Monday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 25:31-46

Both of today’s readings deal with the way we ought to behave towards each other. The First Reading tells us the kinds of things we ought not to do, while the Gospel emphasises more what we should be doing.

The Gospel describes the great scene of the Last Judgment when all will face their Lord Jesus. We will be divided into sheep and goats—i.e. those who are with Jesus and those who are not. The criteria on which we will be judged are interesting. There is nothing about the Ten Commandments (normally the matter of our confessions). Nor is there anything about the behaviors mentioned in the First Reading, which more or less reflect the contents of the Ten Commandments. There is nothing about what we normally call ‘religious obligations’ (e.g. being ‘at Mass’ on Sundays and holydays).

The test will be very simple. Did we love all our brothers and sisters or not? There is some discussion as to the identity of these ‘brothers and sisters’. Does it refer to all who are hungry, thirsty, in need of clothes, in need of medical care or in jail—or to a particular group? The passage may primarily be about Christians, and especially Christian missionaries whose preaching brought them suffering and persecution. These missionaries were more likely, too, to end up in prison. To reject and abuse these people and their message is tantamount to rejecting Jesus himself.

However, we have traditionally extended the passage to include all who suffer in any way because of our neglect, and we recognise Jesus as being present in these people in a special way.

And the things we are supposed to do are so simple: give food to Jesus hungry and drink to Jesus thirsty; to clothe Jesus naked; to visit Jesus sick and Jesus in jail. And naturally people will ask:

Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?

And the Judge will answer:

Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

He says “to me”, not “for me”. Jesus identifies himself especially with the person in need. Every time we neglect to help a brother or sister in need, we neglect Jesus himself. Our worst sins, our most dangerous sins, will be our sins of omission. We can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly and still fail here.

The next time we examine our conscience, let us think about that. Whether we realise it or not, every time we spontaneously take care of a brother or sister in need, it is Jesus himself we are serving.

Read more

Tuesday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jonah 3:1-10

After his three days and nights in the belly of the big fish, Jonah was, at the word of God, “vomited out onto the dry land”. Without delay, the word of Yahweh comes to Jonah a second time. It is almost as if God was saying to his prophet, “OK…let’s try this one more time!”

Jonah is told again to rise up, to go to Nineveh and to preach to it in the words that Yahweh will lay down. That, of course, is the role of the prophet—to pass on a message from God, not to preach his own word. A much chastened Jonah now submissively, if not with much enthusiasm and against his better judgement, obeys and sets out for Nineveh. He is not expecting much response.

We are told that:

Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.

In Hebrew, it is literally “great in the eyes of God”—the strongest superlative in the Hebrew language. So big, in fact, that it took three days to walk across it.

Later in the story we are told that the city had more than 120,000 inhabitants, just a large town by today’s standards. Archaeological excavations indicate that the later imperial city of Nineveh was about 12 km around. The fact, however, that “a visit required three days” may suggest a larger area, such as the four-city complex of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen mentioned in Genesis 10. Greater Nineveh covered an area of some 100 km in circumference.

On the other hand, “three days” seems to have been a conventional way of describing a medium-length distance. But as we are dealing here with a story, the author simply wants to say that Nineveh was a very big place with a lot of people.

Having arrived at Nineveh, Jonah had only walked one day’s distance into the city proclaiming Yahweh’s warning:

Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!

The 40 days are reminiscent of the 40 days of the Flood or the 40 years of Israel wandering in the desert. Jesus will also fast for 40 days in the desert and, in the Acts of the Apostles, ascend to his Father 40 days after his resurrection. And the response:

…the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

A fast and sackcloth were conventional signs of repentance for sin. This speedy conversion of the Ninevites after hearing God’s word will be commented on later by Jesus and contrasted with the reluctance of the scribes and Pharisees to accept Jesus’ word:

The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and indeed something greater than Jonah is here! (Matt 12:41)

Then:

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

This is the mighty King of Assyria, king of an empire which brought so much suffering to the Chosen People. Here he is, humbly submitting to Yahweh and acknowledging his sinfulness.

Further, he gives orders for a general fast from eating and even drinking water, an order extended to both people and animals. And he gives the order:

Humans and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.

Inclusion of domestic animals was unusual, but here it expresses the urgency with which the Ninevites were to seek mercy.

Said the king:

Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.

He knew they deserved any punishment God could send them, but they lived in hope that Jonah’s God might relent and put aside his great anger against them. In Jeremiah, Yahweh says:

At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. (Jer 18:7-8)

And, indeed, God does see their efforts to abandon their evil ways and withdraws the disaster he had planned for the city.

One would imagine that Jonah would have been absolutely delighted with such a response to his preaching and with the conversion of the Ninevites to the Lord, but he reacted very strangely indeed. For his actual response we will have to wait for tomorrow’s reading.

Like the pagan sailors in the boat, the people of Nineveh show that they are ready to change their ways and recognise the power of Yahweh. Ironically, the one rebellious person in the story is a member of God’s own people and his prophet. In our world, too, non-Christians can frequently put us to shame in the way they show a Christian spirit.

Read more

Tuesday of Week 29 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 5:12,15,17-21

We move on today to a different theme in this letter—the role of Jesus in our salvation from sin. A contrast is made between Adam, our ‘first parent’, and Christ. Adam brought sin and death into the world; Christ brought righteousness and life.

These two persons also sum up the message of the Letter up to this point. Adam stands for man’s condemnation and Christ for the ‘justification’ of the believer:

…just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.

That “one man”, of course, is Adam. Paul is referring to the creation story in Genesis where the Man and the Woman, clearly disobeying the instructions they had received from God, ate the fruit (which is not specified as an apple!) of the tree, significantly called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:17).

It is significant, because it was only after they had eaten the fruit that they had, for the first time, a sense of evil, sin and guilt indicated by a newly-felt shame of their nakedness and their hiding from God.

Even if today we might not historically identify the ‘Man’ and the ‘Woman’ as actual people, they represent the whole human race. There is no doubt that through human activity sin, which is a turning away from God, came into the world and continues to flourish in all of us. Through his disobedience, Adam, who sired every human being, infected all those descended from him with sin, and hence also with death.

Sin divides man from God and this separation effectively is ‘death’, a death that is spiritual and eternal, and of which physical death is the symbol (“death reigned from Adam”). This happened either by our sharing in the sin of Adam, or else because of each one’s personal sins. None of us can claim that we have never sinned. We are born into an environment where sin can be found everywhere and in every person. It touches us from the moment we are born. And through our personal sins, we join with Adam in his rebellion against God.

However, no matter how great the sin, God’s grace is infinitely greater in nullifying the effects of Adam’s sin. God’s saving love is a free gift given to all in abundance:

For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

And Paul says:

If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Paul continues:

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

This is the key statement expressing the meaning of the whole passage. Condemnation came through the disobedience of one person, Adam, representing all of us, and it is the single act of one Man, Jesus Christ, who by his death and resurrection brought justification and life to all.

“Justification” means, as we have said, our total restoration into a life of union with God, a union which is accessed by our believing in Jesus as Lord and Saviour:

For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

For this restoration of our relationship with God, we do not have to wait until the Final Judgement. Being reborn in Christ is a process that continues from the moment we first begin to believe in Jesus as Lord:

…but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so grace might also reign through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Nothing we have ever done, and nothing we could ever do by ourselves could have undone the sin which penetrates every corner of our world and of our existence. It could only happen by the grace, the freely-given love of God, which has been poured into our hearts.

‘Grace’ is the love of God given to us spontaneously by God without our meriting it in any way. Once we allow that love to take over our lives, its power will be greater than sin. Sin and love are totally incompatible. Where there is love, there is God and where there is sin, love is absent.

It is ‘grace’ too which brings ‘saving justice’, the saving power of God which transforms our lives and is the beginning of that eternal life which Jesus our Lord wants us to share with him.

Jesus does not just ‘cover over’ our sins. He makes it possible for our hearts to be flooded with his Spirit effecting a real inner change and the possibility of replacing sin with goodness. But it is always his work and never ours alone.

Read more

Friday of Week 34 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 21:29-33

Today Jesus continues his admonitions about readiness for the future. The key is to watch out for the telling signs.

Just as with the fig tree (or any tree), the emerging buds of green indicate that summer is on the way. When the things Jesus has been mentioning are seen to happen, terrible as some of them seem to be, they are in fact the sign of a ‘summer’ where:

…the Kingdom of God is near.

On other occasions, Jesus had said that the Kingdom was already present, but the Kingdom can be seen in different ways. The Kingdom is present wherever the values of the gospel are being lived, but it will not be fully realised until the very end when all are gathered in Him:

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.

When Jesus says that “this generation” will not have passed away until all this takes place, it is not to say that Jesus’ final coming will happen in the lifetime of his hearers (as some imagined), but rather that, with his own suffering and death, the new and eternal dispensation which he inaugurates with the Kingdom will be under way. Ironically, the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy is set in motion by the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. It initiates a new presence of God in the world, a presence in “spirit and in truth”. However, Jesus’ words could also mean that the Jewish people (here referred to as “this generation”) will continue to exist till the end of time, to the final coming of Jesus.

Lastly, the world in which we live will one day disappear, but the words of Jesus, words of Truth and Life, will be forever valid because they represent a vision of life and those timeless values which we understand as emanating from God, and to which every single human being is innately called.

As we come to the end of the Church year, it is a time for us to make our decision whether we want to belong to the Kingdom that Jesus is inaugurating, and not only to belong, but also to make its spread our life’s work. Then, no matter when he comes to call us, we will be ready.

Read more

Monday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jonah 1:1—2:1,11

The book of Jonah is one of the most delightful in the whole Bible. It is probably the only book where the author wrote with his tongue firmly in his cheek. While there are marvellous things in the Bible, humour is generally not one of its characteristics. There is a lot of humour, of the biting kind, in this book. And, what is even more rare, the laugh is mainly on the chief character.

Although it is written in a narrative style, it is not history. It is a didactic story with a moral—and a very important moral at that. The fact that it is a book which can provoke laughter does not mean that its message is to be taken lightly. In fact, it is one of the most radical of Old Testament writings and has been described as being on the threshold of the gospel. We will see why as we read on.

Today’s reading sets the stage for the unfolding of the story. As the story opens, the word of Yahweh is addressed to a man called Jonah, son of Amittai. There is mention, in fact, of a prophet Jonah in the Second Book of Kings, who lived at the time of Jeroboam II (786-746 BC). This story, which was written some 300 years after that time, is not about him, but just uses his name.

As a prophet, Jonah is told to go to the great city of Nineveh and warn them that God is displeased with their great wickedness. According to Genesis, Nineveh was first built by Nimrod (perhaps along with Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen) and was traditionally known as the “great city”. About 700 BC, Sennacherib made it the capital of Assyria, which it remained until its fall in 612 BC. It was long destroyed by the time this book was written. It would have been about 800 km from Gath Hepher, Jonah’s hometown, a long way for the prophet to travel.

Except for violent behaviour mentioned later on in the story, the “wickedness” of Nineveh is not described. The prophet Nahum later states that Nineveh’s sins included plotting evil against the Lord, cruelty and plundering in war, prostitution and witchcraft and commercial exploitation.  In any case, Jonah, as a pious Hebrew, would take rampant immorality and its rejection by Yahweh as a given in such a great pagan city.

Not only was its immorality to be taken for granted, as far as Jonah is concerned, its people should be left to the fate of all wicked unbelievers. Jonah is appalled at the idea of trying to convert them and does not want to go there. It seems he has no intention of having anything to do with such wicked pagans. They deserve all that God can throw against them.

So Jonah sets off westward, the opposite direction, and boards a ship at Joppa (the modern Israeli city of Jaffa) bound for Tarshish to get as far away as possible from both Nineveh and Yahweh—quite a futile thing to do. As Psalm 139 puts it:

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast. (Ps 139:7-10)

Jonah will soon find out how true these words are.

For the Jews ‘Tarshish’ represented the end of the world. The word may be a corruption of Tartessus, a Phoenician mining colony near Gibraltar in southern Spain.  Perhaps the modern equivalent would be Timbuctoo!

The ship has hardly got under way when Yahweh hurls a mighty wind and such a great storm blows up that the ship is in danger of breaking up. This is just one of several interventions by Yahweh in the story. Jonah’s disobedience has not only put his own life in danger, but is threatening the lives of a totally innocent crew.

In an effort to save their lives, the sailors throw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship and then each one prays to his own god—perhaps one of them will bring the help they need. One person, however, is not doing any praying. Jonah is below decks fast asleep. He is not only indifferent to his own fate, but also that of his shipmates. Maybe he thinks ‘his’ Yahweh will take care of his prophet, even a disobedient prophet.

However, these pagans are shown to be somewhat more religious than Jonah gives them credit for. Certainly his behaviour is in stark contrast to the captain who is using every possible method, including prayer to every known god, to save those on board. And he wakes up Jonah and urges him to call on his god, who might be able to do what the other gods do not seem to be able to do. The “pagan” captain’s concern for the welfare of everyone on board contrasts with the ‘believing'(?) prophet’s refusal to bring God’s mercy and compassion to the people of Nineveh.

As a last resort, the sailors come to the correct conclusion that there is someone on board who is bringing them all this misfortune. They cast lots to find out who it is and—surprise, surprise—the lot falls on Jonah. In the context of the story, this is no chance accident.

The casting of lots was a custom widely practiced in the ancient Near East. The precise method is unclear, though it appears that, for the most part, sticks or marked pebbles were drawn from a receptacle into which they had been thrown. Games such as this are still found in various parts of the world.

Immediately, the sailors begin to interrogate Jonah to find out where he comes from. He replies:

I am a Hebrew…I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

The sailors would have understood Jonah’s words as being descriptive of the highest divinity. Their present experiences confirm this truth, since, in the religions of the ancient Near East generally, the supreme god was master of the seas.

This is Jonah’s first confessional statement, and, like those that follow, it is thoroughly orthodox. Though orthodox in his beliefs, Jonah refuses to fulfil his divine mission to Nineveh. It is important for us, too, to realise that theological orthodoxy is not enough to fulfil the most important requirements of Christian discipleship. The Pharisees were impeccably orthodox as well.

The sailors are terrified at Jonah’s self-revelation. They now know the cause of their peril. A believer in the god who controls the seas has disobeyed his god and made him angry. And they are all the victims of his disobedience. “What is this that you have done!”, they say to him—a rhetorical question that needs no answer. Then, as the sea gets rougher and rougher, they then ask Jonah what they are to do with him in order to restore calm in the sea. It seems as if they are looking for a way to save their lives, but without doing harm to Jonah. Once again, the pagan’s care for the Hebrew far surpasses the Hebrew’s care for them. This is all part of the central lesson of the story.

At last, Jonah begins to accept responsibility for the situation:

Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.

At the same time, Jonah’s readiness to die to save the terrified sailors contrasts with his later behaviour when he leaves Nineveh expecting to watch its destruction by Yahweh at a safe distance—which of course, to his great chagrin and disappointment does not happen.

Even now, the sailors are still reluctant to do what Jonah suggests, even to save their own lives. Instead, they tried to row hard in order to reach the shore (it probably was not very far away; ships in those days tended to stay close to the shore rather than risk being caught in the open sea). In Hebrew, the language uses the picturesque word meaning ‘to dig’ (with the oars) to indicate their strenuous efforts. Again, the reluctance of the sailors to throw Jonah into the sea stands in sharp contrast to Jonah’s reluctance to bring God’s warning to Nineveh of impending judgment.

Finally, and still with great misgivings, the sailors make their prayer to Jonah’s god Yahweh, asking him not to hold them responsible for the death of an innocent man’s life:

Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

They then toss Jonah into the raging sea which immediately becomes calm. They have done the right thing. At the same time, the sudden calm fills them with great fear.

Jonah’s God is truly Master of the seas and they offer him a sacrifice and make vows. They know that only the most powerful of gods can control the seas and the wind. Remember too, the reaction of the disciples after Jesus had calmed the storm on the lake:

What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? (Matt 8:27)

They are both shocked and afraid that Jonah can be so disobedient to his God and they try to make up for his terrible behaviour. The author also emphasises the piety of the pagan sailors. They are scandalised that Jonah should disobey Yahweh, and are themselves afraid to offend Yahweh by sacrificing Jonah, and then offer worship to Jonah’s God whose power they recognise.

And such is the providence of God. He turns even the disobedience of Jonah into a grace for those sailors, a grace they would not have experienced had Jonah gone to Nineveh in the first place—God’s straight writing with crooked lines.

Of course, there is no evidence that the sailors renounced all their other gods as a result of this experience. Ancient pagans were ready to recognise the existence and power of many gods. At the least, however, the sailors acknowledge that the God of Israel is in control of the present events, that he is the one who both stirred up and calmed the storm, and that at this moment he is the one to be recognised and worshipped.

Once again Yahweh intervenes and arranges that a big fish should swallow Jonah, who remained in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. The “big fish” is not likely to have been a whale, which is not found in the Mediterranean. It is not to be confused either with ‘Leviathan’, the sinister “serpent” of the sea (see Amos 9:3) or the “dragon” (see Job 7:12 and other texts).

“Three days and three nights” may, as in the burial of Jesus (Friday evening to Sunday morning), refer to a period of time including one full day and parts of two others. In any case, the New Testament clearly uses Jonah’s experience as a foreshadowing of the burial and resurrection of Jesus, who was buried in the earth for “three days and three nights” (Matt 12:40).

While inside the fish, Jonah made a long prayer of distress and appeal to Yahweh, which is not included in our readings. And, on the third day, again at the command of Yahweh, the fish “vomits” Jonah on to dry land.

He is back where he started. And, not surprisingly, this gives Jonah some time to reflect on his situation. When the next call comes, he will respond differently—up to a point.

Read more

Wednesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 2 Maccabees 7:1,20-31

Today’s reading is another story of fidelity under persecution. It is part of a famous story about the martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees, all brothers, together with their mother. They gave their lives one after the other rather than betray their Jewish faith by eating unclean food.

Having given the example of a venerable teacher of the Law (Eleazar, from yesterday’s reading), the author now gives that of a mother and her sons. We know that the persecution, in which exceptionally savage methods were adopted, did indeed extend to women and children. The story, therefore, has a historical basis, behind the literary elements, such as the speeches ascribed to the characters (a common literary device).

As the reading opens, we are told that seven brothers were arrested together with their mother. King Antiochus tried to force them to eat pork, forbidden by the Law, by torturing them by scourging with whips.

When one of the brothers, in the name of his siblings, stood up and told the king he was wasting his time and that they were prepared to die rather than violate the laws of their ancestors, the king became furious and prepared terrible instruments of torture for them. One by one, six of the brothers were subjected to the most excruciating and inhuman torture in the sight of their mother. As each one died, they had words of defiance for the king. All of this is omitted from our reading.

We pick up the reading again with just the mother and youngest son still alive. Through all the terrible experience of seeing her sons, one by one, subjected to torture and death, she maintained an extraordinary dignity “because of her hope in the Lord”. In fact, she was proud of her sons for their loyalty to God and their Jewish beliefs and their readiness to sacrifice their lives.

Speaking in “the language of their ancestors”—Aramaic—so that the king and the torturers would not understand, she actually encouraged her sons. The author puts a speech on her lips to express her thoughts and feelings. She said she did not know when her children appeared in her womb, nor was it she who gave them the breath of life nor was she the cause of their physical development. But she is confident that the same God will give them back the breath and life because, for the sake of God’s laws, they have had no concern for themselves.

As she spoke thus to her son, Antiochus, who could not understand what she was saying, thought she was speaking insulting words about him. With this last son, the king tried a different approach. He promised to make the boy rich and happy if only he would abandon the traditions of his ancestors. He would even make him a “Friend and entrust him with public affairs”. ‘Friend’ was a title of honour, a survival from the court of Persia and there were various grades. ‘Friends of the King’ had free access to the sovereign who from time to time assigned them certain tasks.

When the boy paid no attention to these tempting offers, the king turned to the mother to urge her to advise the young man to save his life. After the king had pressed her for a while in this manner, she finally agreed to persuade her son. She then quietly spoke to the boy in the language that only they could understand.

She begged her son to have compassion on her. She had looked after him lovingly from his earliest days in her womb and brought him up to the age he was now. She asked him to look at the world around him and consider how God had made everything out of nothing. This is, in fact, the first explicit allusion to creation ex nihilo (Latin, ‘out of nothing’) in the Old Testament. Namely, that God made all things solely by his omnipotent will and his creative word. In Genesis, the world is not so much created as formed from a pre-existing Chaos; order is brought into what had been pure disorder.

The mother then urges her youngest son not to be afraid of his executioner, but to prove himself as loyal as his brothers and accept death. Then “in God’s mercy”, she will receive all of them back again in the life that is to come.

The mother had hardly finished speaking, when the young man called out to Antiochus and the executioners:

What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses.

As for the king himself, he will not escape the hand of God for the terrible things he has done against the Hebrews.

Our reading stops at this point, but the son’s speech continues in the same vein for several verses. The king was enraged at the young man’s words, which he had not expected to hear. The outcome was that this last brother was subjected to even more cruel tortures, but remained loyal to his God to the end. And, after all seven brothers had been martyred, the mother too was executed.

The cult of the ‘Seven Maccabaean Brothers’ spread into Europe, where it clearly made a great impact in a church which had its own share of Christians dying painful deaths for the sake of Christ and the gospel. Several churches were dedicated in their honour, for instance, in Antioch, Rome, Lyons, and Vienna. Also, a composition known as the Passion of the Holy Maccabees became widely distributed and served as model for several Lives of Martyrs.

It is, on the face of it, a tragic and cruel story. But it is clearly meant to be an inspiration to all Jews to put their faith in their God above all other considerations, including their own lives, in times of oppression. It is a message which many Jews have followed and one also followed by thousands of Christians down the centuries, people who chose to be faithful to the call of Christ even at the cost of their own lives. And there have been some outstanding examples in recent times.

Each one of us needs to ask to what extent we have ever compromised our faith in order to cling to something of lesser value. What price are we ready to pay to see that the values of the gospel are upheld?

…therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. (Luke 14:33)

And these “possessions” may include our life. Am I ready for this?

Read more

Friday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Maccabees 4:36-37,52-59

Today’s reading recalls the institution of one of the most important feasts on the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Dedication. Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers had been waging a guerrilla war against the Syrian occupation of their land. Eventually they defeated and drove out the gentile forces. Having defeated their enemies, Judas Maccabeus, a son of Mattathias whom we saw in yesterday’s reading, called on his followers to go to Jerusalem to purify and dedicate the Temple, which had been desecrated by having the “Abomination of Desolation” (see Matt 24:15 in the King James Bible)—that is, a statue of Baal or Zeus Olympus erected on it.

The New Jerusalem Bible notes:

The Temple was one of the principal objectives of the rebels, as the centre of Jewish religious life, without which the Law could not be observed in its fullness. The Gentiles had sacked and profaned it; now, as soon as the first victories are won, it is purified and re-consecrated. The death of Antiochus Epiphanes, which our author mistakenly places after the expeditions against the Idumaeans and Ammonites (in chap 5), doubtless had something to do with it too. The concept of the holiness of the Temple will be a dominant theme in Second Maccabees. (edited and text references omitted)

In passages immediately preceding the main part of our reading, we are told that Judas and his followers found the Temple in a state of total desolation—there was no one there, the altar desecrated, gates burnt down, vegetation growing freely as it might in the middle of a forest. Judas and his companions were devastated at the sight. He ordered the purification of the site by priests specially chosen for their impeccable credentials and faithfulness to the Law. It was then decided that the original altar should not be repaired, but because of its contamination by pagan rituals, should be pulled down and removed. A new altar was built in its place and other furnishings, like lamps, vessels, altar of incense and the table were installed.

Now we can pick up our reading:

Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev…

That is, the 14th December, 164 BC, and the third anniversary of the first sacrifice offered to Zeus, a sacrifice was offered on the new altar. Thus was the new altar dedicated to the sound of all kinds of musical instruments. It was exactly the same day and the same time of the year when it had been originally desecrated by the Syrians. The people prostrated themselves and praised Heaven (this book sedulously avoids using God’s name) for all that had been achieved.

The dedication was celebrated for eight days altogether with holocausts, sacrifices of deliverance and thanksgiving sacrifices. Further adornments were added to the restored building. There was no end of rejoicing because the humiliation brought about by the Gentiles had been obliterated.

Judas, with his brothers and the whole assembly, then laid it down that the days of dedication of the altar should be joyfully celebrated at the proper season for eight days every year, beginning on this 25th day of Chislev.

The feast of Dedication is still celebrated by Jews and known by its Hebrew name, Hanukkah. It is one of the ‘youngest’ feasts in the Jewish calendar. During the feast, the Hallel (see Psalms 113-118) was sung and leafy branches and palms were carried. Second Maccabees emphasises the similarities with the feast of Tabernacles or Shelters, which itself commemorated the inauguration of the Temple of Solomon.

The lamps lit at Dedication soon gave it its other name, ‘Feast of Lights’. The fact that these lamps, symbolising the Law, were placed not only in the Temple, but in private houses, assured the survival and popularity of the feast long after the desecration of the Temple in 70 AD. It is given great prominence in Second Maccabees. It is mentioned in John’s Gospel, where we read:

At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. (John 10:22-23)

Today’s reading reminds us to remember the dedication of our own parish church and of the care and respect with which it should be maintained. Many communities have spared no expense and spent long years to build a church they felt worthy of being God’s house. We see the magnificent churches, say, of the Gothic or the Baroque period in Europe which took generations to be completed. And in some of these, too, we see magnificent liturgies of celebration on the great feasts of the year.

At the same time, we must never forget that the real Temple, the real dwelling place of God for us is his people. Paul says:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God…(1 Cor 6:19)

We must remember always that the building, however magnificent, is for the people and not the other way round. When the building becomes poorly attended, an empty shell, just a work of art or a museum—or even a warehouse, it says something about the people by whom and for whom it was built.

Read more

Tuesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 23:23-26

We continue our reading of the ‘Seven Woes’ listed in the commentary from Monday of Week 21. Today’s reading contains the fourth and fifth ‘woes’.

4. …you tithe mint, dill and cumin… (vv 23-24)

In continuing his attack on Pharisaism, Jesus touches on two issues which are certainly relevant to our Christian living today. First, he attacks the mentality of those who are sticklers for tiny details of ritual or doctrine while ignoring the fundamental issues of justice, compassion and good faith. The Mosaic Law levied a tithe on agricultural produce. Some rabbis scrupulously applied the law to the most insignificant of plants.

A strict Pharisee too would carefully filter his drinking water in case he might swallow a small insect, which would be regarded as unclean. But in being so careful of such minutiae, he might well overlook matters of much deeper importance. Jesus is not criticising a conscientious carrying out of rules and regulations, but it is the attitude of hypocritical moral superiority which he attacks.

One can meet Catholics too who tie themselves in knots trying to observe the most petty regulations and can end up becoming the prisoner of scruples. What is more, they can be highly critical of others whom they regard as ‘lax’. An example might be people who are more worried about not having observed a full 60 minutes of fast before Communion than focusing on what the wider implications of participating in the Eucharist really mean.

5. …you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate… (vv 25-26)

The second point that Jesus makes is to criticise those who concentrate on the tiniest details of external behaviour while totally ignoring the inner spirit. There are certain Christians who speak and write at length about all the things that are not being done right in the liturgy of the Catholic Church, and who claim for themselves a level of doctrinal and moral orthodoxy to which even Rome does not attain. Sometimes even the Pope does not come up to their expectations.

What is striking about these people is the almost total absence of a sense of love and compassion in their writings and actions. They are only interested in ‘truth’ and ‘orthodoxy’, as if these things could exist outside of the nitty-gritty of human living. They can be more concerned about the tiniest rubrical details of the liturgy than about the Eucharist as truly a sacrament of a loving community prayerfully centred on the Person of Christ.

On the outside, the behaviour is impeccable, but inside there is a total lack of a true gospel spirit—the spirit of love and integrity, of compassion and a sense of justice for all. Instead, there can be a heart full of self-righteousness, criticism, anger, resentment or contempt for those who do not think the same, all cloaked in this outer veneer of moral and ritual rectitude.

The two attitudes are closely related and all of us can be touched by them in one degree or another. Let him or her who has never criticised another fellow-Christian cast the first stone!

Read more

Tuesday of Week 26 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 9:51-56

We come today to a distinct turning point in Luke’s Gospel. It is marked by the opening words of today’s passage:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

The ‘taking up’ or the ‘assumption’ of Jesus refers to his passion and death leading to resurrection and ascension. It corresponds to the ‘glory’ that John speaks of and for whom the crucifixion is a ‘lifting up’ into ‘glory’.

At this point we have now come to the end of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and we move on to a new section—the journey to Jerusalem, which ends at chapter 19:27 where we find Jesus in Jerusalem. The opening corresponds to Mark 10:1 where Jesus is seen entering Judea to preach there and which John more specifically describes as a journey to Jerusalem during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:1-10).

But Luke diverges from Mark’s story with very different material. He now follows Matthew’s source as well as using material of his own. The section consists almost entirely of teachings of Jesus to his disciples. It is all loosely organised within the framework of Jesus’ making his way to Jerusalem. The section we are entering is a time of preparation for the disciples for their future role as Messengers of the Kingdom.

Jerusalem is the place where it is all going to happen—the ‘exodus’ of Jesus, including his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension—leading to the passing on of his mission to his disciples with the coming down of the Spirit of the Father and Jesus on the disciples. And it will be from Jerusalem that the new Church will be established and from Jerusalem it will spread gradually throughout the whole Mediterranean area until it reaches the empire’s capital in Rome, and from there to the ends of the earth.

As he set out, Jesus sent some messengers ahead to announce his coming. In order to go directly from Galilee to Judea, where the city of Jerusalem was situated, they would have had to pass through Samaria. Samaritans were particularly hostile to Jews, especially when they were on their way to a Jewish festival in Jerusalem (as Jesus and his disciples seem to be doing). It would take at least three days to cross Samaria and the Samaritans were refusing the disciples overnight shelter. Because of this situation, Jewish pilgrims and travellers often avoided confrontation by going down the east bank of the Jordan River. There is an irony here that, when the first Christians were persecuted in Jerusalem, they took refuge in Samaria, which became one of the first places to accept the Gospel. It is very likely that the evangelist is aware of the irony when telling this story.

Faced with this hostility, the brothers James and John, whom we described yesterday as hotheads (Sons of Thunder), suggested that fire from heaven be called down to burn them up. Their threat is reminiscent of the fire that Elijah brought down on the emissaries of an idolatrous king (1 Kings 18:38). They were indignant that their Master, the Messiah, should be treated in this way. There is a parallel here between Jesus’ negative reception in his home town of Galilee and his rejection by the people of Samaria.

But Jesus distances himself from those disciples and gives them a scolding. This was not Jesus’ way. Instead, they went off to another village where they hoped to find a better welcome. As we see in other parts of the Gospel, Jesus does not normally go out of his way to court trouble. On the other hand, he will not hesitate to speak his mind or do what he believes is right, even if certain kinds of people take offence at it.

It is never Jesus’ way to destroy his enemies. We will see that clearly after he reaches Jerusalem where far worse things are done to him. Jesus’ purpose always is to change people who are against him, to defuse their hostility and help them to see things in a better way. It is something we could try to do more often. It is not at all the “softy’s” approach. On the contrary, it requires great inner strength and security.

Read more

Thursday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 19:41-44

Jesus is now on the last stage of his mission. He approaches Jerusalem, which will be the scene for the last great act of his life—his passion, death and resurrection. From here too, will rise up the new community founded in his name, commissioned to continue the work he had started.

As he approaches the city he weeps over its tragic end. He implies that, if the city had received him as Lord and King, it might not have met the fate that was in store for it:

If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

The second half of the word ‘Jerusalem’ (i.e. -salem means ‘peace’; in Hebrew it is shalom). The city had not known the “the things that make for peace” which, of course, was the path that led to Jesus—the Prince of Peace and the source of all peace in our lives. Jerusalem has hardly known peace since that time—neither for the Jewish nor the Palestinian people.

The rest of the passage is a prophecy of what in fact is going to happen to the city. We know that it was besieged by the Emperor Titus in the year 70 AD. However, Jesus’ words are built up from many Old Testament references and seem to refer rather to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC as much, if not more, than that brought about by the Romans. And as none of the distinctive features of the Roman siege are mentioned, the words seem to date from before that time.

But of course, subsequently, it was the Romans who destroyed the city and its huge Temple. One of the wonders of the ancient world was reduced to ruins. The Temple was ransacked and its most precious ornaments, including the seven-branched candlestick, were carried off. All of this is sculpturally recorded in the triumphal Arch of Titus erected in Rome to commemorate his victory, and which can be seen in the Forum to this day.

All this will take place, Jesus says:

…because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.

So many failed to recognise Jesus as Messiah, as God coming to visit them—they rejected him.

With the destruction of the Temple, the Jewish faith was dealt a serious blow, from which, it may be said, it has never fully recovered. No temple has ever taken its place, for it is believed it can only be on the same sacred site in Jerusalem. But unfortunately for the Jews, the Al-Aqsa mosque stands on the site today and is not likely to be removed. All that is left of Herod’s Temple is the Wailing Wall, where Jews go to pray and lament their lost glory.

For us Christians, there is no exclusively holy place, although certain places are of special significance. But as Paul reminds us, each baptised person is a Temple of the Spirit and is to act as such and be respected as such:

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matt 18:20)

Such a gathering may be at a solemn papal Mass in the magnificent basilica of St Peter’s in Rome, or it may be oppressed Christians gathering secretly in prayer in a labour camp—it does not matter. It is the closeness to Christ and to each other that matters and not the place.

Read more