Friday of Week 23 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Timothy 1:1-2,12-14
We begin reading today from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy. The two letters to Timothy and the letter to Titus are known as the Pastoral Letters because of their main subject matter.
Timothy was a native of Lystra (in modern Turkey). His father was Greek, while his mother was a Jewish Christian (Acts 16:1). From childhood he had been taught the Old Testament (2 Tim 1:5 and 3:15). Paul called him “my true child in the faith” (1:2), perhaps having led him to Christ during his first visit to Lystra.
At the time of his second visit Paul invited Timothy to join him on his missionary travels, and circumcised him so that his Greek ancestry would not be a liability in working with the Jews (Acts 16:3)—a good example of Paul’s pastoral flexibility, considering how strongly he spoke against those who wanted to re-introduce circumcision into the Christian church or to force gentile Christians to undergo it.
Timothy shared in the evangelisation of Macedonia and Achaia (Acts 17:14-15; 18:5) and was with Paul during much of his long preaching ministry at Ephesus (Acts 19:22). Thessalonika and Philippi, both recipients of Pauline letters were in Macedonia, while Corinth was in Achaia in southern Greece. Timothy travelled with Paul from Ephesus to Macedonia, to Corinth, back to Macedonia, and to Asia Minor (Acts 20:1-6). He seems even to have accompanied Paul all the way to Jerusalem.
He was certainly with Paul during the Apostle’s first imprisonment (Phil 1:1; Col 1:1; Philem 1).
Following Paul’s release (see Acts 28), Timothy again travelled with him, but eventually stayed at Ephesus to deal with the problems there, while Paul went on to Macedonia.
Paul’s closeness to and admiration of Timothy are seen in Paul’s naming him as the co-sender of his letters (2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Philemon) and in his speaking highly of him to the Philippians (Phil 2:19-22).
At the end of his life, Paul requested Timothy to join him at Rome (2 Tim 4:9,21). According to Heb 13:23, Timothy himself was imprisoned and subsequently released—whether at Rome or elsewhere, we do not know. Timothy was not an apostle and he was probably not an ‘overseer’ (Greek, episkopos), since he was given instructions about overseers (3:1-7; 5:17-22). It may be best to regard him as an apostolic representative, delegated to carry out special work (see Tit 1:5).
According to the New International Version Study Bible:
“Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope.” The letter purports to come from Paul, but there is discussion among scholars to what extent the Letter is Paul’s own writing, although it certainly reflects much of his thinking as we know it from his genuine letters.
He calls himself an ‘apostle’, seeing himself as being specially commissioned by “the command of God our Saviour”, a claim he makes more than once and a term which the Letter to the Hebrews applies to Jesus himself (Heb 3:1). In his other letters, Paul seldom uses the term ‘Saviour’, but in the Pastoral Letters he uses it when speaking both of the Father and of Christ. In speaking of Christ Jesus as “our hope” he is, as was mentioned elsewhere, speaking of an attitude of complete confidence in God’s promises yet to be fulfilled.
The Letter is addressed to Timothy, “true child of mine in the faith”. Timothy seems to have been found by Paul on a visit to Lystra (in present-day Turkey) during one of his missionary journeys and brought into the church by him. Paul, in other words, was his ‘God-father’. He also calls Timothy his son in the First Letter to the Corinthians (“my beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord”, 1 Cor 4:17) and in the Second Letter to Timothy (“Timothy, my beloved child”, 2 Tim 1:2).
To Timothy, Paul wishes:
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
Compared to other letters, it is a rather brief salutation. Yet we could hardly ask anything more precious from God our Father and the Lord Jesus than “grace”, the tangible experience of God’s love in our life; “mercy”, the compassion of God ready to forgive us at all times; and “peace”, the inner peace that only God can give and which no one can take from us.
Paul then gives a personal testimony of God’s love in his life. He expresses his deep gratitude:
…Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me…
This was the strength to break away from his old rigid religious beliefs which were a source of such hatred and violence. By calling Paul into his service, Christ his Lord has made a vote of confidence in his trustworthiness.
God had good reason to have doubts given the fact that Paul had been:
blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.
By going all out to destroy the Christian communities, he was a blasphemer because he was, in fact, attacking Christ himself. On the road to Damascus, he had been knocked to the ground and had heard a voice say:
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
Paul asked in reply:
Who are you, Lord?
And the answer came:
I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Acts 9:4-5)
In attacking the Christians, he was attacking Jesus himself:
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)
It is another affirmation of the real presence of Christ in his Body, the Christian community.
His blaspheming, of course, arose out of his persecuting activities and his Pharisaical arrogance in wanting to rid the world of what he regarded as renegade and heretical Jews.
However, the Lord showed compassion on him because, due to his lack of faith in Christ at the time, he basically was acting in ignorance. Most prejudice against other people arises from ignorance and hence is not seen by the prejudiced person as prejudice, but a conviction about the ‘truth’, a ‘truth’ which, in fact, is very incomplete and often completely false.
But since then, Paul says:
…I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
It is never too late to be converted and change one’s ways. No matter what we may have done, God is ready to receive us back. We, however, have a very strong tendency to continue condemning people for their past or for their perceived background. We tend so easily to stereotype and scapegoat people.
But people can change; they can change radically; and they should be judged and evaluated on how they are now and not on how they were at a former time. Paul is a good example of this.
We need to remember that God always accepts us as we are in the here and now. It is important that we try to act towards others in the same way. One sincere act of love on our part wipes out everything.
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Thursday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Malachi 3:13-20
We just have one reading from this book and it comes from the final verses of the last chapter. The Jerusalem Bible entitles the passage: “The triumph of the upright on the Day of Yahweh”. Yahweh is complaining that some of his people are saying harsh things about him. They are complaining:
What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the Lord of hosts?
The salvation they have been longing for is not being realised. They feel depressed like mourners in sackcloth and ashes.
On the contrary, it is the proud and arrogant who seem to be the happy ones; those who practise immorality are the ones who prosper and do well out of life. They constantly challenge God’s laws with their behaviour, but nothing ever happens to them. What is the point, then, in trying to live a good life?
However, there were some God-fearing people, those who did not give way to doubt and cynicism, who got together in fellowship and gave each other mutual encouragement. They drew up a “book of remembrance” in the Lord’s presence in which were recorded the good deeds “of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name”. This book was analogous to the records of notable deeds kept by earthly rulers. In this way, they kept their faith and confidence in Yahweh.
By doing this they could clearly see the difference between the genuinely good person and the wicked one, between the one who served God and the one who did not.
Then comes the prophet’s warning from Yahweh:
See, the day is coming, burning like an oven…
Fire, smoke and cloud were traditionally a feature of the coming of the Lord. We saw it when Moses and the Israelites were at Sinai. And Isaiah says, for example:
See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,
his anger burning and his burden heavy;
his lips are full of indignation,
and his tongue is like a devouring fire. (Is 30:27)
That will be the day when the proud and the arrogant and those who do evil will be set afire and destroyed root and branch. Speaking about the work of Jesus, John the Baptist told the crowds who came to the Jordan:
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
(Matt 3:12)
On the other hand, for those who have remained faithful, even through those days when evil seemed to prosper, for those who feared the Lord’s name:
But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
The “sun of righteousness” implies power and triumph. Isaiah compared God and his glory with the sun (see Is 60:1,19).
The title “Sun of Righteousness”, applied to Christ, has had its influence on the liturgy of Christmas and the Epiphany. Luke speaks of Christ as the “rising sun” from heaven in Zechariah’s hymn known to us as the Benedictus, which is recited every day in the Church’s Divine Office. Zechariah’s son, John the Baptist, will prepare the way as:
…the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:78-79)
Yes, the Light that is Christ has brought healing and wholeness into so many lives. Let us open ourselves to that healing and wholeness also.
However, times and people do not change very much and what Malachi says is still true in our own time. We, too, can be so easily tempted to go the way of those who seek the good life and get carried away by the materialism, consumerism and hedonism that washes over us day after day. We, too, can pay lip service to the call of our faith and just go through the motions of ‘religious observance’. Let us eat, drink and be merry for as long as we can and then, when the end seems to be on the horizon, we can straighten things out with God.
It is not a very wise way of dealing with a God who can come “like a thief in the night”. It is not a very enlightened choice. On the other hand, once we really enter into the Way of Christ we will find that it is there we find our deepest needs satisfied. Let us ask God to open our eyes to the true spirit of Jesus’ gospel and make it the driving force of our lives.
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Thursday of Week 1 of Advent – First Reading
Commentary on Isaiah 26:1-6
Today’s reading is a psalm in praise of Zion. There is a strong contrast with what had been said in an earlier chapter (Is 24:10-13):
The city of chaos is broken down;
every house is shut up so that no one can enter.
There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
all joy has reached its eventide;
the gladness of the earth is banished.
Desolation is left in the city;
the gates are battered into ruins.
For thus it shall be on the earth
and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is ended.
Contrast that with today’s upbeat statement:
We have a strong city;
he sets up walls and bulwarks as a safeguard.
Open the gates,
so that the righteous nation that maintains faithfulness
may enter in.
Wednesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 12:18-27
Jesus faces another confrontation today, this time with Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group which did not accept many of the beliefs held by the Pharisees. They confined their beliefs to the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses that comprise the first five books of our Bible.
Among the beliefs they rejected was that of life after death. Armed with this conviction, they approached Jesus with a hypothetical case which they felt could not be answered by him.
A woman married a man, but he died before they could have children. In order that her late husband, the eldest son in his family, would have heirs, she followed a law (known as the Levirate law; see Deut 25:5-10) which said she had to marry her husband’s brother. She did so, but he also died and, in the end, she married seven brothers, all of whom died before a child could be conceived.
The Sadducees’ question to Jesus was that, if there is life after death, which of the seven men would be her real husband in the next life? For them, of course, there was no problem, but for Jesus and all those who believed in an after-life, they thought it created an insoluble situation.
Jesus answers them on two fronts. First, he says that in the next life marriage will no longer exist. People will all be related equally in a common relationship with God. Second, he astutely quotes from the book of the Exodus, a book of the Bible which the Sadducees acknowledge as divine revelation. Jesus reminds them that God spoke to Moses from out of the burning bush and:
He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
(Exodus 3:6)
Jesus adds:
He is God not of the dead but of the living…
God did not say to Moses: “I was the God of Abraham”, or “I used to be the God of Abraham”, but “I am (another I AM statement) here and now the God of Abraham”.
Perhaps we might not be altogether swayed by this argument, but faced with a text from a part of the Bible they accepted as divine revelation, it was a statement the Sadducees could not question…and they had no comeback.
It is useful for us to be able to handle distortions of our faith which can sometimes be thrown at us. It is essential that we are familiar with our Bible in order to do so. But we might also say that we do not bring people to Christ simply by besting them in arguments. The real way to bring people to Christ is by the compelling example of our words, our actions and our attitudes reflecting his love and tolerance.
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Tuesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Maccabees 6:18-31
For today’s and tomorrow’s readings we go to the Second Book of Maccabees. It is not a continuation of the first book and covers only part of the same period (180-161 BC) seen from a more religious, less historical, angle. However, chronologically speaking, today’s and tomorrow’s readings fit in here.
Today and tomorrow we will be reading of the heroic martyrdoms of people who refused to compromise what they regarded as fundamental principles of their Jewish faith and sacrificed their lives as martyrs. The story of Eleazar and of the mother and her seven sons (tomorrow’s reading), among the earliest models of martyrdom, were understandably very popular among the Christians of the early centuries. Written originally to encourage God’s people in time of persecution, they add gruesome details to the record of tortures and place long speeches in the mouths of the martyrs.
Today we read about Eleazar, who was one of the leading teachers of the Law. He was elderly and a man of great dignity and presence. When he was forced to eat a piece of pork, something completely forbidden by the Law, he spat it out, ready to die with honour rather than to live on in disgrace among his fellow-Jews.
Those who had known him for a long time and had the greatest respect for him wanted him to go through the motions of eating the forbidden food without actually breaking the Law rather than see him lose his life. They urged him, during the lengthy preparation of the ritual meal, to have a kind of meat brought, prepared by himself, which he could legally eat and just pretend to eat the meat prescribed by the king.
By availing of this help provided by friends, he could escape death. But Eleazar, having lived a life of total integrity since he was a boy and followed the Law with the utmost fidelity, told his friends to send him at once to Hades, the place of the dead. What his friends were suggesting might save his life, might not involve a literal breaking of the law, but would have given the appearance that he had conformed to the demands of the idolatrous king. Not only the letter, but the spirit of the Law had to be maintained. And then there were the effects it might have on others, especially the young and impressionable.
Eleazar said to his well-meaning friends:
Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life, for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to a foreign way of life, and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age.
He might, by the suggested ruse, escape physical death, but he would never escape from his accountability to God. By showing his readiness to die, he will prove himself worthy of his old age. In addition, he would leave behind:
…to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.
He then proceeded to walk straight to the torture wheel (or “rack”) on which he would be lashed. But those who just now had been encouraging him to save his life now turned against him. They thought his decision sheer madness. But Eleazar, just before he died under his executioner’s blows, spoke his last words of testament:
It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him.
In dying this way, he left a striking example of nobility and goodness not only for the young, but for the greater part of the nation. He died both a hero and a martyr.
The lesson of this story is important in our age when so much attention is given to image. Appearing to be rich is more important than actually being rich. What people think about you is more important than what you really are. People go to great lengths for image, status, reputation, ‘face’. They surround themselves with the trappings of the consumerist society—the right car, the right house, the right mobile phone, the right restaurants, clothes, cosmetics and even hair styles.
Sometimes, for the sake of ambition and ‘success’, they will not hesitate to compromise religion and morality. Eleazar’s lesson is not so much about his bravery in the face of death, but his integrity, his refusal to compromise on vital issues. With the help of his supporters, he could easily have escaped suffering and death. They thought he was mad not to do so.
For them it was only a question of a few pieces of meat; for Eleazar his loyalty to his God and his own conscience was at stake. He would not have been able to live with himself if he had followed their advice. There are some values which are more important than life itself. It is a lesson much needed in our time.
Origen and some of the Church Fathers, notably Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzen and Cyprian, praise Eleazar as a pre-Christian martyr. This narrative, like the next (which we will read tomorrow), is of the same literary type as many of the Acta of the martyrs.
Our Church should be proud that in every single century since its foundation, there have been people ready and willing to give their lives as an expression of loyalty to Jesus Christ and the way of life for which he stands.
The word ‘martyr’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘witness’. Not all of us will be required to die for our faith, but it is absolutely certain that we are called on to give witness to Jesus Christ and his mission to build the Kingdom of God in the world—a Kingdom of truth, love, fellowship, justice, freedom and peace. It is important to reflect on the question: How do I give witness?
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Saturday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 8:5-17
Today we read about the second of the ten miracles of Jesus described by Matthew after the Sermon on the Mount. It is a story also found in Luke and John, but strangely enough, not in Mark.
The significant element in this story is the fact that the person asking for help is a centurion, a soldier and presumably not a Jew. Yet he has this great faith in Jesus. It is a sign of the future role of Gentiles in the originally all-Jewish Christian community.
The centurion asks Jesus to cure a servant who has become paralysed. Jesus immediately responds that he will go and cure him. The centurion replies:
Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.
These words should be very familiar to us from the paraphrase used in the prayers before sharing in Communion. And the centurion goes on to say that as an army officer, he just has to give commands and they are carried out on the spot. When it comes to healing, he knows that Jesus can do the same.
Jesus is astonished at the faith of this pagan:
Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
And he foretells that this is a sign of what is going to happen in the future when Gentiles from all over the world will enter the Kingdom while many of Jesus’ own people will be left outside. What is more, they will become God’s people sharing glory with the Jewish ancestors: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is a sad theme running through the whole of this Gospel: the rejection of Jesus by so many of his own people and their self-chosen exclusion from the Kingdom.
The faith that Jesus expects is not an acceptance of religious doctrines. It is rather an act of total trust and surrender by which people commit themselves to the power of God—in this case, the power of God in Jesus.
Paraphrasing from the Jerusalem Bible:
Christ asks for this faith especially when he works his miracles, which are not so much acts of mercy as signs attesting his mission and witnessing to the kingdom; hence he cannot work miracles unless he finds the faith without which the miracles lose their true significance. (edited)
For this reason this faith was not easy to give, especially for many of Jesus’ hearers who could not see the presence of God in Jesus and hence could not commit themselves to him. Even the disciples were slow to believe. We see this especially in Mark’s Gospel. But once present, such a faith can bring about the transformation of a person’s life, as many converts to Christianity can attest.
Turning to the centurion, Jesus says,
Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.
And we are told:
…the servant was healed in that hour.
What is clear from this story and from many other healings by Jesus is the crucial element of faith in the one approaching Jesus. It is the only condition necessary—all other characteristics are irrelevant. Luke will tell us that Jesus was restricted in the help he could give to the people in his home town of Nazareth because they simply did not have faith in him.
Let us pray that we may never lose that gift of faith which has, in the mysterious ways of divine Providence, been given to us. And let us remember that, without that faith, God will be hampered in reaching out his healing love to us.
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Tuesday of Week 23 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 6:12-19
In today’s Gospel, we move on now to a different phase in Luke’s story and some very crucial sayings of Jesus. We are told that Jesus went up into the mountains to pray and spent the whole night there in prayer to God. Some might wonder what Jesus would have to pray about. Such a question may reveal a limited concept of what prayer is. It is not just a question of asking for things. It is even less a question of fulfilling a religious duty, i.e. ‘saying our prayers’.
Prayer is ultimately making contact with God, the beginning and end of all things. It makes a lot of sense that Jesus would have wanted to be in intimate contact with his Father and to spend long periods with him. One of Jesus’ main concerns was that he do the will of his Father. Prayer was one way of making sure that there was complete harmony with that will.
Luke’s Gospel shows Jesus at prayer more than any of the others. He shows Jesus praying before all the important stages in his public life.
As soon as this period of prayer was over, he called together his disciples and from them he chose twelve as Apostles. We know that among those who came to hear Jesus was a group, comprising both men and women, who regularly followed him and were committed to his teachings. Elsewhere we know of 72 such disciples who were sent out on a mission to do what Jesus was doing. After the Ascension, we are told of 120 believers waiting for the coming of the Spirit. It is from these that Jesus chooses 12 to be Apostles, with a special mandate to continue his mission for the Kingdom. Although the order of names varies in the different Gospels, the list is always headed by Peter while Judas is placed last.
We can sometimes be rather casual in our use of the terms ‘disciples’ and ‘apostles’, but they have very distinct meanings. The word ‘disciple’ is applied to any person who commits himself to be a follower of Jesus. The word ‘disciple’ comes from a Greek word which means ‘to learn’ (discere). There is a passive element present, in the sense of the disciple sitting at the feet of the guru and learning from him. Jesus’ disciples regularly called him ‘Rabbi’ or teacher. The word ‘apostle’ (Greek, apostolos), however, has a much more active meaning. It refers to a person who goes out as an emissary, delegated to pass on information or commands or instructions to others on behalf of some authority.
In the Gospel, the word ‘apostle’ first applies to the twelve people who were especially chosen by Jesus to hand on his message. They would, after the departure of Jesus, become the foundation stones of the new community. In them would be invested the integrity of the original message and it would be up to them to interpret its acceptable developments. They were the beginnings of what we call today the ‘magisterium’, the teaching body of the Church responsible for the maintenance of the integrity of the gospel message.
In this, as in all the lists of the Apostles, the first person listed is Simon, whose name is now changed to Peter. In Matthew, the change is made at Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah (Matt 16:18). There are variations of the Apostles’ names in all the lists. Bartholomew here seems to be the same as Nathanael in John (1:45) and is associated with Philip. Matthew seems to correspond to Levi (Mark 2:14). James, son of Alphaeus, is probably the same as James the younger, not the brother of John (Mark 15:40). The other Simon is called a Zealot. This could be either to describe his religious zeal or indicate his original membership in the party of the Zealots, a Jewish revolutionary group violently opposed to Roman rule. Judas, the son of James is another name for Thaddaeus (Matt 10:3; Mark 3:18). He is also known as Jude to distinguish him from the other Judas, who always appears last in the lists. ‘Iscariot’ may mean that Judas came from Kerioth. The town Kerioth Hezron was about 19 km south of Hebron and appears in the Old Testament (Josh 15:25; Jer 48:24).
We know, of course, that one of the chosen failed utterly and betrayed his Master. He was replaced by Matthias. Later, too, Paul—who never saw the pre-resurrection Jesus—would be called to be an Apostle. The term would also be applied to others in the New Testament, e.g. Barnabas, a missionary colleague of Paul.
Secondly, however, the word ‘apostle’ applies to every baptised Christian. All of us, one way or another, are called to pass on the Gospel message so that others can hear and respond. There are many ways we can do this. One thing, though, is clear—it is not enough for us simply to be disciples, i.e. passive followers.
Immediately following the call of the Twelve comes what is really Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. Significantly, for him it is going to take place in a plain, down on the ground in the midst of all the people. Luke’s version is sometimes known as the “Sermon on the Plain”. It somehow indicates the humility of Jesus and his closeness to the people, while Matthew uses the more biblical concept of a mountain as the place where God reveals himself.
Jesus is surrounded by all his disciples, his newly chosen Apostles, and a huge crowd from Judea and Jerusalem, from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, including both Jews and non-Jews. They all came to listen to Jesus, and to be healed. And they were all eager to touch him physically, because a certain power went out from Jesus and brought healing to all.
Let us then hear today the call of Jesus, first to be his disciples, totally committed to accepting and assimilating his message. As well, let us accept the responsibility to spread the gospel actively through the way we live our lives, through the way we speak and through the relationships we establish with people. Finally, let us also reach out and touch Jesus so that we may experience his healing wherever we need it.
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Monday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 14:5-18
At the end of last week, we saw the Israelites setting out on their escape journey out of Egypt. The story is interrupted by a number of religious instructions for later generations arising out of the Exodus experience, including regulations for the Passover, the consecration of the first-born to the Lord, and the feast of the Unleavened Bread.
When the story of the departure is taken up again, we are told that God instructed the people not to follow the shortest route through the land of the Philistines along the shores of the Mediterranean to Canaan. This was the objective of their journey, the Promised Land. Instead, they were told to follow a more “roundabout way of the wilderness bordering the Red Sea.” The reason given was that to go that shortest route would have involved a lot of fighting with the local people. It will eventually take them 40 event-filled years before they will reach their objective.
We are also told that on their journey:
The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. (Exod 13:21)
This is possibly one and the same preternatural phenomenon, a central nucleus of fire surrounded by smoke; only at night was its luminous nature visible.
Both cloud and fire are regularly symbols of God’s presence in the Scriptures. We saw Moses talking with God in a burning bush. In the Gospel, during the Transfiguration, God’s presence is shown by the cloud that comes down on the three Apostles, and Jesus, at his ascension, is taken up into a cloud. At Pentecost, God’s presence is indicated by the tongues of fire on each one present.
The erratic route followed by the Israelites gave the impression that they were lost in the wilderness, leading the Pharaoh to change his mind and go in pursuit of them. But this was all part of God’s plan. It is at this point we pick up today’s reading.
When the Pharaoh heard that the Hebrews had fled, he and his officials changed their minds about letting them go. They suddenly realised that they were going to lose a major work force for their construction projects.
So the Egyptians set out in pursuit with the cream of their armed forces. The Pharaoh:
…took six hundred elite chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
God had made the Pharaoh so obstinate that he went in pursuit of the Hebrews who were marching away in triumph with their God behind them. The Egyptian forces caught up with the Hebrews in their encampment by the sea at Pi-hahiroth, facing Baal-Zephon. These places have not been definitively identified and even their position related to each is not clear. Perhaps the former was on the west shore of the sea, where the Israelites were, and the latter was on the opposite shore.
Pharaoh was almost on top of them when the Hebrews became aware of their presence. Filled with alarm, they cried out to their Lord for help.
They then turned on their leader, Moses, as the scapegoat for their problem, saying:
Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?
They even begin saying that they did not want to leave Egypt at all and were ready to keep working for the Egyptians. They cried:
…it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
It was typical of people who judge a situation only by what they can see immediately in front of them. It was also one of the first of many examples of their lack of trust in God and in his chosen messenger, Moses.
Moses then reassured them:
Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.
The Egyptians who are pursuing them now will soon never be seen by them again, because:
The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.
The Lord himself now intervenes and asks why the people are crying out to him. Do they not trust him and his promises? He then gives his instructions. First, the Israelites are to continue going forward in the direction of the sea. Second, Moses is to raise his staff over the sea and divide it in two so that the Israelites can walk through it on dry land. Third, God will make the Pharaoh and the Egyptians so obstinate that they will go in pursuit.
In today’s passage, we are not yet told exactly what is going to happen to the Egyptians, but that God will receive glory through what happens to Pharaoh, his army and all his chariots. The result will be that the Egyptians will now realise that Yahweh is Lord.
The lesson all through is that God is with his people, protecting and leading them. Even when they seem to be in deep trouble, he is there. They sometimes can see no light at the end of the tunnel, but the light is there and it is God.
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Saturday of Week 11 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
We come to the final reading from this letter as Paul continues to defend his credentials as an Apostle of Christ to the Corinthians. Paul says:
It is necessary to boast…
He says this though “nothing is to be gained by it”. It doesn’t do any good in itself, but he sees it as the only effective way to counter the claims of his opponents.
He has spoken about the terrible sufferings and hardships he has been through, and now he speaks of tremendous mystical experiences which brought him to unutterable heights of intimacy with God. Like most mystical experiences, he tells us that they cannot be adequately explained in human words.
Paul next speaks of someone who, fourteen years previously, had been “caught up to the third heaven”. It was such an intense experience that he is not sure whether it took place inside or outside his body. “Caught up” suggests an ecstatic experience. This same person was caught up into “paradise” and heard things which it is impossible to put into words or perhaps to divulge. This is the experience that many mystics—Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, for instance—have described.
The reference to a ‘third heaven’ reflects the cosmologies of the ancient world which pictured a multi-tiered universe. Jewish literature in the immediate pre-Christian era had much speculation about the number of ‘heavens’. The usual number is seven, but the Testament of Levi speaks of three and spoke of God in level three. This seems to be the model Paul envisages. In any case, Paul seems to indicate a spiritual journey to a non-earthly environment in which God revealed to him certain secrets.
Now, however, he does not want to boast about that person; instead he prefers to speak about his weaknesses. These experiences were not a personal accomplishment because they were so clearly the work of God in him. By referring here to himself in the third person he is emphasising the distance between that experience and his ordinary life. And his use of passive verbs also points to his passivity and receptivity in the experience. He boasts of them as a blessing from God rather than a personal achievement or something he earned. At the same time, they do indicate a special closeness to God which his opponents would not be able to claim.
So he prefers to boast of his weaknesses, weaknesses which were so obvious to those who knew him and these were entirely his own. He could boast about the “exceptional character of the revelations” because they are the truth, but he will not because people might have a higher opinion of him than he really deserves. Instead he will speak about his weaknesses. No one will question these because they are all too obvious!
So, in case he might have been tempted to feel superior because of these mystical experiences, he says “a thorn was given me in the flesh”, describing it as:
…a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.
This negative experience helps to give him a sense of balance. There is much discussion about the nature of this ‘thorn in the flesh’.
The term ‘thorn in the flesh’, like the English ‘thorn in the side’, usually refers to persons, so it is very possible that Paul is speaking either of one person who has been particularly critical of him or of the group of ‘super apostles’ who have ridiculed him for his poor speaking ability and generally poor presentation. The main reason for his distress is that he saw it making his work of proclaiming Christ less effective.
Whatever it was, like his Master before him in the garden, he begged his Lord three times to liberate him from this cross—an indication of how it hurt him. As in the case of his Lord, his prayer was answered not quite in the way he intended—with a firm ‘No’. Yet it was, as in the case of Jesus, an answer and a clear indication of God’s will. He was told:
My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
In other words, God’s power is given most fully and manifested most completely by Paul remaining with his weakness.
Great man that he is, Paul fully accepts this. He realises that all he accomplishes will not be attributed to him, because of his transparent faults, but to their original Source—the Lord he loves and serves so faithfully.
Far from regretting or concealing these faults, he now even boasts of them. He had seen them as an obstacle to his apostolic work, but now, after his prayer, he understands that they only make the power of Christ working through him more obvious. He writes:
So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
These weaknesses include the apostolic hardships he must continue to endure, including strong personal hostility as listed at this point. He says:
Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ…
Paradoxically, it is through these weaknesses and shortcomings that the power of Christ is most visible in his evangelising work.
And he concludes:
…for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
There is much for us to pray and reflect on here. How sensitive we are to our faults and weaknesses and what efforts we make to hide them from others! How often we blame God for the pains and aches of life!
Paul was only concerned about one thing, namely, that the Gospel of Christ be proclaimed. If that could only be done by his weaknesses becoming known to the world, so be it. We need to have the same spirit.
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Friday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 12:35-37
In the face of the confrontations he has been experiencing Jesus now lays claim to his true identity. It had long been the belief among the Jews that the Messiah would be a descendant of the family of David. (On the other hand, the Samaritans saw the Messiah coming through the prophetic line; see John 4.)
Jesus, we know from the genealogies the Gospel gives us, was of the family of David. But today he affirms he is more than just a descendant of David. He is in fact David’s Lord. In the Gospel, Jesus quotes from Psalm 110, and we need to remember that David was believed to be the author of all the Psalms, themselves words inspired by the Holy Spirit.
In the Psalms, David says:
The Lord [God] says to my lord [the Messiah],
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps 110:1)
Jesus, then, is saying two things to his opponents:
- Jesus, the descendant, is the Lord of his ancestor, King David, and he is the Messiah-King who will sit at the right hand of God. He is, then, also the Lord of those who are challenging him.
- God promises that he will crush all the enemies of the Messiah-King.
The argument used in this reading could hardly be used today, as we have a better understanding of the authorship of the Psalms than people had in Jesus’ time.
Nevertheless, there are many other elements in the Christian Testament which lead us to the same conclusion: Jesus is Lord of all. We should ask ourselves: Does my life give testimony to that belief?
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