Thursday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Tobit 6:10-11; 7:1, 9-14; 8:4-9 (more…)
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Friday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22 (more…)
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Wednesday of week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Romans 2:1-11
Paul now turns his attention to his fellow-Jews, although he does not mention them by name. In this section, Paul sets forth principles that govern God’s judgment. God judges:
- according to truth,
- according to deeds,
- according to the light a person has.
Paul writes:
…whoever you are, when you judge others…in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.
Paul himself is aware, as he condemns others, that he is condemning himself if he behaves in the way they do:
We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.
Nothing can take the place of personal virtue—not the Law, not circumcision, not even the Scriptures. The Jew and the Gentile will be judged individually by God, since all are equally liable to sin.
Paul’s teaching about judging is the same as that of Jesus, who did not condemn judging as such, but hypocritical judging or doing so behind people’s backs in a condemnatory way. Paul’s warning had special relevance for Jews, who were inclined to look down on Gentiles because of their ignorance of God’s revelation in the Old Testament and because of their immoral lives.
In fact, as we Christians need also to remember, greater knowledge brings greater responsibility and liability:
Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?
Jesus also had said:
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. (Luke 6:37)
He spoke about seeing the speck of dust in a brother’s eye while ignoring the large piece of wood in one’s own. (Isn’t it like that most of the time with us too?) Instead, Paul asks:
…do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Awareness would lead them to ask forgiveness for their own sins. The Jews sometimes had misconstrued God’s patience to be a lack of intent to pass judgement. Their refusal to repent of their own sins is only piling up punishment for themselves on the “Day of Retribution”, when God’s just verdict will be given. For “he will repay everyone as their deeds deserve.”
On this sentence the Jerusalem Bible expands:
“The prophecy of ‘a day of Yahweh’ which will be a day of anger and salvation, will be fulfilled eschatologically in the ‘day of the Lord’ when Christ returns in glory. On this ‘day of judgment’ the dead man will rise again and the whole human race will be judged in God’s court and in Christ’s. This trial is inescapable and impartial; it is conducted by God. Through Christ God will judge ‘the living and the dead’. He examines the heart and his trial is by fire; he will treat everyone according to his works. What has sown will be reaped. Angrily he will destroy evil powers and evil people. But for the chosen, i.e. those who have been good, there will be freedom, rest, reward, salvation, honour, praise, and glory.” (Text references omitted.)
Therefore:
He will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury.
This “doing good”, of course, presumes that all we do is done with the power of God in us. There is nothing we can do by ourselves to ‘earn’ salvation. Our good actions are the result of our saying ‘Yes’ to God in faith. On the other hand:
There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek…
With spiritual privilege and insight comes greater spiritual responsibility. Similarly:
…glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek.
In short:
…God shows no partiality.
These words are both a consolation and a warning to us also. A warning because, as Christians, we cannot expect to get special treatment when we misbehave. On the contrary, given all the help we have received and continue to receive, even more is expected of us. (We should remember what happened to the man who hid his ‘talent’ in the ground.)
This is a consolation because we know that God treats every single person with absolute impartiality and justice. He reaches out exactly the same love to every single person. We also know that he is a God rich in compassion and slow to anger. As a first step, it is important then for us to have some of that quality in ourselves and be less hasty in passing judgment on others, especially ‘outsiders’.
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Tuesday of Week 29 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 12:35-38
In today’s Gospel, we have more advice from Jesus about readiness. It is an echo of the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Matt 25:1-13).
We are to be ready, with our belts fastened and our lamps burning, like servants waiting for the groom to return from the wedding. If we prepare in this way, when the master comes and knocks, we will be ready to admit him without delay.
There is a reward, a surprising reward, for servants thus prepared. When the master comes back and finds his servants awake and ready, he will seat them at table and himself wait on them:
Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.
Jesus had said of himself:
…just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matt 20:28)
He is the one who, as Master and Lord, washes the feet of his disciples. And if the master comes in the middle of the night or before dawn, blessed are those servants who are ready for his return.
This need for readiness is not a reason to be anxious nor a reason to be afraid. Reason and experience tells us again and again that the Lord’s call comes at the most unexpected times. The only solution is to be ready here and now and leave the future to take care of itself.
In our relationship with God, it is always the present which counts. The prepared servant lives constantly in the present and seeks and finds God there. A life so lived takes care of itself—and its future.
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Tuesday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 14:15-24
Today we have the last of four teachings of Jesus linked with meals. It was prompted by the remark of a guest at table who said:
Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!
It was very common to associate the future Messianic Kingdom with a banquet. Jesus responds with a parable which is a warning to his complacent listeners, many of whom probably smugly presumed that they would be among the small minority chosen to eat in the Kingdom.
A man threw a large dinner party with many guests invited. But when the time came and the guests were reminded, one after another they gave excuses why they were not able to come. One had just bought a piece of land and had to inspect it; another had just bought some oxen and had to try them out; a third had just been married.
It seems that the original invitation had been accepted, but when the final invitation came, excuses were made. In fact, none of the excuses has much validity. One would not buy a field and only then look at it, nor would one buy oxen without having tried them out before the purchase.
On hearing this, the master got very angry and ordered his servants to:
Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.
After this, the servants reported that there was still room, so they were given orders to scour the roads and bring in as many as they could find. Said the host:
Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.
The parable is a clear message from Jesus to his Jewish listeners. Many of them, especially the religious leaders steeped in complacency and presumption, had rejected the invitation to follow Jesus and enter the Kingdom. Some of them would actually conspire to bring about his death. Their place would be given to those formerly seen as outcasts, both Jews and Gentiles, people aware of their needs, i.e. the “poor in spirit”. There would be a special place for the poor and the disabled, people often seen by traditional Jews as people abandoned by God and buried in sin.
To go back to the beginning of the passage, blessed indeed are those who eat together in the Kingdom, but it is clear that only those who respond to the invitation will enjoy the privilege.
We have no more right to presumption than those Jews who rejected Christ. We too are being invited to go into the Lord’s banquet hall, but it is important that we respond to the call. We do that by our totally accepting and living out the teaching of Jesus our Lord. And part of that teaching is that we, too, invite and welcome into our community those who are poor, crippled (in some way), the blind and the lame—taking these words in their broadest sense. No more than those fellow diners of Jesus, our presence at the Kingdom banquet is never to be taken for granted.
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Thursday of Week 2 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 16:19-31
In today’s Gospel, we have illustrated in parable form two of Luke’s beatitudes:
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. (Luke 6:21)
and
…woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. (Luke 6:24)
The linkage with the First Reading is obvious.
On the one hand, you have a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, both signs of great wealth. He also has a good table and enjoys the choicest of foods every day. While the rich man is sometimes called Dives, this is simply the Latin word for ‘rich’. In reality, the rich man is nameless. In spite of all his money, he is a nobody.
At the same time you have a poor man called Lazarus. He was hungry and longed, like the dogs, to pick up the scraps that might fall from the dining table. The dogs even licked his sores. Dogs were abhorrent to Jews, so this was a particularly degrading thing to happen.
What is striking about this scene is that nothing seems to be happening. The rich man is eating, the poor man is sitting and waiting. There are no words between them. The poor man is not abused or chased away, he is simply ignored—as if he did not exist.
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)
Then both men die. Lazarus is brought by angels to the bosom of Abraham. But the rich man is condemned to an existence of great suffering in Hades, the place of the dead. The rich man now begs for even the slightest relief from the man he ignored in his lifetime. But it is now too late.
The rich man had his chance and he blew it. He had his life of ‘good things’ and he now knows just how ‘good’ they really were. It is now Lazarus’ turn to have the really good thing, the companionship of his God.
The rich man begs on behalf of his brothers that they be warned. Abraham replies to him:
They have Moses and the prophets [i.e. the whole Jewish religious tradition]; they should listen to them.
The rich man responds:
…but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.
To which Abraham replies:
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
This is surely a reference to Jesus himself, and to the many Jews who refused to believe in him even after his resurrection. There are people today who want some special signs from God in order to believe. We have the Good News of the New Testament and the living, experienced presence of Jesus among us. We do not need any more. We have all the guidance we need to lead the kind of life which will ensure we spend our future existence in the company of Lazarus.
And that life is measured not by wealth, status or power, but in a life of caring and sharing relationships. In a world of extreme consumerism, hedonism and individualism, today’s readings have a very important message. Those who are truly rich are those who enrich the lives of others.
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Monday of Week 2 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 2:18-22
The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fasted. It was a sign of a deeper commitment to the service of God. Then, how come the disciples of Jesus were not fasting? In their defence, Jesus speaks a kind of parable. A wedding feast is no time for the attendants of the bridegroom to be fasting. It is a time for joy and celebration. Jesus is clearly the bridegroom and his disciples the attendants. A time will come when the bridegroom will no longer be visibly with them—then will come the times when fasting will be appropriate.
Jesus continues with another image. No one uses a piece of new, strong cloth to patch an old garment. At the first sign of stress, the new patch will pull and tear the weaker, old cloth. Similarly, no one puts new, fermenting wine in old, used wineskins. When the new wine ferments and expands, the old skins have no more stretch and will burst. The skins are ruined and the wine lost.
In both images Jesus is saying that he and his teaching, and the Way he is proposing, cannot be judged by the old, traditional standards. Jesus has brought about a radical shift in the ways we are to relate to God and to each other. The traditional ways, identified with the Pharisees and with John the Baptist, were basically those where loyalty to God was expressed through strict observation of laws and external practices of commitment, like fasting. The Way of Jesus is quite different. It is primarily interior, rather than just exterior. It is ultimately rooted in relationships based on love, a love that always seeks the well-being of the other. If we judge what Jesus does by the old ways, we will have difficulties. We need, as Paul says:
…the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:16)
This is still relevant in our Church today. There are many who still are living their Catholic life with the Pharisee mindset. Many decades now after the Second Vatican Council, there are still people who have not understood the radical shift in thinking that was introduced. In the liturgy, for instance, the changes in some places are often just cosmetic—only on the surface. There are people who still ‘go to Mass’ (note the expression) with basically unchanged attitudes or understanding. Others try to cling to the ‘old days’—Tridentine Masses, continuing to eat fish on Friday, following old devotions (some of which border on the superstitious). There is still a good deal of individualism and ‘saving my soul’, or staying in ‘the state of grace to get to heaven’ mentality.
There are people who still see sin as primarily the breaking of laws and rules, rather than as a breakdown in loving relationships with God, with others and with self. It is possible to be perfectly ‘orthodox’, affirming the doctrinal teaching of the Church to the last detail, and yet be devoid of love in the way one’s life is lived, and showing very little concern for the needy of this world. Sad to say, Pharisaism is alive and well among Christians. But it is like trying to force the ‘new thinking’ of Vatican II into the ‘old wineskins’ of past behaviour.
The new wine of Jesus’ teaching needs to be contained in new wineskins. And some of the problems of the Church in parts of the world where Christians are falling away can be traced to our unwillingness to let go of old wineskins.
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Saturday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 18:1-15
Another stage in the fulfilling of God’s promise to Abraham. The reading begins by our being told that the Lord visited Abraham by the terebinth (turpentine tree) of Mamre, which was the site of his home, as he sat at the entrance to his tent. For all his wealth and prosperity, Abraham still lives a nomadic life, as does Lot.
In fact, he sees three men standing before him. And the text seems uncertain in its use of singular or plural for the visitors. A more primitive tradition seems to speak of only three men and leaves their identity mysterious. Abraham in speaking uses the singular, but it is not clear whether he is speaking to all three in the singular, or to one of them. Many of the Fathers saw a foreshadowing here of the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine that was revealed only in the New Testament. As later on, two of the men are described as ‘angels’, the third is taken by some to be Yahweh himself. Whatever interpretation is chosen, they clearly represent a special presence of God himself.
Abraham ran forward to greet them and bowed profoundly before them. Speaking in the singular (“My Lord”), he immediately asks them to accept the hospitality of his tent. At this stage his bowing to the ground is not religious adoration, but simply a mark of respect to guests. At first, Abraham sees his guests as mere human beings and welcomes them warmly; their superhuman character is only gradually revealed.
He offers them water to wash their hot and dusty feet and suggests they take some rest under the shade of a tree. He also invites them to have some food and refresh themselves before continuing their journey. They accept his invitation.
The picture is one of typical Near Eastern hospitality which includes:
Abraham immediately tells his wife Sarah to bake bread, and he orders that a steer be prepared for eating. When all was ready, he offered his guests the meat of the steer with curds and milk, and waited on them as they ate under the tree. The curds were a type of soft cheese or yogurt.
The men then asked for Sarah. On being told that she was in the tent (women did not appear in the presence of men as they ate), one of them said that he would return in about one year’s time when Sarah would have a child. ‘One of them’ would indicate the speaker as being Yahweh himself, something Abraham begins to realise when he hears the prediction of a miraculous birth. “About this time next year” is literally “when the time becomes alive”, i.e. at the time when birth is due after the period of gestation; the conception is understood as taking place soon after the prediction.
Sarah, who was inside at the entrance to the tent, heard all this being said. She and Abraham were very old, and Sarah had long before had her menopause. She “laughed to herself” at the thought of being a mother:
After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?
We will subsequently see her future son named “Isaac”, a name that means ‘God has smiled’.
But the Lord (in the person of the three men) asked Abraham why Sarah had laughed at the idea of becoming pregnant:
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?
Mary will hear similar words from Gabriel at the Annunciation. Again the Lord promises to return in a year’s time when Sarah will bear a son. Sarah then became afraid (she has begun to realise who the speaker is) and denies having laughed. But the Lord chides:
Yes, you did laugh.
That is the end of our reading. Immediately after this, the three men left and continued their journey to Sodom. Abraham, with true courtesy, accompanied them part of the way. This coming Monday will find us in Sodom. The reading is a lesson in courtesy and hospitality to the stranger, and one to be taken aboard by every Christian. One never knows when God is present in a caller to the door. In fact, one can take it that he is present, one way or another, in every caller and should be treated as such.
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Wednesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 16:1-5,9-15
After crossing the Sea of Reeds in safety, the Israelites begin their long, meandering journey to the promised land. In spite of all that God had done for them, they began complaining first of all about their water situation. There was water, but it was too bitter to drink. They discovered it could be made drinkable by throwing a certain kind of wood into it. God also told them that if they acted properly and observed the Lord’s precepts, they would not experience any of the problems which had afflicted the Egyptians. They reached an oasis called Elim, an oasis with twelve water springs and 70 palm trees. There they had an abundance of water and shelter.
Then, as we see in today’s reading, they set off again and arrived in the desert of Sin, which lay about halfway between Elim and Sinai and was clearly not a very hospitable terrain. They were following a route close to the eastern shore of the sea they had crossed earlier. It was the 15th day of the second month, just one month since they had escaped from Egypt. They had eaten the Passover meal and left Egypt on the 15th day of the first month, Abib, later known as Nisan.
Once again the grumbling started. They spoke with nostalgia of the “pots of meat” of Egypt and the abundance of food they had when they lived there. Apparently, all the hardships from which they were so anxious to escape were now all forgotten. And, once again, they laid all the blame on Moses for bringing them to a place where they could only die of starvation.
A patient God heard their complaint and told Moses of his plan to rain down ‘bread’ from heaven on them every day. As a gift from God, the manna was said to come from the sky. It may, in fact, have been something similar to a natural substance still found in small quantities on the Sinai peninsula, but here it is, at least in part, clearly miraculous.
However, there were some rules to test their obedience to God’s law. Each day they were to pick just what they needed and no more; and, on the day before the sabbath, they were to pick a double portion. Clearly, there was to be no gathering of manna on the sabbath.
This message was passed on by Moses to Aaron who announced it to the people. And, just then:
…the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
This was the cloud which was accompanying them on their journey, the pledge of God’s closeness to them. What form this manifestation took we do not know, but the message was clearly understood by the Israelites and was intended to put a stop to their grumbling.
Once again the Lord spoke with Moses. He was to tell the people that, from now on, in the evening they would have their fill of meat and in the morning their fill of ‘bread’. Sure enough, that evening a flock of quail came and covered the camp and, in the morning, they saw what looked like hoarfrost all over the ground.
When they first saw it, they asked: “What is that?” and were told by Moses,
It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.
“What is that?” is represented in Hebrew as man hu and is taken to be the origin of the word ‘manna’.
We are told that quail are common in the Sinai and that, as mentioned, the manna was possibly the juice of some local shrub. However, the narrative intends some special intervention under natural forms by which God fed his people.
The Psalms and the Book of Wisdom gratefully recall the gift of manna which, in Christian tradition (as early as John 6:26-58), is a figure of the Eucharist, the spiritual food of the Church, the new Israel, on her earthly journey to the Promised Land. Jesus will refer to the manna as a type of the Bread that he will give (see John 6:32,49-52).
We have since taken over phrases like, “I will now rain down bread from heaven on you” and “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat” and given them Eucharistic significance.
What is made clear in the story is that the source of the food (and indeed of all we have and receive) is a compassionate and caring God, one who is largely deaf to his people’s constant complaints, their short memories of former help and protection and their weak faith.
We too so often suffer from the same weaknesses. It is so easy to be aware of our grievances and to forget the wonderful blessings we have received in life. Let us count our blessings today and say a big Thank You to our God and Lord.
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Monday of Week 23 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 6:6-11
Immediately following the incident of Jesus’ disciples plucking the grains in the cornfield, we have another confrontation with religious leaders also on a Sabbath day. This one is even more sinister as it involves what is called in some police movies a ‘set up’ or ‘entrapment’.
Jesus had gone into the local synagogue, as was his practice on the Sabbath, and began to teach. Right in front of him was a man “whose right hand was withered”—no doubt a condition he was born with. There were scribes and Pharisees in the congregation and, we are told, they “were watching him” to see whether he would heal the man on a Sabbath day so that they could accuse him of breaking the Law.
Medical work was forbidden on the Sabbath because it normally took time. Jesus, of course, healed with just a word, but even if he did not, could one say that healing was against the spirit of the Sabbath? At the same time, it is also worth noting that the man was suffering from a chronic and probably non-painful disability. There was no need for him to be cured on the spot; it could easily have waited until the next day.
That gives further point to Jesus’ argument. The poor man had clearly been ‘planted’ by the religious authorities. He was being used as bait for their malicious ends. For the Pharisees and their co-conspirators, the man and his plight were secondary. Their goal was to prove their point and the man was seen as a useful tool.
Jesus, of course, is fully aware of what is going on. He speaks directly to the man with the withered hand:
Come and stand in the middle.
In some translations, the word “come” is stated as “Rise up” and is used as an indication of what is going to take place; the man is going to be given new life. Nor is there any secrecy. What Jesus is going to do will be seen by all.
But first he puts a question to the whole congregation, scribes and Pharisees included:
I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?
There is really no question because the answer is so obvious. But it was not the way these Pharisees were thinking.
Their question would be very different: “Is it right to obey the Law or to violate it?” For them the Law—every letter of the Law—was paramount. There is an irony in Jesus’ question because Jesus is planning to bring healing into a man’s life, while they were preparing to bring about his destruction. Who was really breaking the Sabbath?
In contrast to the Pharisees’ perspective, for Jesus the Law was relative to the true and the good. No implementation of a law can offend the true and the good. And sometimes the following of the true and the good may have to go against the letter of the law. What is legal is not always moral. It can be immoral, that is, evil, to obey a law in certain circumstances. What is moral sometimes transcends the law and may even contradict the law.
Jesus, hearing no dissenting answer, and:
After looking around at all of them…said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored.
The scribes and Pharisees:
…were filled with fury and began discussing with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Their plans had been brought to nought. They showed no pleasure that a crippled man had been made whole. Their interpretation of the Law had been shown to be wanting and they had to get back at Jesus.
Such situations are by no means unknown in our Christian life and in our Church. We will run into situations where doing good may be in conflict with traditional regulations and legal formulae.
We will find ourselves in situations where contemporary Pharisees will try to put the Church into a straitjacket of narrow-mindedness and fundamentalism whether it involves our understanding of the Scripture or the liturgy or morality or something else. These are people who put the letter of the laws, regulations and rubrics before love. For them it is more important to observe the externals of rules than to be a loving person. Let us pray that we are not such people.
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