Wednesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Paul defends his behaviour with the Thessalonians where he had been treated very badly by a group of people. He reminds them of how he and his fellow evangelisers used to work night and day so as not to be a burden on them while they preached the gospel among them.
We know that, wherever he could, Paul supported himself and was not ashamed to be known by his trade—a tentmaker. As he said in yesterday’s reading, he never insisted on what he believed were his rights as an evangeliser. The Greeks tended to despise manual labour and viewed it as fit only for slaves, but Paul was not ashamed of doing any sort of work that would help further the gospel. He never wanted to be unnecessarily dependent on others.
The Thessalonians themselves have seen—as has God himself—how Paul’s behaviour among them has always been impeccable and upright. Paul never hesitates to admit his weaknesses, but he also is not afraid to speak of his strengths and he does here (see also his strong self-defence in 2 Corinthians). He and his companions always treated the Thessalonians as a father would his children, urging them, encouraging them, and appealing to them to live a life worthy of the God who calls them to share his Kingdom and his glory. He is proud of the example he has set to others. It was a work combining both dedication and affection.
In calling them to share God’s Kingdom he is true to the core of Jesus’ teaching. ‘Kingdom’ is not a term Paul uses very often, but he did use it once to sum up the message of his teaching. This was during his address of farewell to the elders at Ephesus:
And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again. (Acts 20:25)
Now Paul continually thanks God for them, because as soon as they heard the word which Paul brought them as God’s message, they welcomed it for what it was—not the word of a mere human being (Paul), but God’s own word, a power that is now working among them as believers.
This perception has enabled them to be steadfast in the face of opposition. We have here, too, a brief summary of the apostolic tradition: the message is first ‘received’, or ‘heard’. It then penetrates the mind or heart, where it is welcomed, and proves that the hearer acknowledges God has been speaking through his missionary.
In all our Christian living we, too, need to be aware that our greatest impact is made not just by the words we speak, but also by the example of our lives—by the love and care and compassion that we show. And the real test of our Christian witness is not that people say how holy we are, but that they themselves are led to God.
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Thursday of Week 2 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 3:7-12
This is a summary text indicating the tremendous drawing power of Jesus with ordinary people. It is in stark contrast with the preceding passages of conflict with the religious leaders who were out to destroy him. People were coming not only from Galilee, where Jesus was living and working, but from Jerusalem and Judea in the south, from across the river Jordan and even from gentile regions like Tyre and Sidon. They came because of all they had heard about what he was doing.
So great were the crowds that Jesus had to ask his disciples to get a boat so that he would not be crushed. Huge numbers of people who had heard of his healing powers wanted to touch him. They felt that was enough to be healed.
Some, possessed by “unclean spirits”, fell down before him and called out:
You are the Son of God!
And Jesus:
…sternly ordered them not to make him known.
As mentioned before, this call by those possessed by “unclean spirits” was not a confession of faith, but an attempt to turn aside the threatening power of Jesus by using the exact name of the opposing ‘spirit’. Jesus knew that the people were not yet ready for this revelation of his identity. Their attitudes were still largely superficial. They were coming for their own immediate needs and not as true followers. They came to get, not to give or share.
Nevertheless, Jesus would not turn them away. He knew that they had great needs which only he could satisfy. He was full of compassion for them and anxious to bring healing into their lives. And now, more than 2000 years later, he has the same compassion and desire to bring healing to us as well.
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7th day in the Octave of Christmas – Gospel
Commentary on John 1:1-18
There are three occasions when we read the Prologue of John’s Gospel during the Christmas season. The first is at the Daytime Mass on Christmas Day, the second on the 2nd Sunday after Christmas and finally today, New Year’s Eve.
This magnificent passage provides a powerful opening to this Gospel. It lays out the main themes of John’s Gospel—Life, Light, Truth, the World, Testimony and the pre-existence of Jesus Christ. He is the Incarnate Logos or Word, who reveals God the Father to us. It was originally probably an early Christian hymn, and parallels closely two other great hymns quoted in the Pauline letters—one in the Letter to the Colossians, and the other in the Letter to the Philippians. All speak of Jesus’ special relationship to God as his Father.
Its opening words are the same as the very first words in the Old Testament:
In the beginning…
But whereas Genesis is really speaking of the beginning of our created universe, John goes back much further to the infinite nature of God himself. And in this, we find the Word already existing. The Word was in a close relationship with God and the Word was of the very same nature as God.
The term ‘Word’ has a number of inter-related meanings. For us a word can describe a person (e.g. man, woman, child) or a thing (e.g. house, table, tree). But here, Word indicates an active and creative word (somewhat akin to the power a great work of art can express). The Word, as distinct from the Father, is also seen as the instrument through which God creates:
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
And Word also points to God as the ultimate source of all meaning and reality. Jesus then is the Word of God—God’s self-communication. Through him the world came into being and through him we are led to God as the source of all meaning for our lives. That meaning is totally beyond the power of our human minds, but Jesus opens the door a little for us to see more than we could manage on our own.
The two great gifts that come to us through the Word are Life and Light. Later Jesus will say:
I AM the Resurrection and the Life… (John 11:25)
and
I AM the Bread of Life… (John 6:35)
and he will also say:
I AM the Light of the world… (John 8:12)
The Light that is Christ shines in the darkness of our world. It is a light that cannot be overcome, because it represents the ultimate values of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice and Love, Compassion and Fellowship, Freedom and Peace.
The coming of the Light was prepared for by John the Baptist. He had been sent by God, just as Jesus himself is sent by his Father. John himself was not the Light, but gave witness to the Light. In addition to John, there are many testimonies to Jesus: the Samaritan woman, the Scriptures, Jesus’ works, the crowds, the Spirit and his own disciples. And, finally, we might add—each one of us.
Jesus was fully inserted in the world, the same world which owes its very existence to him, and yet it did not know him—‘know’ in the sense of not recognising him or acknowledging him to be who and what he really is. The Gospel also records, surely with sadness, that the Word came to “what was his own” (i.e ‘his own home’), Israel, but his own people did not accept him. Of course, that is a generalised statement because there were many, including all the first followers of Jesus, who were Israelites. But the leadership by and large (again with exceptions like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea) did not accept him and were instrumental in his death.
Those, however, who did accept the Word were given the power to become children of God. As such they are brothers and sisters of Jesus, the Word. And this does not happen simply by natural birth or because they were born into a particular community, but by the choice of God. A Jew was someone born of Jewish parents and circumcised, and who chose to observe the Law.
Then comes the dramatic statement: “the Word became flesh”. The Word took on our human nature in all its fullness. He did not have, as some people believed, just the external appearance of a human, but was through and through a man like us in all things. And he lived right among us. The Greek term literally means he “pitched his tent or tabernacle”. In the Old Testament, God was believed to be present to his people in the Tent of Meeting. The Word, in his humanity, is the new presence of God among us. And we might add here, that in our times the Christian community, as the Body of the Risen Christ, is now the tabernacle of Jesus’ presence in the world.
And then we saw his “glory”, namely, the glory of God’s visible manifestation of his power. Formerly filling the tabernacle and the Temple, it is now found in the Incarnate Word, Jesus, God’s only Son. It is a presence “full of grace and truth”. ‘Grace’ is the love of God as experienced in our lives, and ‘Truth’ is that wholeness and integrity which reflects the deepest values we associate with God.
And now:
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace*.
We have all been given a share of the fullness of Grace and Truth, a share which we hope will grow with time. It is “grace in place of grace”. The grace of the Old Covenant is now replaced with the richer grace of the New Covenant. And it is “grace upon grace” as the grace of the Old Covenant is enriched by the grace of the New Covenant.
Obviously, the text is very rich and dense and needs a lot of contemplation, more than can be shared in a brief reflection. And the same message is really given by Luke in his more down-to-earth story of the conception and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. In truth, the two passages complement and enrich each other.
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*also translated, “grace in place of grace”.
Saturday of Week 1 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Today’s reading comes from the last part of the Book of Deuteronomy, which is also the last of the five books forming the Pentateuch. It contains the covenant laws by which the lives of observant Jews were guided.
Moses reminds the people of the solemn agreement that has been made between God and them:
Today you have obtained the Lord’s agreement…
And the declaration is that he will be their God and they are to:
…walk in his ways…keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances…and to obey him.
It is a mutually binding contract. However, it does not mean that if the people fail, they will be abandoned by God. In fact the opposite is true: their subsequent back-sliding highlights the fidelity of God!
This is also evident everywhere in the New Testament and also in our liturgy. The Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation says:
Though time and again we have broken your covenant,
You have bound the human family to yourself
through Jesus Christ our redeemer
with a bond so tight that it can never be undone.
The reading has to be read in the later context of the gospel, which spells out more clearly just what are the commandments and statutes that really count. The emphasis in the Law of the Old Testament was very much on external observance of rules and regulations. The emphasis in the gospel is very much on our interior attitude and on the mutual relationships between God, other people and oneself. Today’s Gospel passage on loving even one’s enemies shows, in particular, how far God’s commands are to be observed.
Nevertheless, the basic message stands: he is our God and we are to walk in his ways and to listen to his voice. That is the covenant that has been made between God and his people.
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Friday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Joshua 24:1-13
We go to the end of the book of Joshua. The intervening chapters which we have skipped deal mainly with the conquest of the Promised Land by the Israelites and later with the sharing out of the land among the tribes of Israel.
In this first part, Joshua asks his hearers to recognise God’s intervention on behalf of Israel. We will read the second half of the address in tomorrow’s reading.
An ancient tradition underlies this chapter. It possibly implies something more than a renewal of the covenant, namely, an offer of the Israelites’ faith to associated groups which had not experienced either the marvels or the revelation of the desert period. However this may be, the pact of Shechem confirmed the religious unity and thus preserved the political unity of the tribes. It was to have a decisive effect on the history of the nation.
Chapter 23 begins Joshua’s last words and testament, and today’s reading is part of a great assembly at Shechem where Israel is once called to a renewal of the covenant. It was Joshua’s final official act as the Lord’s servant, mediator of the Lord’s rule over his people. In this he followed the example of Moses, whose final official act was also a call to covenant renewal – of which Deuteronomy is the preserved document.
With its position right in the centre of the country, Shechem was ideally suited for tribal gatherings and its history made it the ideal place for making this religious pact. Abraham had built an altar there, Jacob had bought land there, and there had been buried the idols brought from Mesopotamia.
Joshua asks his hearers to recognise God’s ever-continuing intervention on behalf of Israel. The elders of Israel, its leaders, judges, and officials are all assembled in the presence of the Lord. Joshua then addresses the people bringing a message from Yahweh. Only a divinely appointed mediator would dare to speak for God with direct discourse, as Joshua does here.
There follows a brief history of all that God has done for his people from the earliest times. In accordance with the common ancient Near Eastern practice of making treaties (covenants), a brief recital of the past history of the relationship precedes the making of covenant commitments. Joshua here focuses on the separation of Abraham from his polytheistic family, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and the Lord’s establishment of his people in Canaan.
From time immemorial their ancestors, Terah, father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshipped other gods. The ‘River’ is the Euphrates. We know that Abraham originally came from Ur of the Chaldees, in the south of present-day Iraq.
Yahweh then brought Abraham from across the River and led him through the length and breadth of Canaan (where the people have now returned).
Abraham had, as promised, many descendants:
-There was Isaac, who had two sons, Jacob and Esau.
-To Esau was given the land of Seir, while Jacob and his sons settled in Egypt.
-Then he sent Moses and Aaron, brought the plagues on Egypt and then led his people out.
As they left and reached the Sea of Reeds pursued by the Egyptians, the Lord put a cloud between his people and the Egyptians, who were drowned in the waters.
-After that, for a long time they lived in the desert (there is no mention of Sinai).
-He then brought them to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the east side of the Jordan.
-The Amorites made war on the Israelites but were defeated and their country captured.
-Then Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab, made war on Israel.
-He sent for Balaam, son of Beor, to go and curse the Israelites.
But the Lord would not listen to Balaam; instead, he turned Balaam’s curse into a blessing (see Num 23-24).
The Israelites then crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. While the peoples of Jericho made war on the Israelites, God tells them:
I put them all at your mercy.
Yahweh also sent hornets ahead of the Israelites, which drove out the two Amorite kings. ‘Hornets’ may refer to the Egyptians who had long used the hornet as a national symbol, in which case Egypt’s military campaigns in Canaan may be in mind. But “the hornet” may also refer to the reports about Israel that spread panic among the Canaanites (see Jos 2:11; 5:1; 9:24). It may also simply indicate some troublesome afflictions, even leprosy. In any case, all that happened was God’s work. It was:
…not the work of your sword or of your bow.
Finally, Yahweh reminds his people:
I have given you a country for which you have not toiled, towns you have not built, although you live in them, vineyards and olive groves you have not planted, although you eat their fruit.
All in all, Yahweh is making clear that he has been with his people all the way from the earliest times to the present. Let them not think that it is all their own doing. At the same time, he is offering them a choice to continue following Yahweh or to opt for the far lesser gods of the surrounding peoples which they are often tempted to follow.
Maybe we too might look back and see the hand of God in the events of our lives, things which happened quite beyond our expectations or our ability to bring them about.
We might also reflect what are the gods in our lives we are tempted to follow. The gods of mammon: money, career, success, enjoyment, consumerism, status and image. Can we really opt for these gods and still be totally committed to the one God?
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Wednesday of Week 11 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
We move today to a different theme, namely, the way in which we are to pay our worship to God. Jesus’ teaching is based on the three basic acts of religion expected of a devout Jew—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In each case, Jesus warns his disciples not to indulge in any form of ostentation so as to attract the admiration of others.
He presents exaggerated images of how we should not do things in the way of ostentatious hypocrites. He speaks about people who blow trumpets in the streets to draw the attention of everyone when they give alms to the poor. He speaks about hypocrites who say their prayers in the most conspicuous places so that people will marvel at how holy they are. He speaks about people putting on gloomy and drawn looks so that everyone will know that they are fasting. In fact, Jews were only expected to fast on one day in the year—on the Day of Atonement, but the practice of regular fasting had become more common in Jesus’ time.
All this, Jesus says, is not worship of God, but a kind of self-advertisement. Such people, he says, get their reward, namely, the admiration of the onlooker, but it is not the reward that comes from acts of genuine worship.
When his disciples pray or fast or give alms they should do it in such a way that their actions will be directed entirely to God and not to themselves. We do remember earlier in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus said people should be able to see the good works of his disciples, but then the purpose was not that they would be praised, but that people would be led to glorify God.
It should also be pointed out that Jesus’ recommendation that we pray in private where only God can see us shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning that it is not necessary for us to take part in forms of community prayer—which Jesus himself would have done whenever he attended the synagogue or went to the Temple. It would be a gross misreading of this text to argue, as people sometimes are heard to do, that it is not necessary to attend Sunday Mass because “I can pray equally well in the privacy of my home”. To speak in such a way is to misunderstand completely the essentially communal nature of the Eucharistic celebration.
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6th day in the Octave of Christmas – First Reading
Commentary on 1 John 2:12-17
The first part of John’s Letter describes the four conditions for ‘walking in the light’ (1 John 1:5—2:28). Today’s reading focuses on the third condition: ‘detachment from the world’.
The writer reminds his readers that their sins have been forgiven through the name of Jesus. And he addresses his words to the different generations in families—to the fathers, the young, the children and the parents. In various ways he says basically the same thing: they have come to know Jesus, “who is from the beginning”, and the Father. And, he says, they have “conquered the evil one”, who is not, however, as in the Gnostic way of thinking, to be identified with the material world. He is rather the Source of Darkness who leads people away from the Light that is Life.
At the same time, but again not in a Gnostic sense, the author tells us not to love the ‘world’ or what is in the ‘world’. The word ‘world’ has two meanings in John’s writing. On the one hand, it can refer simply to the material environment in which we find ourselves and includes everything on our planet and in the whole universe. In other words, it refers to God’s creation which the Creator found “very good”:
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Gen 1:31)
We are called by the gospel to be very much part of that world, to be fully inserted into it:
You are the salt of the earth… (Matthew 5:13)
And indeed we are an integral part of the earth; we come from it and at the end we go back to it:
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return. (Gen 3:19)
On the other hand, ‘world’ also refers to all that thinking among people which is far from the thinking of God, as presented to us by revelation and especially through the witness of Jesus the Word. So, in this sense, we speak negatively of people being ‘worldly’:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world…
By embracing those things which are in conflict with the vision of God, we close ourselves to his love for us. This is the ‘world’ from which we must be detached.
These ‘worldly’ inclinations are summed up in today’s passage from John’s letter as:
…all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.
“Desire of the flesh” includes not only sexual indulgence, but every form of uncontrolled physical gratification. “Desire of the eyes” includes all forms of greed and envy for what others have. “Pride in riches” points to all forms of arrogance or ostentation in one’s lifestyle, where people put themselves as the centre of attention with little regard for the needs of others.
These three tendencies refer to the uncontrolled sensuality by which oneself and other people are reduced to mere objects of pleasure; to the uncontrolled greed to have everything one lays one’s eyes on (what today often comes under the term ‘materialistic consumerism’); and to an uninhibited desire for personal wealth and the power over others that goes with it.
These are all in total contradiction to the vision of the Kingdom, where the over-riding passion is to find one’s happiness in the well-being of others, in living one’s life with only what is really necessary, and in having the desire to create a world of sharing where everyone gives and everyone gets. These ideas are summarized as the passage concludes:
…the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God abide forever.
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Saturday of Week 23 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Timothy 1:15-17
In today’s short reading we pick up immediately where we left off yesterday and we are on the same theme, i.e. God’s mercy to the sinner and Paul as a striking example of it:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
This, Paul tells Timothy, is a saying he can rely on and that no one should doubt. There is no such saying found anywhere else in the New Testament, and it may simply be a creation of Paul himself and an expression of his firm belief.
For him, the truth of the statement is perfectly clear because Paul says that he himself is one of the greatest of sinners. This was because of his record in persecuting innocent Christians and throwing many of them into jail. As has been previously mentioned, it looks also as if he was an accomplice in the stoning of Stephen, if not the chief instigator (see Acts 7:58). That must have been very much on his conscience. So, if he has received mercy and forgiveness for his past—as is indicated by his being chosen personally by Christ as apostle—it is because Jesus Christ meant to make him a striking example of his inexhaustible patience with sinners everywhere, who threw themselves at God’s mercy.
And he concludes:
To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Reflecting on these words, we can, first of all, recall how we ourselves have experienced the mercy and “utmost patience” of Christ our Lord, considering how many times we have failed in our service of him and in loving those around us.
Second, we need to have some of that same compassion and patience in our own dealings with those whose behaviour we feel falls short of Christian and human values. We live in a very judgmental world, but we need to remember the warning that Jesus gave us in yesterday’s Gospel reading:
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? (Luke 6:41)
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Saturday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Zechariah 2:5-9,14-15
Today, we have the first of three readings from the prophet Zechariah. The book is closely, very closely, linked with Haggai whom we have been reading over the previous two days. The introduction is dated Oct-Nov, 520 BC—only weeks away from the prophecy of Haggai.
The Book of Zechariah consists of two distinct parts: chapters 1-8 and 9-14. The first part is concerned with Israel’s messianic future, emanating from the Temple. It begins with eight visions. The second part of the book (from which the other two readings will be taken) is entirely different and seems to be another work altogether, written at a later time, perhaps under the reign of Alexander the Great (who had overthrown the Persians).
Like Haggai, Zechariah was concerned with the rebuilding of the Temple, but more than Haggai, was also concerned with national ‘restoration’ and the high level of moral behaviour which was linked with it. This restoration is expected to inaugurate a messianic era in which the priesthood, represented by Joshua, will be held in increasing honour. But the sovereign power will be wielded by the ‘Branch’, a messianic title which the prophet applies to Zerubbabel. The two ‘Anointed Ones’ will rule in perfect harmony. As things turn out, the two ‘Anointed Ones’—Priest and King—will be combined in one Person, Jesus Christ.
Today’s reading presents parts of the third of eight visions the prophet has about a future glorious Jerusalem. We need to remember that these words were written when the exiles had only recently returned from exile and Jerusalem was still in a sorry state. The rebuilding of the Temple had not gone beyond the laying of the foundation, and both Haggai and Zechariah are concerned that the rest of the rebuilding process get under way as soon as possible.
Today Zechariah is trying to build up the morale and confidence of the returnees. Raising his eyes, the prophet says he has had a vision. He sees a man with a measuring line in his hand. The line is for taking measurements for the new building work and is a symbol of the overall ‘restoration’, not just of the Temple, but of the people also. Zechariah asks the man where he is going. The man replies:
To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is.
And, while the first man (now described as an ‘angel’, but evidently Zechariah himself) walks away, another angel comes out. The prophet is to go and tell the young man (Zechariah):
Run, say to that young man: Jerusalem shall be inhabited like unwalled villages because of the multitude of people and animals in it.
The prophet is being led to realise that the rebuilt Temple is not just for those who are living there now. What is in question is a New Jerusalem and a New Temple, whose population will overflow to such an extent that the City will be as if it had no walls.
Because, as “the Lord of hosts” (Yahweh) himself declares:
For I will be a wall of fire all around it…and I will be the glory within it.
The messianic Jerusalem will be protected by Yahweh himself, who has returned to his rebuilt Temple. This is reminiscent of the time in the desert when Yahweh accompanied his people with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Earlier on Isaiah, too, had said:
Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy. It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. (Is 4:5-6)
Our reading then concludes with part of a hymn of exhortation to the exiles:
Sing and rejoice,
O daughter Zion!
For I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord.
Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day and shall be my people,
and I will dwell in your midst.
Here we have, in part, the return of the Lord among his people which will happen once the new Temple is rebuilt and dedicated. But there is also a looking forward to a greater Jerusalem, one inaugurated by the coming of God’s Son to live among us with a totally new Presence, sealed in a New Covenant. It will certainly be a city without walls to which all the nations of the world will be invited to come and stay.
We, the baptised and members of Christ’s Body, are among those who have been invited to come and live among God’s own people and who, by the grace of God, are now ourselves the Temple of God all over the world. As Paul said to the Corinthians:
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?…For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Cor 3:16,17)
It is an awesome responsibility!
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