Friday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:20-26
Today’s readings are about repentance for the wrongs we have done and the guarantee of God’s mercy. The Gospel passage comes from the Sermon on the Mount, and is the first of six so-called ‘antitheses’ where Jesus contrasts the demands of the Law with those of the Gospel.
Virtue, for the scribes and Pharisees, was largely measured by external observance of the law. For Jesus, that is not enough. For him, real virtue is in the heart. There was a commandment not to kill, but Jesus says that even hatred and anger (i.e. violence in the heart, often expressed by abusive language) must be avoided. Furthermore, we cannot have one set of relationships with God, and another set with people.
So, it is no use going to pray and make our offering to God if we have done harm to a brother or sister. I must leave my gift at the altar, and first go and be reconciled with my brother or sister. Only then may I come to offer my gift.
I cannot say I love God if I hate a brother or sister:
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars… (1 John 4:20)
and
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. (Matt 25:45)
Repentance has to be expressed both to God and the person I have hurt. It is not possible to be reconciled to one, and not to the other.
We have something like this in every celebration of the Eucharist, although in practice, it can be very superficially done. At the beginning of the Communion, we together recite the Lord’s Prayer in which we all say:
…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…
How often are we conscious of saying those words, and how often do we really mean them?
Just after that, we are invited to share a sign of peace with those around us. Again, this can be done in a very perfunctory way. But the meaning of this gesture is that we want to be totally in a spirit of union and reconciliation with each other before we approach the Lord’s Table together to break the Bread—which is the sign of our unity as members of his Body.
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Saturday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:43-48
Today’s passage, like yesterday’s, comes from the Sermon on the Mount. The two passages are related, as they both speak of dealing with people with whom we have difficulties.
Today’s is a passage which many find difficult, too idealistic, or just downright meaningless. The Mosaic Law said that one must love one’s neighbour. It does not actually say we should hate our enemies, but in practice such hatred was condoned. Jesus rejects that teaching outright for his followers. We are to love our enemies and pray for them. How can we possibly do that? It is important that we understand what ‘love’ here means.
In Greek, it is the word agape, a deep concern for the good of the other that reaches out, even if there is nothing in return. It is not sexual, physical love (eros), nor is it the mutual love of intimate friendship or that between marriage partners (philia).
“Enemy” here means those who do harm to us in some way. It does not include the people we turn into enemies because we don’t like them. The true Christian does not have this kind of enemy. The main reason Jesus gives for acting in a loving way is that this is what God himself does.
God has many friends and many who are opposed to him, yet he treats them all exactly the same. God’s agape-love reaches out to all indiscriminately, just as the welcome rain falls and the burning sun shines with equal impartiality on every single person.
Elsewhere we are told that God is love; it is his nature; he cannot do anything else. And that love is extended equally to every single person—to Our Lady, to St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa), to the murdering terrorist, the serial killer, the abusive husband, the paedophile—to everyone. The difference is not in God’s love for each of these people, but in their response to that love.
Jesus tells us that we must try to love people in the same way he does. It is important to note that he is not telling us to be in love with those who harm us, or even to like them, or to have them as our friends. That would be unrealistic and unreasonable to ask.
But if we just care for those who are nice to us, how are we different from others? Even people who murder, or have no religion or morals, may do the same. But we are called to imitate the God in whose image we have been made.
And is it so unreasonable to love, to care for, to have genuine concern for our enemies, and pray for them? One presumes, as we have said, they are enemies in the sense that they are hostile to us, even though we may not have provoked them in any way. True Christians, from their side, do not have enemies.
For someone to be my enemy, it means that person really hates me, and may wish to do harm to me or may already have harmed me in some way. What do I gain by hating that person back? Then there are two of us who hate. Why should I allow another person’s hate to influence my feelings towards them? A person who hates is a person who is suffering, a person who is doing more damage to himself or herself, rather than to the supposed enemy. As the Gospel says, another person can hurt my body, but not my inner self.
And if he or she does harm me, they harm themselves as well—even if they get twisted pleasure in the short term. If I have a true Christian spirit, I will reach out in compassion to that person. I will want that person to be healed, healed of their hatred, healed of their anger, and to learn how to love. Surely it is much better, and makes more sense, to pray for that person than to hate them back—to bring about healing and reconciliation, rather than deepen the wound on both sides.
What Jesus is asking us to do is not something impossible or unnatural. It is the only thing that makes sense, and will bring peace to me and hopefully, in time, to the person who is hostile to me. We can literally disarm a hating person by acting towards them in a positive and loving way, and refusing to be controlled by their negative attitudes:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matt 5:9)
Jesus tells us today:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Obviously, this is an ideal that we can only reach for. But it is a call to do our utmost to imitate God in extending our goodwill impartially and unconditionally to every single person. This is not just a commandment. When we reflect on it, it is simply common sense and it is as much in our own interest as it benefits others.
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Tuesday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 6:7-15
Jesus tells us here not to babble endless prayers as if somehow by so doing we can bring God round to our way of thinking (see also Elijah and the priests of Baal: 1 Kgs 18:25-29). Some religious groups, too, would keep calling their god by all his different names, hoping that by hitting on the right one he would listen. There is no need to do this because God knows our needs before we ask. Why then do we need to pray at all?
The praying is not for God’s sake, but for our own. It is important for us to become deeply aware of our needs, of our basic helplessness, and of our total dependence on God. We also need to discern just what God wants of us so that we can do what he wants.
And that is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer to be recited. It is a way of praying; it is a list of the things we need to pray about. And it is less our telling God what we want him to do than making ourselves aware of the ways by which we can become more united with him. It is a very challenging prayer and, in a way, a very dangerous and daring prayer to make.
Our Father…
God is the source of all our life and all we have and are. And, if Jesus urges us to approach God as “Our Father”*, then every single person, each one without exception, is my brother or sister.
May your name be revered as holy…may your kingdom come…may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…
The three petitions are all really saying the same thing. Obviously, in one sense we cannot make God’s name more holy than it is. But we do need to respect that awesome holiness, and that is more for our sake than God’s. The petition can also be a petition that God make his name holy by showing his glory, in this case by bringing about the Kingdom in its fullness.
We want God to be loved and respected and worshipped by all—not in some future life, but here and now on earth. We want the loving and compassionate Reign of God to be fully accepted by people everywhere as part of their lives, individually and corporately. We want God’s will for this world to be also the will of people everywhere.
Clearly, all this has to begin with ourselves. The coming of the Kingdom is not just the work of God alone; it is the result of our cooperating with him in the work. What am I doing in my life now for the realisation of that Kingdom?
Give us today our daily bread…
This is a prayer that our needs be satisfied for today, a prayer that rules out excessive anxiety about the future. But how are those needs to be satisfied? Do we expect manna to drop from the skies? And what about that little word ‘our’ again? Does it just mean me, my family, our community, our town, our country—or much more? Is this not a prayer that we all work together to ensure that no one goes hungry? Yet we know that millions do go to bed hungry every night and even more suffer from an unhealthy diet. And we recognize that most of it is the result of human behaviour and neglect. This prayer reminds us that changing that situation is the responsibility of all of us—this is another dangerous prayer.
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…
Yet again, we have a dangerous thing to pray for. I really should not say it unless I am ready to do it. And if I am not ready, I need to pray hard for a forgiving heart. This is the only petition which is spelled out more clearly at the end of today’s Gospel passage:
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you…
(also see Matt 18:21-35 about the unforgiving servant)
And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one…
A final plea that we will not fail, but that God’s help will be with us all the way. It is an admission of our basic impotence to set things right in our own lives and in the world. Given the challenges of the rest of the prayer, we need all the help we can get.
If this prayer were to really enter our hearts and minds, we would become deeply transformed people. So let us stop babbling it as we often do and really pray it, phrase by phrase—and let us live it as well.
________________________________________________
*As discussed in the Catechism, “God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 239)
Wednesday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 11:29-32
Today’s readings are about doing penance for our sins and they are linked by the name of Jonah.
In Mark’s Gospel, the crowds are often shown as recognising God’s presence in Jesus better than the scribes and Pharisees do. In Luke, however, they are sometimes shown as people curious to see signs and wonders, but without any real commitment to following Jesus.
So today we are told that “the crowds were increasing” and Jesus spoke to them. But what he said was not very flattering:
This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
Jesus, like Jonah, is a call to repentance and radical conversion. And Jesus implies that many of his listeners are not ready or willing to hear that call. They don’t need any more signs—Jesus has been giving them an abundance of signs through his teaching and healing work.
On the judgment day, they, the chosen people of God, will be surprised to see:
The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and indeed, something greater than Solomon is here!
As well:
The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and indeed, something greater than Jonah is here!
Jesus is far superior to either Solomon or Jonah!
We, too, who claim to be God’s people, may be surprised to see who will be called to God’s side on judgment day because they heard and followed God’s word according to their capacity. The question is, where will we be on that day? Thomas à Kempis, writer of the famous medieval treatise The Imitation of Christ, asked that very same question. He was worried about whether he would persevere in serving Christ to the very end of his life. He said he was told in answer to his prayer:
Do now what you would like to have done then, and you will have nothing to worry about.
Where will I be on the Day of Judgement? The answer to that question can be decided by me this very day and every single day from now on.
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Friday of Week 1 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 18:21-28
The prophet Ezekiel today makes a double point. On the one hand, if the man who has done evil genuinely repents of what he has done, he will be totally forgiven:
None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them, for the righteousness that they have done they shall live.
This is because it is God’s desire that we should live rather than die.
On the other hand, if the formerly good man turns to a life of sin, he will die in his sin. Some may object that that is not fair. Why should he be punished when he did so much good in the past?
There was a tendency among the people of the Old Testament to believe that people were not only guilty of their past sins, but even of the sins of their parents. We remember in John’s Gospel, how Jesus was asked whether the man born blind was that way because of his own sin or the sin of his parents. Chronic disabilities—blindness, paralysis, deafness and the like—were often seen as punishment for sin. When the paralysed man let down through the roof came to the feet of Jesus, the first thing Jesus said to him was:
Friend, your sins are forgiven. (Luke 5:20)
And his subsequent healing was taken as proof that indeed his sins were really forgiven, because the cause had also been removed.
But here, Ezekiel is affirming that sin is something that belongs to the individual. And that it is a person’s present disposition, and only this, that determines God’s judgement.
One thing that comes out clearly in the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, is that God has a very short memory. Far from being a defect, it is a quality that very much favours us.
The person God sees is the person that I am now. What matters is my relationship with him now. The past, good or bad, is forgotten. There is not a divine account book with credits and debits that have to be balanced out at the end of the day.
Judas, a chosen Apostle, was lost because of the final choice he made in life. The murderous brigand on the cross with Jesus repents, and goes with Jesus to heaven.
Some may complain that what the Lord does is unjust. But the reading makes the situation clear:
When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed, they shall die…when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life.
It is not God who condemns us. It is we who make the choice to be with God or to alienate ourselves from him; and God recognises our choice.
So we too need not be anxious about our past. All that matters is how I relate to God today, and each day forward. And the choice to be with God, or away from him, is all ours. If today I reject God, directly or through the way I relate with those around me, then, however virtuous I have been in the past, I have put him out of my life. If, on the other hand, today I choose God, then I have nothing to fear, whatever I may have been guilty of in the past.
For our own reflection, we can be consoled that, no matter what we did in the past, it will have no effect on our relationship with God provided we reach out to him here and now. On the other hand, there is no room for complacency. Our past good record can be completely undone by our turning away at any time.
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Monday of Week 1 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 25:31-46
Both of today’s readings deal with the way we ought to behave towards each other. The First Reading tells us the kinds of things we ought not to do, while the Gospel emphasises more what we should be doing.
The Gospel describes the great scene of the Last Judgment when all will face their Lord Jesus. We will be divided into sheep and goats—i.e. those who are with Jesus and those who are not. The criteria on which we will be judged are interesting. There is nothing about the Ten Commandments (normally the matter of our confessions). Nor is there anything about the behaviors mentioned in the First Reading, which more or less reflect the contents of the Ten Commandments. There is nothing about what we normally call ‘religious obligations’ (e.g. being ‘at Mass’ on Sundays and holydays).
The test will be very simple. Did we love all our brothers and sisters or not? There is some discussion as to the identity of these ‘brothers and sisters’. Does it refer to all who are hungry, thirsty, in need of clothes, in need of medical care or in jail—or to a particular group? The passage may primarily be about Christians, and especially Christian missionaries whose preaching brought them suffering and persecution. These missionaries were more likely, too, to end up in prison. To reject and abuse these people and their message is tantamount to rejecting Jesus himself.
However, we have traditionally extended the passage to include all who suffer in any way because of our neglect, and we recognise Jesus as being present in these people in a special way.
And the things we are supposed to do are so simple: give food to Jesus hungry and drink to Jesus thirsty; to clothe Jesus naked; to visit Jesus sick and Jesus in jail. And naturally people will ask:
Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?
And the Judge will answer:
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
He says “to me”, not “for me”. Jesus identifies himself especially with the person in need. Every time we neglect to help a brother or sister in need, we neglect Jesus himself. Our worst sins, our most dangerous sins, will be our sins of omission. We can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly and still fail here.
The next time we examine our conscience, let us think about that. Whether we realise it or not, every time we spontaneously take care of a brother or sister in need, it is Jesus himself we are serving.
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Tuesday of Week 1 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Isaiah 55:10-11
This short reading comes from the last chapter of the second part of Isaiah, known as Second Isaiah (chaps 40-55). It is also known as the ‘Book of Consolation’ because it speaks with hope and encouragement of the approaching end of the Jewish exile in Babylon, in contrast to earlier prophecies which rather emphasised the punishments which Israel had merited by her infidelities.
We are reminded that God has his plans for the world and that they will not be frustrated. Those plans are not arbitrary. They are for the well-being of all creation. He is the loving Father to whom we pray with confidence, described in the Gospel reading about the Lord’s Prayer.
The prophet expresses these ideas in language that is truly poetic. The inevitability of God’s Word being realised is like that of the gentle rain that makes the earth fertile and fruitful, and so produces the seed that provides the bread on which we live:
…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Wednesday of Week 1 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Jonah 3:1-10
Jonah, probably not a historical figure, is nevertheless one of the most attractive characters in the Bible. Although he is listed among the Minor Prophets, his book is more a cautionary tale than prophecy in the strict sense. There is an underlying humour through the whole book of Jonah which one does not often find in the Old Testament. The book also indicates a softening of attitudes by the Jews towards Gentiles. They were not totally beyond God’s compassion and mercy.
Jonah is asked by God to go east to preach to the pagan people of Niniveh, the capital city of Assyriah, described as being so big that it took three days to walk across it. Archaeological excavations indicate that the later imperial city of Nineveh was about 13 km in circumference, or a larger area comprising a four-city complex (‘Greater Niniveh’) which would have been about 100 km in circumference. However, we are not dealing with a historical document and the idea is simply to say that it was a huge city with a lot of people—all unbelievers in the true God.
However, we see in chapter 1, instead of doing what God tells him, Jonah takes a ship and goes west—in the opposite direction. He cannot believe that God could show mercy to such wicked pagans. After a huge storm threatens to sink the ship and all on board, the crew become aware that Jonah, in disobeying a mission from his God, is the cause of all their trouble. So he is unceremoniously dumped overboard where he is promptly swallowed by a huge fish (traditionally, a whale). Even the whale does not particularly enjoy the presence of Jonah and, after three days, coughs him up on the shore (see chap 2).
In our reading today, Jonah finally accepts the message that God means business and he reluctantly proceeds to go and preach to the people of Niniveh, a city synonymous with paganism and idolatry. He threatens the city with destruction if the people do not change their ways:
Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
The 40 days is reminiscent of the Flood, God’s punishment on a wicked world, which lasted 40 days, or of the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. The Hebrew expression for ‘overthrown’ is also an echo of the ‘overthrowing’ of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by a special act of God.
To Jonah’s great surprise there is an immediate response to his call for penance:
And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus mentions this unexpected conversion and compares it with those Jews who refuse to believe in him.
From the greatest to the least, the citizens of Niniveh begin to fast and wear penitential sackcloth. Even the king:
…rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
Even animals were not to be given food. Inclusion of the domestic animals was unusual, but expressed the urgency with which the Ninevites sought God’s mercy. Even then, forgiveness seemed too much to hope for:
Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.
The result was that God did indeed look kindly on their efforts to change their ways and relented. The threatened punishment for their wickedness was not inflicted. Clearly, repentant Gentiles were also the object of God’s love and forgiveness.
The thrust of this story seems to be that, contrary to traditional Jewish belief (of which Jonah himself was an example), “wicked” Gentiles could respond to God’s call and change their ways. This is an anticipation of what would happen in the early Church, where the first Jewish Christians gradually came to realise that the gospel call was extended to people everywhere.
For us, at this time of Lent, it is a reminder of our need to repent, both in the sense of being truly sorry for all the wrong we have done and the good we have failed to do, and to reflect on how our lives can be brought more in line with the call of the gospel. It is also a time to reflect on our attitudes to non-Catholics and non-Christians or ex-Christians. Jesus himself says that we will be surprised at the number and kinds of people who will enter into his Kingdom. Let us make sure that we will be among them. Lent is a time to make the right preparations.
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Monday of Week 1 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18
The general theme of the Book of Leviticus is in today’s opening sentence:
You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Today’s reading comes from a section dealing with moral and religious regulations related to daily life, with obvious links to the Ten Commandments. Some of them sound somewhat strange today such as:
You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. (Lev 19:27)
Presumably some of Israel’s ‘pagan’ neighbours were doing this.
In today’s reading the call is clear: the measure of our holiness is that of God himself. Obviously that is not something to be even remotely achieved in our lifetime; rather, it is an ideal to be constantly aimed at as we continually try to raise our sights. But are there are any measures by which we can measure our progress in something so abstract as holiness?
Very simply, today’s reading says that holiness consists in the way we treat (or do not treat) those around us. It is perhaps worth observing that everything here is expressed in the negative, the things we ought not to do towards our brothers and sisters:
- No stealing or fraud.
- No irreverent use of God’s name.
- No abuse of others through exploitation or robbery or by failing to pay just wages at the proper time.
- No abuse or neglect of the disabled: the blind and the deaf are mentioned.
- Avoiding all forms of prejudice and bias either towards the weak or the powerful.
- No passing of judgement on others beyond the bounds of justice and fairness.
- Never criticising out of hatred, but only out of a desire to help.
- No exacting vengeance and no holding grudges.
It is quite obvious that it is not enough just not to do these things, but rather positively to do the opposite in each case. And they are all finally summed up in one positive injunction:
…you shall love your neighbor as yourself…
In the context within Leviticus, it is clear that ‘neighbour’ means a fellow Jew, but Jesus—as well as Paul and James in their letters—would extend its meaning to embrace every single person.
Some of the stricter Pharisees interpreted ‘loving the neighbour’ as implying that one should ‘hate the enemy’. But others came closer to Jesus’ injunction that love for neighbour should even extend to those who would want to harm us. For instance, the medieval Spanish Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (also know as Nahmanides) said:
One should place no limitations upon the love for the neighbour, but instead a person should love to do an abundance of good for his fellow being as he does for himself.
It is clear from this and the later teaching of Jesus that ‘neighbour’ included every single person and not just those close to us by place, nationality, race, religion, class or gender—even those who would want to harm us. And, as today’s Gospel makes clear, our neighbour is particularly to be identified with any person who is in need of help of any kind.
Later, Jesus would push the command even further when he told us to love each other, not just as much as we love ourselves, but to the degree that he loved us—by ‘emptying’ himself and giving his life for every single one of us.
As I reflect on this passage during Lent, I may ask: Where do I stand in my relationships with my friends, my ‘enemies’ or the needy in my community?
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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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