Friday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 9:18-22

After the incident concerning Herod, which as we saw is a pointer to things yet to happen, the disciples return from their mission. What follows is omitted from our readings. In fact, Jesus took them to a quiet place where they could rest and reflect on what they had been doing. However, they were pursued by the ever-hungry crowds and Jesus fed them with the Word of God, with his healing and finally, through his disciples (“You give them something to eat”) with bread and fish. The story is another step in the Twelve’s involvement in the mission of Jesus, and it leads into today’s reading.

In this reading, we find Jesus praying alone. As we have already seen, it is something that Luke mentions a number of times about Jesus, especially before significant events in his public life. Some people might wonder what Jesus would have to pray about. Such a question may reveal a rather limited idea of prayer, e.g. as something you do when you want to get something from God or when you are depressed or in trouble of some kind.

But prayer is ultimately getting in touch with God and that is something that Jesus would surely want to do quite a lot. Prayer is also a way of discovering just where God’s will enters one’s life, and that is something that was always of supreme importance to Jesus because:

The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)

Jesus, we are told, was not altogether alone. His disciples were with him. Were they praying too? Later, they will ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.

All of this is Luke’s introduction to a high point in all the Synoptics: the revelation of Jesus’ true identity. From the other Synoptics we know that it took place at Caesarea Philippi, a mixed Jewish-Gentile region outside Herod’s territory.

Jesus asks them:

Who do the crowds say that I am?

They give various answers: John the Baptist (resurrected) or Elijah, expected to return to announce the imminent coming of the Messiah, or some other of the earlier great prophets.

But then he asks:

But who do you say that I am?

Peter, answering for all of them, replies simply:

The Messiah of God.

Some translations of the Bible use the Greek word Christos, Christ. ‘Christ’ is not a name, but a title meaning ‘annointed one’. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. The anointing refers to someone who is king and, in this case, the One who is anointed the Saviour King of Israel.

In short, Peter is saying that the man standing before him is the long-awaited Saviour of the Jewish people. It is a dramatic development in Jesus’ relationship with his disciples.

Jesus’ next words at first sight seem unexpected and contradictory. He strictly orders his disciples not to say anything of this to anyone. Surely they should be doing the exact opposite? But the people are not yet ready for this revelation. They have a very limited and preconceived idea of what the coming of the Messiah will mean. They see him in very political terms as a kind of national liberator who will drive out and destroy the Romans and all enemies of the Jewish people, and restore the past glories of Israel.

Even after the Resurrection, Luke has Jesus’ own disciples asking him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)

Their ideas, even at this late date, are no different from the ordinary people’s. At this point in the Gospel, they must be secretly proud that they, of all people, are the first to be privileged with this information.

If that was the case, they were very quickly to be disillusioned. Almost immediately Jesus goes on to say that:

The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

This is the first time in Luke that Jesus refers to himself as “the Son of Man”. It occurs eighty-one times in the four Gospels and is only used by Jesus of himself. In the book of Daniel (7:13-14) we see the ‘Son of Man’ pictured as a heavenly figure who is entrusted by God with authority, glory and sovereign power. Jesus’ use of the title in a Messianic sense is made clear by its close proximity to Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Christ or Messiah.

We know from Matthew and Mark that the disciples—in particular Peter—were dumbfounded when they heard Jesus’ words and wanted to reject them entirely. It was totally against all their expectations of the Messiah, apart from the fact that they could not bear to have those things happen to their Master.

To them, it simply did not make any sense. First, Jesus as Messiah was going to be rejected and handed over by the leaders of their own people. Second, he was going to go through a terrible and humiliating death. His being “raised” on the third day—whatever that meant—did little to alleviate their confusion.

But as Mark indicates, this was a further step in their relationship with Jesus. They now recognised him as the Messiah, but next they had to learn just what kind of Messiah he was going to be, and how he was going to liberate not only his own people, but people all over the world.

We, too, of course, have to keep going through the same process. We, too, have to deepen our understanding of the true identity of Jesus. We have to be able to understand how the suffering and dying Messiah is not only the way he needed to go to reconcile us with God, but that we too have to be ready to go the same way. We have to learn to see the redemptive and healing power in the pains, sufferings, disappointments and failures of our lives.

Read more

Saturday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 11:27-28

Today’s short passage is linked to yesterday’s because it begins:

While he was saying this…

After Jesus has effectively silenced his opponents and their ridiculous accusations:

…a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!”

It was a beautiful tribute first to Jesus himself, but also to his mother (someone, presumably, totally unknown to the speaker). In more contemporary terms, we might rephrase it as, “May God bless the woman that produced such a fine son as you!” This woman is clearly one of the crowd that has been amazed at the work Jesus is doing—in contrast to the cynical unbelievers who want to destroy Jesus.

And indeed, we, on a very different level, do recognise the extraordinary privilege that was Mary’s to be the Mother of God’s only Son. We pray to Mary:

Blessed are you among women…

But Jesus turns the woman’s words around:

Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!

Greatness in God’s eyes lies not in gifts and privileges that have been granted, but in the response that is given to God.

The true source of Mary’s greatness was not in her being chosen to be Jesus’ mother, nor even in her preservation from original sin, but in that unconditional ‘Yes’ she gave to the angel at the Annunciation. This ‘Yes’ she faithfully honoured to the day she stood in grief at the foot of the cross. She heard the word and she kept it—to the very end.

Some of the people we saw Jesus arguing with yesterday were powerful and influential in their society; they were the ‘great’ ones of that society. But they neither heard, nor saw, nor kept the word of God, although they claimed to be experts in it.

And even Jesus himself was not great just because of his powers over demons or his ability to silence his accusers, but because he, too, heard the word of his Father and kept it. There was a total identity between what his Father wanted and what Jesus was saying and doing.

For us, too, it must be exactly the same. That is the only greatness that matters, the only greatness that we need be concerned about.

Read more

3 January – First Reading

Commentary on 1 John 2:29—3:6

We now move on to the second part of John’s letter: “that we should be called children of God”.  In this part, there are three ‘conditions’ to be fulfilled if we are to be truly children of God.  The first condition, part of which we read today, is to ‘break’ with sin. 

It is a reading full of hope, and begins with an introduction to this part of the letter. We are reminded that we are the special objects of God’s love, and in a very real sense, can be called his children. And, if that is what we already are, what is in store for us in the life that is to come when we will see the Father face to face? 

What we do know is:

…when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

Whatever true holiness is seen in us is always a reflection of God’s own holiness, because he is the one and only source of all that is true and good. If we are faithful now, we are endeavouring to be like Jesus, but face to face with our God, we will be utterly transformed and united with him.

And when that truth and love, which is poured into our hearts, is allowed to express itself through our words and actions, then we become in a very special sense God’s children, true reflections of our Father. If the world, that is, the world of sin and moral anarchy, does not recognise us for what we are, it is because it has not been able to see the presence of God in Jesus and his life.

The greatest sign of God’s love is the gift of his Son (see John 3:16), which has made us true children of God. True knowledge of God (not the Gnostic kind) will ultimately be gained—with God’s help—by living virtuous lives in imitation of Jesus, God’s Son.

And if being God’s children is a source of so much happiness and consolation now, imagine what the future life will be like! Again:

What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

That is something that is totally beyond our capacity right now.

Some of the mystics who have been given glimpses of the reality of God confess themselves utterly helpless in trying to express their experiences in words. But it has given them a terrible longing to have that full vision which is promised to us.

We now come to the ‘first condition’. If we are to have that face-to-face experience, there has to be a total break from everything that is contrary to God’s way. To prepare to enjoy that vision—the one and only goal of all living—is, with God’s help, to remain single-minded (pure) in our quest. 

Sin is to be removed from our lives. “Sin is lawlessness” not just in the sense of failing to keep rules and regulations, but in failing to live according to the deepest demands of truth and love. To be without truth and love is to create huge obstacles to having that face to face vision with the Source of all Truth and Love. 

We have here a reference to the activity of the antichrist, expressed as hostility towards God and a rejection of Christ. Christians do not escape sin, but realise that when they sin, they cease to have fellowship with God.  Virtue and sin distinguish the children of God from the children of the devil. 

For the Gnostics, behaviour was not important; only the ‘right’ knowledge was what mattered. But it is not possible to be both close to Jesus, and to live a life of sin:

No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

This is again directed against those Gnostics who felt that the only thing that mattered was to have this special ‘spiritual’ knowledge, and that what happened in our bodies was of no consequence.  Immoral acts could be indulged in with impunity. 

The secret of being free from sin in that sense is to submit totally to the Way of Jesus, who takes away all sin in those who turn to him in a spirit of reconciliation:

No one who abides in him sins…

As we will see later in the letter, love and sin are incompatible. Let us then pray that we may remain ever close, intimately close, to Jesus.

Read more

Wednesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 19:11-28

Immediately following the story of the tax collector Zacchaeus comes a parable about the use of what God has given to us. Jesus and his disciples are near Jerusalem where:

…they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

How right they were! It was indeed going to appear in Jerusalem, but not at all in the way they expected—with the political and military defeats of enemies. As the beginning of Acts reveals, they “were hoping” that Jesus was about to restore the political kingdom of Israel. In time, they would learn that a kingdom of far greater significance was coming into being and that they would play an important part in its inauguration.

The parable which follows differs significantly from a similar one of the talents in Matthew (25:14-30). In Luke, too, there may be two parables fused into one—that of the coins and that of a disputed claimant to a royal throne (symbolising Jesus himself).

Jesus begins the parable by saying that a man of noble birth went to a far country to have himself appointed king and then return. This may have reminded his hearers of Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, who went to Rome in the year 4 BC to get himself appointed king. On his return, he succeeded his father. It may seem a rather unusual procedure, but the Herods used to go to Rome in order to get appointed as rulers over the Jews.

Similarly, Jesus is soon to depart and in the future will return as King. During his absence, his servants are entrusted with their master’s affairs.

In the parable, the king, before leaving, gives ten units of money to each of ten servants and tells them to invest the money until his return. The coins are called ‘pounds’ (or minas in some translations) and were each worth about 100 drachmas, where a drachma was the equivalent of one day’s wages. Each coin then was the equivalent of about three months’ wages. This is a much smaller sum than those in Matthew’s parable. The other difference is that there are ten people and each one gets the same amount. Recall that in Matthew’s parable there are three people who get respectively 10, 5 and 1 talents.

In the parable, we are told that the people despised this man and did not want him as their king. In fact, a Jewish delegation had gone to Rome protesting at the idea of Archelaus becoming king. In the same way, Jesus was soon to go away and return some day as King and Judge. While he is ‘away’, his ‘servants’ will be entrusted to take care of their Master’s affairs. But others will reject him completely.

When he returned, the new king asked each of his servants to give an account of their trading, just as Jesus will do at the Judgement. One had made another ten pounds on his capital of ten, and he was rewarded by being put in charge of ten towns. Another had made five, and was rewarded with five towns. But a third came along with just the capital he had been given (i.e. the original ten pounds). He had not traded the money for fear of losing it, but kept it in a safe place. He was afraid of the king, of whom he said:

…you take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.

The king became angry. He did not dispute his ruthlessness, but he said that the man could at least have lent the money and gotten some interest. He ordered the ten units be taken from him and given to the one who had already made ten—this man was obviously good at business. The lesson of the parable is then spelt out by Jesus:

I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

The last sentence of the parable, in a way, describes a third set of people in the story. The first set consists of those who used their coin well and profitably. The second is the one who kept his ten coins and carefully guarded them. But finally, there are those who did not want this man as king and these are executed:

But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to rule over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.

They are the greatest losers of all, and it probably points to those Jews who rejected Jesus as King and had their city destroyed, referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. The punishment of those who rebelled and actively opposed the king was much more severe than that of the over-cautious servant.

The context of the whole parable is emphasised by the last sentence of today’s reading:

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

We are coming near the end of our story and the climax to which it is headed.

The parable points to all those who are being called by Christ. It is the final part of one large unit (Luke 18:18—19:28) which includes the story of a rich man with good intentions, but not able to respond to Jesus’ call; a prediction of Jesus’ passion not understood by the disciples; the story of a blind man who, after having his vision restored, becomes a follower of Christ; the story of another rich man who was willing generously to share his wealth with the poor; and ending with the parable of the proper use of what we have.

The first rich man claimed to follow the commandments (the Law), but wanted to keep his money safely in his own possession. He is like the man who buried his money and did not invest it in the love and service of his brothers and sisters, especially those in need. The other, Zacchaeus, generously shared his wealth with the poor. He had invested his money well—he had learned to see. Anyone who can really see where Jesus is has no alternative but to go his Way. Finally, there are those who totally reject Christ and all that he stands for. Their blindness is total.

Today we are asked to reflect on the special gifts that God has given to each one of us and how we are using them for the benefit of brothers and sisters in need. What are our attitudes to money, to property, to professional status, academic or other qualifications or other gifts with which we are endowed? Where do we invest our gifts and our talents, both inborn and acquired?

The message is clear: the more we invest, the more we will gain. We cannot stand still or just cling to what we have. The only way to gain is to let go, to give and to share. Good examples of this would be St Francis of Assisi or St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa). It is an attitude very foreign to many people’s way of thinking, who feel that life consists of amassing more and more, that security is in having.

But the gospel way is really the only way that makes sense. It is not in collecting, but in sharing that generates wealth, the wealth that really matters—freedom, security and peace.

Read more

Thursday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Exodus 19:1-2,9-11,16-20

We begin today the story of the great encounter with Yahweh at Mount Sinai—a mountain whose exact location is in doubt. Its importance was in its holiness and not in its geographical location. According to the Jerusalem Bible commentary:

“Tradition locates it in the southern region of the Sinai peninsula at Jebel Musa (2,500 m), the northern rock-face of which dominates a barren plain surrounded by mountains. This locality admirably satisfies the data of the text. It was at Sinai, also called Horeb or ‘Mount of God’, that Moses received his vocation and had his second meeting with his father-in-law Jethro. At Sinai, the Law was given and the Covenant concluded. At Sinai, God placed himself at the head of his people for the journey to the Promised Land. It was to Sinai that Elijah the prophet returned as to the pure spring of divine revelation. Sinai also stands for the Old Covenant that was eventually superseded (see Gal 4:24).”

It was three months after leaving Egypt that the Israelites arrived in the desert of Sinai and set up camp there. In a paragraph omitted from our reading, God speaks to Moses with a message for the people. He reminds them of all that he has done for them:

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Exod 19:4)

Though the whole earth belongs to God, if the Hebrews listen to his voice and observe the covenant he has made with them, they shall be his special possession, dearer to him than all other people.

…you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. (Exod 19:6)

In this context, “holy” means ‘set apart’.

When Moses passed on the message to the people, they responded together:

All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. (Exod 24:3)

Sadly, this is a promise they will continually make—and break.

We now come back to our reading. The Lord tells Moses that he is going to come to him in a thick cloud. When the people, who have grumbled so much against Moses, will hear God speaking to him (but not able to see anything), they will have their trust in Moses restored.  At the same time, the people are told to prepare themselves on that day and the next. They are to wash their clothes and to be ready for the third day, but they are not to have any sexual intimacy during these days. They were told:

…on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

On this day, the great theophany takes place. God is not seen face to face, but his presence is evident through all the symbolic signs of thunder and lightning, a heavy cloud and trumpet blasts.

Not surprisingly, the people are filled with fear and trembling. The thunderstorm is the chosen scene of God’s self-manifestation; the gale is his herald’s trumpet, the thunder his voice, the cloud and the fire the signs of his presence. (Compare the encounter of Elijah with God in 1 Kings 19:11-12.) The purpose of this theophany is not only to show God’s mastery of nature, but also his majesty, his sublimity and the religious awe that he inspires. 

Moses then led the people to the foot of the mountain. God had earlier indicated the limits of their approach. Anyone who even touched the holy mountain itself was himself not even to be touched, but to be killed from a distance by stoning or by being shot with an arrow. This also applied to their animals. 

Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord came down on it in fire. The smoke rose as if from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently, as if there was an earthquake. The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder, while Moses spoke with God and God replied with peals of thunder. ‘Thunder’ here may mean the voice of God, which sounded like thunder.

Finally, when God came down on the mountain, he invited Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up to meet him. We are preparing for what is perhaps the most awesome moment in the whole of the Hebrew Testament. The stage is now set for God to communicate his Law to the people, the Law which will seal the covenant between the two sides. We see here the paradoxical remoteness of our transcendent God and, at the same time, his closeness in speaking intimately with Moses.

Obviously, the images here are not to be taken literally. They are intended to convey the awesomeness, the unapproachability and unknowability of God, his simultaneous transcendence and immanence.

Strangely, those who are most aware of this are those who have been closest to him—the great mystics like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross or Ignatius Loyola. The nearer they come to God, the deeper their awareness of his total transcendence. Thomas Aquinas will also say that every statement made about God must be at once denied—God is Truth, but not the truth that we can reach; God is Love, but love far beyond our most intense experience of it. At the same time, God is closer to us than breathing, and penetrates the deepest recesses of our being. Where God is concerned, familiarity breeds awe—but not fear. It also generates an indescribable love.

Read more

Saturday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 16:3-9,16,22-27

We come today to the end of the abridged reading of this great letter of Paul to the Romans.  Even four weeks of readings hardly do justice to it, and many important passages have had to be omitted.  But some of them will appear in other parts of the Church’s liturgy.

In today’s final reading, Paul sends his greetings to a large number of people.  Even though he has not yet been to Rome, he knows many of the Christians there as he had met many of them in his travels around Asia Minor and Greece. The first people on his list are Prisca (Priscilla) and Aquila, whom he calls “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus”.  They were not only partners with him in proclaiming the gospel, but also worked in the same trade of tentmaking.  He first met them in Corinth as Acts tell us:

…Paul left Athens and went to Corinth [in the south of Greece]. There he found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because [Emperor] Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. (Acts 18:1-3)

He expresses his thanks and that of all the gentile churches for their having saved his life.  This was possibly during the riot of the silversmiths in Ephesus (see Acts 19:23-41).   They had rioted because they felt Paul’s preaching would threaten their business of making silver images of Artemis, the goddess of the great temple in Ephesus. Paul wanted to confront them, but some of the disciples (including Prisca and Aquila?) persuaded him to stay away from certain trouble.

And he sends his greetings to the whole ‘church’ at the house of Prisca and Aquila.  At that early period, ‘churches’, or Christian communities in a particular place, would meet in the house of a community member.  Church buildings would only come later when numbers got so big that family homes were no longer big enough.

There are also greetings to other members of the Roman church:

• Epaenetus, who is described as “the first convert in Asia for Christ”, i.e. the first convert from the Roman province of Asia (now a part of modern Turkey).
• Mary, “who has worked very hard for you”.  There are six different women called Mary in the New Testament, but apart from this reference, it is not known who this one is.
• Andronicus and Junias, described as:

  …my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

They are “apostles” in the wide sense of active evangelisers and not in the strict sense used of the Twelve chosen by Jesus.  They also became Christians before Paul did, and had also been in prison with him at some stage.  We know that Paul was imprisoned several times.

As well, also mentioned are:

• Ampliatus, “my beloved in the Lord”.
• Urbanus, “our coworker in Christ”.
• Stachys, “my beloved”.

In the verses immediately following, but not included in our reading, there are more names mentioned. Paul tells all to greet each other with a “holy kiss”.  Justin Martyr (AD 150) tells us that the ‘holy kiss’ was a regular part of the worship service in his day.  It is mentioned also at the end of the First and Second Letters to the Corinthians, in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Peter.  It still exists in some Christians churches, including the ‘Sign of Peace’ before Communion in the Catholic liturgy. Some people do actually kiss or embrace.

Finally, he tells the Romans that all the churches of Christ send their greetings. This greeting, not found elsewhere in Paul’s letters, indicates a special respect for the church in Rome. This is followed by some final greetings from those who are with Paul.  One of these is from Tertius, who says he is the one committing the letter to writing as Paul’s secretary.  He is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament. There is a greeting from Gaius, who is Paul’s host in Corinth and who also ‘hosts’ the whole of the local church, which meets in his house.  He is usually identified with Titius Justus, a God-fearer, in whose house Paul stayed while in Corinth.  His full name would be Gaius Titius Justus.

The last two greetings are from Erastus, the city treasurer, and Quartus.  At Corinth, archaeologists have discovered a reused block of stone in a paved square, with the Latin insciption: “Erastus, commissioner of public works, bore the expense of this pavement”.  This may refer to the Erastus mentioned here.  He may also be the same person referred to in Acts as a companion of Timothy and in the Second Letter to Timothy. Because the name was common, his identity is not certain.

Paul closes the letter with a doxology of praise to the Father and the Son, although it appears earlier in the letter in some manuscripts or is omitted altogether.  It is a solemn presentation of the main points of the Letter. It is a prayer to God who can make the Romans strong in accordance with the gospel Paul preaches and following the proclamation of Jesus Christ and in harmony with that ‘mystery’ which had been kept secret for so long, but which now, as the prophets foretold, is revealed.  This ‘mystery’ is God’s plan to bring salvation to the whole world through the Incarnation of his Son and his suffering, death and resurrection.  He wants them to be firmly grounded in the teaching he gave and firm in the living out of their faith.  And the gospel that Paul preaches is not something different, but it is based on the direct revelation he received.

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“The idea of a ‘mystery’ of wisdom, long hidden in God and now revealed, is borrowed by Paul from the Jewish apocalypse, but he enriches the content of the term by applying it to the climax of the history of salvation; the saving cross of Christ; the call of the pagans; to this salvation preached by Paul and finally the restoration of all things in Christ as their one head.”

This ‘mystery’ of the gospel message, still known only to a relative few, is now to be proclaimed to the whole world:

…made known to all the gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith…

Lastly, the doxology proper:

…to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

God is the origin of all wisdom and so for ever is to be given glory through Jesus Christ.

What comes out of these greetings in both directions is the strong sense of fellowship and solidarity which existed among the early Christians.  It is something we need very much to cultivate in our very individualistic societies and, in some cases, very individualistic church gatherings.

This is needed too if we are to strengthen each other in our Christian faith.  A solitary Christian is a contradiction in terms.  It is not surprising that so many Catholics, left to their own devices, fall away and develop very distorted ideas of what their faith is about.  One way of correcting that is to go through the whole of this Letter carefully with the guidance of a good commentary.

Read more

Wednesday of Week 30 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 13:22-30

The Gospel today speaks in terms of predestination, of those who will ultimately be saved.

Jesus is steadily making his way to Jerusalem, passing through many towns and villages. It seems that at this time he is in the region of Perea, on the east side of the Jordan, on his way to Jericho and Jerusalem. He is approached by a man who wants to know if only a few will be saved. One has the feeling that he expects the answer to be ‘Yes’ and that he regards himself as being among the chosen ones.

Jesus does not answer the question directly. Rather, he implies that those who are saved are not necessarily those who regard themselves as God’s chosen ones, but those who walk a certain path in life. That path, of course, is precisely what he is proposing through his own life and teaching. It is a “narrow door”, he says, which many will not be able to enter:

Once the [Master] of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’

Those on the ‘outside’ will counter by saying:

We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.

But still the Master says:

I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!

Jesus was often accused of eating and drinking with sinners, but it did them no good unless, as a result of their contact with him, they changed their way of living.

It is clearly not enough to be just in Christ’s company or to have heard his teaching. For example, just being a baptised Catholic or routinely fulfilling a few religious obligations (like being physically present at Sunday Mass) is not the same as really being a part of what is going on. To go in the “narrow door” is to be actively committed to living the gospel in one’s daily life.

Jesus’ next words are directed to some of the Jews, but to Christians also:

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out.

They will see them enter the Kingdom, not because of their status, but because of their commitment to serving God.

On the other hand, many of Jesus’ hearers will be rejected because they relied only on their ethnic and religious origins. But that is not enough. In the meantime:

…people will come from east and west, from north and south, and take their places at the banquet in the kingdom of God.

They will see these gentile outsiders from the four corners of the earth, people they rejected and despised, going ahead of them into the Kingdom, again because these people heard the call of God and entered by the “narrow door” that leads to life.

This was already being realised in the early Church as more and more Gentiles heard the gospel message, were baptised and many died as martyrs. Jesus even says, at the end of today’s reading:

Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.

It would be wrong for us to read this Gospel as of mere historic interest—it is addressed directly to each one of us. It is vital that we, as Catholics, do not think that, simply on the basis of our membership in our Church, we are somehow on an inside track and that, if the worst came to the worst, we could always get a confession or a final anointing to set things straight. That would be very presumptuous and very dangerous on our part. We could very well be in a position to hear those terrible words:

Truly I tell you, I do not know you. (Matt 25:12)

Each day and every day of our lives we have to walk through that narrow door, that door of faith and trust and love for Jesus and our brothers and sisters. Only then will we find ourselves joining the patriarchs, the prophets and all the saints in that life of unending happiness and union with our God for which we were made.

Read more

Saturday of Week 4 of Lent – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 11:18-20

Jeremiah, as a prophet of God, is the target of vicious conspiracies which want to wipe him out. In 622 BC, King Josiah of Judah undertook a religious reform (described in 2 Kings 23) after the Book of the Law was discovered, having lain hidden for years. It seems that Jeremiah took an active role in the reform. By championing the reform, which included the suppression of local shrines, Jeremiah incurred the hatred of his fellow citizens, the people of Anathoth.

It is then that he compares himself to a “gentle lamb led to the slaughter”. (A similar phrase will later be applied to Jesus as he is led to his execution.) For Jeremiah’s enemies are plotting to get rid of him:

Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!

Jeremiah had no children so, in the eyes of his enemies, that would be the end of him forever.

But they were ironic words because, as in the case of so many martyrs in the cause of right, his name is all the more remembered after his enemies tried to blot him out of existence. And Jeremiah knows that too:

But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

Ultimately God is Jeremiah’s only protection against his enemies. But God will see that truth and justice will prevail in the end. And, of course, this is true most of all of Jesus:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone. (Ps 118:22)

That is what we reflect on and celebrate as we watch Jesus go through his Passion in the coming days.

Read more

Friday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

The latter part of Paul’s letters usually includes some practical exhortations to the particular church to which he is writing. Here, he tells the Thessalonians that to conserve their holiness they are to recall what the apostle taught them in the name of Christ at the time of their conversion.  

Specifically, all forms of sexual misconduct are to be avoided, in consideration of the truth that God sanctifies his faithful by the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. He begins by making his appeal and exhortation in the name of the Lord:

…we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus…

He does not talk to them arrogantly, but does speak with authority in the Lord Jesus.

When he was with them he had instructed them on how to live in ways that please God and he is happy that they are so doing, but he urges them to make even more progress in the way of the Lord.  Paul uses this metaphor often of the Christian way.  It points to steady progress in a forward direction. They are well aware of the instructions Paul and his companions gave on the authority of the Lord Jesus. 

The word ‘instructions’ is used of authoritative commands and has a military ring. God wants all of the Thessalonians to be holy.  ‘Holiness’, as we saw yesterday, means ‘set apart’ (Greek, hagios), being different from other people who live according to different standards.  It is identifying with God’s will, which comes to us through Christ and makes us holy.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.  But taking the English root, ‘holiness’ is related to ‘wholeness’.  The ‘holy’ person is a ‘whole’ person, in which every part speaks of unity and harmony with God, with those around one, with the environment and with oneself.

Paul then spells out a particular area of being holy with which he is concerned.  He exhorts the Christians to sexual integrity and self-restraint.  The implication is that, from what Timothy has told him, there are some problems in this area.  Therefore, he wants them to keep away from all sexual immorality and each of them to guard their body in a way which is holy and honourable.  This can refer either to a man’s own body or that of his wife, as in several rabbinic texts.  For a married man to have sex with another person is to violate his wife. Paul’s doctrine on moral behaviour, which is based on the earliest Christian teaching, invests ordinary day-to-day life with a new depth: it has the seal of Christ on it. 

In the first century AD moral standards were generally very low, and chastity was regarded as an unreasonable restriction, especially by men (but under the same standards of the time, married women were expected to remain faithful to their husbands; unmarried women to be virgins before marriage). Paul, however, would not compromise on God’s clear and demanding standards. They are not to give way to:

…lustful passion, like the ‘gentiles who do not know God’…

The warning was needed, for Christians clearly were not immune to temptation in a hedonistic environment.

Unrestricted sexual activity is to use others for one’s pleasure and totally in conflict with the commandment to love others and to respect their dignity and personal integrity.  It is to degrade the dignity of one’s own body and that of others. So Paul says that no one should ever sin by taking advantage of a brother or sister in such matters, because the Lord always “pays back” sins of that kind, as Paul had emphatically stated in the past.

Sexual sin harms others besides those who engage in it.  For example, in adultery, the spouse is always wronged.  The Lord’s ‘vengeance’ is in the price that one pays for betraying one’s own integrity and the dignity of the other person.  God punishes such behaviour insofar as it carries its own punishment.  Such behaviour can never bring happiness and, at its worst, can result in debauchery, injury, disease, and death.   This is so evident in the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

On the contrary, God has called all to be holy and not immoral. And anyone who rejects this teaching is rejecting not human authority, but God who gives us his Holy Spirit. 

The prophet Ezekiel foretold that the Spirit would be given to the messianic people.  This reference draws attention to the continuity between the church of Thessalonica and the giving of this gift to the early Christian community on the day of Pentecost.

And here is still another reason for chastity: sexual sin is against God, who gives the Holy Spirit to believers for their sanctification.  It is a kind of sacrilege where not only the object of sexual desire, but the Spirit within that person is violated.

We live in a world rampant with sexual licence and it is easy to be affected by it.  Love and affection and some form of expressing our sexuality are important in everyone’s life, but it must never be done at the expense of one’s own integrity or the integrity of another person. We do not make our human values; we recognise and acknowledge them as coming from a source beyond ourselves.

Read more

Friday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 11:15-26

As said by the prophet Jeremiah:

Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes but do not see,
who have ears but do not hear. (Jer 5:21)

In today’s passage, Jesus frees a person from enslavement to an evil power which had rendered him mute, so that he could not speak (in Matthew’s version of this story, the man is also blind). As Christians, many of us can suffer from the same evil influence when we refuse or are afraid to acknowledge openly our Christian faith. We hide and we remain silent, especially when the values we hold are attacked or ridiculed. Once liberated, the man could speak and he did so, much to the amazement of the crowd. Let us, too, pray for this gift of speech—to be able to say the right thing at the right time.

But there were those present who accused Jesus of using the demon’s power to drive out the evil spirit. At the same time, in spite of the extraordinary signs that Jesus was initiating on almost a daily basis—including the one they had just witnessed which caused such astonishment among the people—his enemies asked him for a sign from God.

There is a clear gap between the leaders and the people here. While the leaders keep asking Jesus for his credentials, the people are shown as constantly praising and thanking God for all that is being done among them through Jesus.

Jesus then shows the self-contradictions in his opponents’ charges. A kingdom that is split by internal rivalries cannot survive. Why would evil spirits attack each other and as such frustrate their goals? And, Jesus says to his accusers:

Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out?….But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When people are liberated from the control of evil spirits, that is a sure sign that the loving power of God is at work. Any other interpretation does not make sense. And the ‘Kingdom of God’ is personified and embodied in Jesus himself. It will also become present in his disciples who do his work.

And Jesus goes on to give another image. A strong man guarding his house and possessions remains undisturbed until someone stronger comes and overthrows him. That is clearly what is happening. Jesus is the stronger one and the evil spirits are being driven away by him. They are helpless before him. This liberation of people and society from evil powers is one of the most dramatic proofs that the all-powerful reign of God is present in the person of Jesus. What further signs could be asked for?

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

There can be no neutrality where Jesus is concerned. We have to make our choice—for him or against. Not to choose is itself a choice—against him. Compare this with the similar, but actually quite different saying we saw earlier:

…for whoever is not against you is for you. (Luke 9:50)

This was in the context of the Apostle John complaining that he saw a man cast out demons in Jesus’ name. In so far as that nameless person was doing Jesus’ work and doing it in Jesus’ name, he was with Jesus. That surely has implications for the many good things that non-Catholics and others who are not Christians at all are doing.

And this saying about the non-acceptance of neutrality leads to another warning. It is not enough to have been liberated from the power of an evil (“unclean”) spirit. Otherwise this “unclean spirit” may say:

I will return to my house from which I came.

But:

When it returns, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself…

The end result is that the evil spirits:

…enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

No, instead, the emptiness left by the departure of the evil spirit has to be actively filled with the Spirit of Jesus.

Was Jesus referring to some of the people around him? Was he especially calling out his critics? These were people who by their meticulous observance of the Law saw themselves as morally blameless, but in whose lives the positive presence of the Spirit, as exemplified in Jesus himself, was totally absent.

It is easy to use the sacrament of reconciliation to get the forgiveness of our past sins and leave it at that, feeling comfortable with having a ‘clean slate’. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but the devil loves one!

The true reconciliation that the sacrament calls for, even demands, is a new and stronger commitment to the living of our Christian life. The sacrament is intended to be an experience of conversion and change. It is much more concerned with the future than with the past.  The past is gone and there is nothing we can do about it. The present is in our hands and that is where we meet God.

Read more