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The Light of the World
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Mass
“No man can serve two masters” (Gospel). This is an impressive admonition to the baptized
to renounce all half-heartedness and the thought that, after all, it may be possible to serve
two masters, rather than to serve God exclusively. When we received baptism, we declared
ourselves for Christ; it is our duty to renew frequently the solemn declaration we then made,
thus sealing our baptismal vow with our lives. Two powers oppose each other: the spirit and
the flesh (Epistle), God and mammon (Gospel). Nobody can be loyal to both these masters.
Renouncing indecision and half-heartedness, in today’s Mass we must stand with God and
Christ. “How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the
courts of the Lord.” Here in the Catholic house of worship, the baptized find their home; here
they implore the Lord: “Behold, O God, our protector, and look on the face of Thy Christ; for
better is one day in Thy courts above thousands” (Introit). Today we again draw a line of separation
between ourselves and the world and make up our minds to follow Christ and to seek
the kingdom of God and the Spirit. “Behold, O God, . . . and look on the face of Thy Christ.”
Give us grace to separate ourselves from the world and mammon.
The Epistle gives us a vivid description of the realm of the flesh. It is “fornication, uncleanness,
immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths,
quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. . . . They who
do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God,” for they are contradicting their baptismal
vow. Granting that they may to some extent be Christians, they nevertheless try to serve two
masters; but “no man can serve two masters.”
The Epistle also describes the kingdom of the spirit. It is the kingdom of “charity, joy, peace,
patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. . . .
They that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences.” A true
Christian can serve only one cause, that of Christ and the kingdom of God; with all his strength
he tries to avoid the dangers threatening from the realm of the evil one. For this reason he is not
solicitous for the goods of this world and bodily necessities; but he seeks the kingdom of God
first, trying to live in justice before God, full of confidence that all other things shall be added
unto him. Good Christians live for their God and His service. They also strive, it is true, after cultural
values; but they do not lose themselves entirely in these things, nor are they separated from
God while trying to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. They realize that there
are higher goods and values than these. “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet” (Offertory).
The liturgy reminds us that during the celebration of the Mass, God looks favorably on the face
of His Christ; that is, His community. During the Consecration He comes down into our midst,
sacrificing Himself for our salvation. “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet.” “It is good to trust
in the Lord rather than to trust in princes” (Gradual). The Lord understands our needs, even
our temporal cares and solicitude, and during the Holy Sacrifice He gathers them into His most
Sacred Heart, making them His own and the object of His prayers before His Father in heaven.
“Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what
you shall put on. . . . Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore
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