let’s start with the second reading, again, taken from James 3:16-4:3. Here’s what James writes,
Beloved:
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice.
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.
Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions
that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, there’s no one detail here that I want to focus on. Rather, it’s the flow of the entire passage that prompts us to think about the nature of justification as interior righteousness, which is apologetically significant because many Protestants from the Reformed tradition deny this tenet of Catholic belief.
Let’s start with James’ statement, “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.”
The Greek word for “righteousness” is dikaiosunē, which is related to the verb (dikaioō) that James uses in the previous chapter where he talks about how we are justified by works and not by faith alone: “You see a man is justified [Gk., dikaioutai] by works and not by faith alone” (2:24).
Now, for James, such justification is akin to the justification of Abraham. He writes,
“21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? . . 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness [the Greek word used here is dikaiosunē]”; and he was called the friend of God.”
Notice James quotes Genesis 15:6, which all Protestants acknowledge refers to Abraham being justified in the sight of God. Given the parallel between our justification and Abraham’s justification, it follows that our justification that James speaks of in James 2:24 is justification in the sight of God.
This justification, or righteousness, that James speaks of in 2:22-24 sets the stage for the “fruit of righteousness [Gk. dikaiosunē]” in 3:18, thereby giving us reason to conclude that what James is speaking of with “fruit of righteousness” is our state of justification as a Christian.
With this in place, we can now see how James envisions our state of justification rooted in our interior righteousness. And we can do so in two ways.
First, the whole passage involves James contrasting our state of justification, again, signified by the “fruit of righteousness,” manifested in peaceful behavior, with an interior state of unrighteousness. He writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.” Jealousy and selfish ambition are unrighteous states of the heart.
He also describes this interior state of unrighteousness as our passions making war with our members, as well as a place of covetousness, murder, and envy. For James, it’s these corrupted or unrighteous interior states of the heart that lead to the external acts of war and violence.
In the passage for our second reading, James contrasts our state of justification, the fruit that is righteousness, with these interior sinful, or unjust, states of the heart, the implication being that our state of justification is the opposite of these interior states of unrighteousness. Given this contrast, it follows that our state of justification is constituted by an interior state of righteousness, or justice. Justification, therefore, is a matter of the heart—that’s to say, justification is rooted in the interior righteousness that God brings about within us.
Now, it’s not only this contrast with the interior state of corruption that supports our claim that justification is rooted in the interior righteousness that God brings about within us. James gives us yet another clue.
Notice, he connects our state of justification, the fruit that is righteousness, with something we do: cultivating peace. Our good work of cultivating peace, therefore, has a role to play in our justification.
For us as Catholics, this would not be applicable to the initial stage of justification, since the Church infallibly teaches that no work prior to justification can have any meritorious value. And, of course, this is simply following Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 2:8-9, where he teaches that we are saved by grace and not by works.
Therefore, the works that contribute to our justification presuppose that we are already justified. And it’s that stage of justification where our good work of cultivating peace comes into play.
But how does this apply to justification being interior righteousness? If our good work of cultivating peace contributes to us being “justified,” and cultivating peace involves a proper ordering of our heart and mind to God’s will, then it follows that our being “justified” is rooted in the proper ordering of our heart and mind to God’s will, which just is a state of interior righteousness.
So, we have two ways to how James envisions justification to be grounded in interior righteousness, which, of course, is something that God brings about by grace. And given that James teaches this, we can conclude that the Reformed Protestant view of justification being merely forensic is false.
Okay, now we can turn to the Gospel reading, which, again, is taken from Mark 9:30-37. Here’s what we read:
Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
There are three details that I want to focus on here. The first is Jesus’ prophecy that he will rise on the third day. Not much to say here except that we have an instance of Jesus’ prophetical knowledge, which provides us reason to think Jesus is who he says he is, Lord. The prophecy, and the fulfillment thereof, vindicates such a claim.
The second detail is the discussion that the apostles had about who would be the greatest among them. What’s interesting is that Jesus never denies that there is a greatest, or one who is first. He simply provides clarification as to what the role of being the greatest involves—namely, servant leadership.
Luke’s parallel account of this conversation sheds further light. First, he contrasts the leadership role that the apostles are asking about with that of the kings of Gentiles, saying, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over [their subjects] . . . but not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.” Notice, Jesus doesn’t deny there is a leader, but seems to affirm it. And he goes on to compare such leadership with his own: “I am among you as one who serves.” So, there is a leader among the apostles just as he is the leader.
Now, who might that leader be? Well, as Catholics, we argue it’s Peter. Of course, more work must be done to justify this claim. But, at least we can see that Jesus does intend there to be a leader in our Gospel reading for this upcoming 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B.
The third detail is Jesus’ statement, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”
The only thing I’ll say here is that Jesus seems to be calling us to have a general disposition of being open to children. This is a message that many, including Catholics sitting in the pews on Sundays, need to hear. Although most married couples haven’t rejected children outright, some still have a negative disposition toward them, being inclined to have their one or two and then their good. This is evident in the majority of couples who use contraception.
Now, here me: I’m not saying that every married couple must have more than one or two kids. The Church teaches that there can be just reasons for why a married couple would avoid pregnancy, assuming that they are doing so in accord with what the natural moral law demands of our sexuality.
But I do think we can all benefit from a little self-examination as to whether I live out Jesus’ words here, and receive children with gratitude, “in the name of Jesus.”
So, although this is not really apologetical in nature, I think it’s definitely worth reflecting on.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that’s all the time we have for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, give us quite a bit of material for apologetical discussions.
- James provides us with material to defend our belief that justification is rooted in the interior righteousness that God brings about within us,
- The prophetical knowledge of Jesus, and consequently his divinity,
- The leadership role of Peter among the apostles, and
- The need to have a general disposition of openness to children in our lives.
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I hope you have a blessed 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. Until next time, God Bless!