Wednesday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 13:8-10

Paul continues his practical advice to the Romans.  The reading may be very short, but its message should be engraved deeply on the heart of every person—Christians and non-Christians alike.  What is striking in this passage is that God or Jesus is not mentioned at all, but both are clearly understood to underlie the statements.

Paul says that the only debt we should incur with others is the debt of love. Because in loving another person, we are fulfilling all the requirements of the law.

The love owed to others is the one debt that can never be paid off.  No matter how much we have loved, we are still under an obligation to keep on loving.  And this love is not only extended to fellow Christians, but must include every other person—including those who wish us harm.  And in doing so, we are not only fulfilling the requirements of the Mosaic Law, but of all law.  If in upholding a particular law, I would violate the law of love, then that law cannot be obeyed.

So, says Paul:

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the original quotation from Leviticus, ‘neighbour’ meant a fellow-Israelite, but here it is extended to include every other human person, as we see in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus actually pushed that commandment even further.  At the Last Supper he gave his disciples what he called a ‘new commandment’ when he said:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

Here the level of love is extended to match the love of Jesus which led him to “empty himself” and sacrifice his life for every single one of us.

The commandment also presumes that we love ourselves.  Probably, most of us feel that we do, and even feel guilty about being selfish and self-centred.  But that is not real self-love.  Real self-love means the total recognition and acknowledgement of ourselves as we are, including both strengths and weaknesses.  Most of us try to hide our real selves by hiding behind masks and creating an image that will impress others.  That is not a sign of real love of self.  But without a healthy self-love, there is a lack of inner security making it difficult to reach out in love to others.

Paul says that that “love is the fulfilling of the law” because genuine loving can cause no harm to brothers and sisters.  Keeping the law in a legalistic fashion can do a lot of harm.  This is what Jesus had against the Pharisees—they put the Law before love.

Paul’s teaching reminds one of St Augustine’s famous dictum: “Love and do what you like” or St Paul’s own saying, “Love covers a multitude of sins”.  If one’s actions are motivated by a genuine love and concern for the well-being of others, then we cannot go wrong.  A truly loving person is not going to commit adultery, is not going to kill or hurt, is not going to steal, or to cast covetous glances at what belongs to another.

The word for ‘love’ used by Paul is agape—a special kind of love.  It can be defined as “a passionate desire for the well-being of the other”.  It is a unilateral love in the sense that it is given and continues to be given even when there is no response, or even if it is rejected.  It is the love that God extends to all created things and God’s agape is the source of all love in us.  And wherever there is agape, there is God, because God is agape.  That is why Paul can say that all the requirements of our faith are fulfilled, if all our words and actions are motivated by that agape.

Even in our church life, people can become very legalistic and set a lot of store by laws and regulations with very little love being shown.  Many put the Ten Commandments ahead of the law of love.  Yet as Jesus showed with the Pharisees, it is possible to keep the Law without a shred of love.  One can keep many of the Commandments—especially those expressed negatively—by doing absolutely nothing!

But it is only through the love which we show for all those around us that the quality of our Christian life is measured.  It is only by that love that our union with God is manifested.  Observing laws, however exalted, is not enough.  And doing nothing is of no help either. Love involves a constant and unconditional reaching out to all, friends and enemies, young and old, Christian and non-Christian, educated and illiterate, fellow country people and foreigners, close relatives and perfect strangers.

And as has been said, it is striking that God or Jesus are not mentioned in the whole passage.  But the message is clear—I cannot love God and bypass my brothers and sisters, including those most obnoxious. It is no use spending hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament if I am not also constantly reaching out to find and serve Jesus in those around me.  It is not difficult to talk to Jesus in the tabernacle.  It can be much more difficult with some—an unreasonable boss or a rebellious teenager or an aggressive drug addict.

Finding Christ there and responding to him in such situations is the real test.  At the same time, we thank God for the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as it is a wonderful environment for prayer and contemplation, and to reflect on the degree of loving others in our daily lives.

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Monday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 11:29-36

Paul continues to reflect on the strange ways by which the rejection of Jesus by the Jews has brought God’s mercy to the once disobedient Gentiles. Once again, he emphasises that by turning to the Gentiles, God has not changed his mind about the giving of his gifts or the choices he has made in the past. His love for the Jews has not changed one bit. The problem is in the way they are responding to him by their rejection of Jesus Christ as his Son.

In the past the Gentiles, too, were disobedient to God, but now, through the rejection of the Jews, God’s mercy and compassion has been shown to them.  In the same way, says Paul, those Jews who are disobedient now will receive mercy through the same mercy which has been shown to the Gentiles:

For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Disobedience is not peculiar to any particular group, be they Jews or Gentiles. There has been a period of disobedience for each in order that God may show mercy to them all.  God’s door is open to every single person; it is for each one to make the decision to enter. That choice is up to each person to open themselves to God’s loving compassion.

Paul now ends the chapter and this section of the Letter with a profound doxology on God’s inscrutable wisdom:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

This doxology is a natural outpouring of Paul’s praise to God, whose wisdom and knowledge brought about his great plan for the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles.  As Paul has indicated throughout these chapters, both Jew and Gentile, despite the religious stubbornness of each, have received the gift of faith.  Thus the divine plan or ‘mystery’ of salvation has become open and comprehensible to the whole human race.

He paraphrases from the great Psalm 139 on the all-knowing and ever-present God:

For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him,
to receive a gift in return?

How and whom God calls is an impenetrable mystery, and why some respond and others do not is equally beyond our understanding.  There is nothing we can ever give to God which has not first been given to us by him.

We can only echo the concluding words of Paul:

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

Blessed are those who come to understand this and make it the basis of all their living.

So often we try to reduce God down to our human level.  And when we do, we find ourselves getting into difficult situations, especially when we try to explain how and why things happen.  We must never forget God’s two great attributes: his transcendence and his immanence.

Through his transcendence, God surpasses all we can possibly conceive about him.  As St Thomas Aquinas tells us, as soon as we make an affirmation about God, it has to be denied.  For whatever truth may be in it, it is totally short of the full truth.  For instance, we say “God is love”.  Yes, up to a point, but at the same time God’s love is something totally other than love in the limited way we can ever experience it on this earth.

We experience God’s immanence in a similar way.  God is totally present to everything he has made. Closer to me than breathing, as St Augustine put it.  God is both so close and yet so far.  So in our trying to understand the situation of the Gentiles and the Jews, we can only accept with humility the call we have received to follow Jesus.  This is similar to many other situations in life which we find difficult to understand.

While it is important that we always try to go as far as we can in our understanding, we also have to recognise that in probing God’s ways we will always be severely limited.

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Saturday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 16:3-9,16,22-27

We come today to the end of the abridged reading of this great letter of Paul to the Romans.  Even four weeks of readings hardly do justice to it, and many important passages have had to be omitted.  But some of them will appear in other parts of the Church’s liturgy.

In today’s final reading, Paul sends his greetings to a large number of people.  Even though he has not yet been to Rome, he knows many of the Christians there as he had met many of them in his travels around Asia Minor and Greece. The first people on his list are Prisca (Priscilla) and Aquila, whom he calls “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus”.  They were not only partners with him in proclaiming the gospel, but also worked in the same trade of tentmaking.  He first met them in Corinth as Acts tell us:

…Paul left Athens and went to Corinth [in the south of Greece]. There he found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because [Emperor] Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. (Acts 18:1-3)

He expresses his thanks and that of all the gentile churches for their having saved his life.  This was possibly during the riot of the silversmiths in Ephesus (see Acts 19:23-41).   They had rioted because they felt Paul’s preaching would threaten their business of making silver images of Artemis, the goddess of the great temple in Ephesus. Paul wanted to confront them, but some of the disciples (including Prisca and Aquila?) persuaded him to stay away from certain trouble.

And he sends his greetings to the whole ‘church’ at the house of Prisca and Aquila.  At that early period, ‘churches’, or Christian communities in a particular place, would meet in the house of a community member.  Church buildings would only come later when numbers got so big that family homes were no longer big enough.

There are also greetings to other members of the Roman church:

• Epaenetus, who is described as “the first convert in Asia for Christ”, i.e. the first convert from the Roman province of Asia (now a part of modern Turkey).
• Mary, “who has worked very hard for you”.  There are six different women called Mary in the New Testament, but apart from this reference, it is not known who this one is.
• Andronicus and Junias, described as:

  …my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

They are “apostles” in the wide sense of active evangelisers and not in the strict sense used of the Twelve chosen by Jesus.  They also became Christians before Paul did, and had also been in prison with him at some stage.  We know that Paul was imprisoned several times.

As well, also mentioned are:

• Ampliatus, “my beloved in the Lord”.
• Urbanus, “our coworker in Christ”.
• Stachys, “my beloved”.

In the verses immediately following, but not included in our reading, there are more names mentioned. Paul tells all to greet each other with a “holy kiss”.  Justin Martyr (AD 150) tells us that the ‘holy kiss’ was a regular part of the worship service in his day.  It is mentioned also at the end of the First and Second Letters to the Corinthians, in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Peter.  It still exists in some Christians churches, including the ‘Sign of Peace’ before Communion in the Catholic liturgy. Some people do actually kiss or embrace.

Finally, he tells the Romans that all the churches of Christ send their greetings. This greeting, not found elsewhere in Paul’s letters, indicates a special respect for the church in Rome. This is followed by some final greetings from those who are with Paul.  One of these is from Tertius, who says he is the one committing the letter to writing as Paul’s secretary.  He is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament. There is a greeting from Gaius, who is Paul’s host in Corinth and who also ‘hosts’ the whole of the local church, which meets in his house.  He is usually identified with Titius Justus, a God-fearer, in whose house Paul stayed while in Corinth.  His full name would be Gaius Titius Justus.

The last two greetings are from Erastus, the city treasurer, and Quartus.  At Corinth, archaeologists have discovered a reused block of stone in a paved square, with the Latin insciption: “Erastus, commissioner of public works, bore the expense of this pavement”.  This may refer to the Erastus mentioned here.  He may also be the same person referred to in Acts as a companion of Timothy and in the Second Letter to Timothy. Because the name was common, his identity is not certain.

Paul closes the letter with a doxology of praise to the Father and the Son, although it appears earlier in the letter in some manuscripts or is omitted altogether.  It is a solemn presentation of the main points of the Letter. It is a prayer to God who can make the Romans strong in accordance with the gospel Paul preaches and following the proclamation of Jesus Christ and in harmony with that ‘mystery’ which had been kept secret for so long, but which now, as the prophets foretold, is revealed.  This ‘mystery’ is God’s plan to bring salvation to the whole world through the Incarnation of his Son and his suffering, death and resurrection.  He wants them to be firmly grounded in the teaching he gave and firm in the living out of their faith.  And the gospel that Paul preaches is not something different, but it is based on the direct revelation he received.

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“The idea of a ‘mystery’ of wisdom, long hidden in God and now revealed, is borrowed by Paul from the Jewish apocalypse, but he enriches the content of the term by applying it to the climax of the history of salvation; the saving cross of Christ; the call of the pagans; to this salvation preached by Paul and finally the restoration of all things in Christ as their one head.”

This ‘mystery’ of the gospel message, still known only to a relative few, is now to be proclaimed to the whole world:

…made known to all the gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith…

Lastly, the doxology proper:

…to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

God is the origin of all wisdom and so for ever is to be given glory through Jesus Christ.

What comes out of these greetings in both directions is the strong sense of fellowship and solidarity which existed among the early Christians.  It is something we need very much to cultivate in our very individualistic societies and, in some cases, very individualistic church gatherings.

This is needed too if we are to strengthen each other in our Christian faith.  A solitary Christian is a contradiction in terms.  It is not surprising that so many Catholics, left to their own devices, fall away and develop very distorted ideas of what their faith is about.  One way of correcting that is to go through the whole of this Letter carefully with the guidance of a good commentary.

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Wednesday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 14:25-33

Luke’s Gospel is noteworthy for its extremes. On the one hand, it shows the radical and uncompromising demands that Jesus makes on those who would be his followers and, at the same time, emphasises as none of the other Gospels do, the gentleness and compassion of Jesus for the sinful and the weak. Both pictures have always to be kept simultaneously in view and they are in no way contradictory. Today and tomorrow we will see both of these images of Jesus back to back.

In today’s passage we see Jesus, as was often the case, surrounded by a huge crowd of people. They are full of enthusiasm and expectation, but Jesus very quickly pulls them up short. He says:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

This is a very shocking demand, especially for a society where people’s whole lives were centred on their families.  Luke is alone in asking that even the wife, too, be abandoned, but this is just an example of the totality of our commitment to following Jesus.

However, we have to make two qualifications.  First, the word ‘hate’ is a Semitic expression not to be taken literally.  It could not be so taken, as the whole of Jesus’ teaching is based on love, not only of blood relatives, but of strangers and even enemies.  It is rather a dramatic way of saying that anyone who puts any person, even those closest to them, before total commitment to Christ and his mission is not ready to be a disciple. There can be no compromise here—it is all or nothing.

Second, we also have to say that Jesus is not recommending a literal abandonment of one’s family. That would be highly irresponsible and a violation of that commandment of universal love. But it is clear that, for those who want to be part of Jesus’ work, they have to give themselves completely and unconditionally.  And where there is a choice between the clear call of the gospel and personal attachments, they have to let go of the latter.

It is important for the crowd to hear this. Following Christ is not just like football fans stalking their favourite player or ‘groupies’ following a pop star from city to city.  There is a price to be paid, and they need to know that there is one, and what it is. That price is the cross, a level of sacrifice and suffering—perhaps even of one’s life—that each one must be prepared to undergo for the sake of the gospel and the building of the Kingdom.

So, to illustrate this Jesus gives two examples. The first is of a man who had a plan to build a tower. Before he started, he made sure that he had all the necessary resources. Otherwise he might find that, after laying the foundations, he could not finish the work and he would become the laughing stock of others. “Ha! Ha! He began to build what he could not finish.”

In the second example Jesus speaks of a king with 10,000 soldiers who finds he is going to war with another king who has 20,000. If he thinks there is no way he can win, he will send an emissary to negotiate the best peace terms he can get. Similarly, says Jesus, no one can be a disciple of his who is not ready to let go of everything he has.

Following him has to be absolute and unconditional. How many of the crowd listening were ready for that?  How many of us are ready for that?  Am I ready?  What are the things I am clinging to?  What are the things I cannot let go of?  And why is that?

To be a disciple of Jesus means being absolutely free.  It reminds one of Francis of Assisi leaving his family and taking off all his rich and fancy clothes to replace them with a beggar’s rags, and being filled with a tremendous sense of joy and liberation.  Do I want to be a disciple of Jesus?  To what extent?  Am I ready to pay the price he asks?

The paradox, of course, is that once I pay the price, I will get so much in return. Just ask St Francis or St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) about this.

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Tuesday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 12:5-16

As Paul comes to the end of his Letter (we will finish reading it this week), in his usual way he has some advice of a practical nature for the Christian community in Rome. This does not mean that he has not said anything about Christian living up to this point, but he now goes into detail to show that Jesus Christ is to be Lord in every area of our life.  These chapters are not a postscript to the great theological discussions we have seen so far.  What he has said about God and our relationship to him in Jesus Christ must also flow out into the way we behave and relate to each other.   True faith cannot stand by itself.  It must find expression in the way we act:

…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
(Gal 5:6)

This means submitting ourselves totally to Jesus Christ and his Way.

Paul begins with a critical statement on which all that follows depends: 

…so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

It is not just that each one of us through baptism is united with Christ, but that because of the presence of Christ in each one of us, we are essentially united to each other in one family.  In his First Letter to the Corinthians Paul speaks of this at length.  Speaking to the Christians he says plainly:

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:27)

This is the basis for all that follows.  We can only love and serve Christ in loving and serving each other.  Christians are not isolated individuals.  The community forms an interlocking and interdependent relationship in which each member offers their particular gift or charism in the service of the whole community.

Although we are united together as brothers and sisters in one family, there are important differences between each person.  Unity implies diversity.  Each one has been endowed with a distinct gift or ‘charism’ by which one serves the community in a unique way. These gifts are to be openly acknowledged and used for the good of the community and for individuals in it.

Paul then mentions some of these gifts:

Living in a society where Christians were suspected, hated and attacked, he urges them to “bless” their persecutors and not to curse them.  This is advice that Jesus himself had given.  To pay back one’s persecutors in kind is to bring oneself down to their level.  Blessing and praying for them is not only not impossible; it is the only way to bring about change—in them and us. Therefore, St Paul adds:

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Elsewhere Paul, speaking of himself will say that he is all things to all people.  He adapts himself to their needs, which is not at all the same as doing just what they want.

Finally, he urges each person to “live in harmony with one another”. Not in the sense of being blind to each one’s virtues and defects, but as God himself does, to reach out impartially to all with the same measure of love and concern, to be free of bias and prejudice and to act with real justice.

Reflecting on this passage, we can each ask ourselves what particular gifts has God given to me with which to serve both our Church community and the wider community?  How often do I actually think about this?

It is something which, to some extent, we have lost in many of our parishes.  So often in our Mass assemblies—which often is the only time we get together—we come as private families or as individuals with little concern or interest for those around us.  “I go to the 11 o’clock Mass because the time is convenient and I like the choir.”  By being “at” Mass I have fulfilled my “weekly duty”.  Is that what the Eucharist is about?  Where is that interlocking and interdependent community that Paul speaks about here?

The second part of the reading concerns more about how each individual, and we today, could usefully make an examination of conscience on the headings that Paul lists to evaluate how well we are doing. Although they concern each individual, they are all linked to our relations with others.

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Thursday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 14:7-12

Chapter 14 of Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the most inspiring passages in the New Testament.  It is a hymn to tolerance and the acceptance of others.

Because the Christian community consisted of both former Jews and Gentiles, there were often disagreements still over certain ritualistic practices which had been carried over from Judaism. To the Jews, the attitudes of the Gentiles seemed very lax, if not downright wrong.  To the Gentiles, some Jews seemed over-scrupulous and legalistic.  What Paul recommends is that each one be tolerant and understanding of the weaknesses of others and not to cause unnecessary offence.

In today’s reading, Paul reminds us that there is only one Lord and that is Jesus Christ.  It balances yesterday’s reading about the primacy of love.  The real object of that love must always be God and Jesus, found in every person.

And so he says:

…we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

None of us has an independence of our own.  In life and in death we belong totally to the Lord.  This, of course, is a fact which no believing person can deny, but if it is also a genuine conviction, then it also needs to be acknowledged and lived out in our lives.

And says Paul, it is:

…to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

How then can an individual abrogate to himself the right to sit in judgement over a brother or sister? Or have the right to look down on a brother or sister?   As is clear from the overall context of the chapter, he is referring to some of the weaker brothers and sisters who, for instance, will not eat food that has been offered to idols for fear they will be seen as not true converts from paganism.  Paul regards them as still weak in their faith.

Paul himself, who knows that idols mean nothing and are only man-made images, does not care where food comes from, but in the presence of such people, he will not eat that food rather than upset them:

…it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.(Rom 14:21)

Jesus had strong words of warning for people who were stumbling blocks in the way of the “little ones”, those still in the early stages of faith.  It is something we need to keep in mind.

Of course, Paul is speaking of issues which do not touch the core of our faith.  Among Catholics today such an issue could be taking Communion in the hand or on the tongue.  People may have strong ideas about one or the other, but neither side has the right to pass definitive judgement.  It will not be on an issue like this that we will be judged—nor should we judge others either.

We are not isolated masters of what we do or say.  We do not live in a moral vacuum, where we only have to be answerable to ourselves.  Everything we do has an affect on others and we are responsible for the influences we exert for good and for bad.

There can only be one Judge and he is the One before whom all of us will have to stand some day.  Only one Person has all authority before which all must bow. Paul then paraphrases from the prophet Isaiah (Is 45:23):

As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God.

And Paul says in conclusion:

So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

So then, how can we take it on ourselves to sit in judgment on others, as has obviously been happening among some of the Christian communities with which Paul is connected?  It is not for any of us to judge the behaviour of brothers and sisters.  It is not for us to condemn them for their weaknesses which we don’t happen to have. God will take care of that in his own time and way. Only he knows what inner motives and the resources people have to do good. Our sole concern should be to be ready to give an account of our own stewardship.

That does not mean, of course, that we will not be called on to evaluate the conduct or the behaviour of other people. For instance, a prospective employee will be evaluated by an employer as to his or her suitability for a particular post.  For example, we do not just allow anyone who applies to become a teacher, a policeman or a priest.

But evaluating a person’s intellectual or other capacity is not the same thing as passing a definitive judgement on the person.  We may utterly condemn the work of a terrorist in blowing up a building full of innocent people, but we cannot pass a final judgement on such a person, whose inner motives and convictions are hidden from us and who also can change and become a totally different person. Perhaps today’s terrorist can be tomorrow’s highly respected prime minister. It is a fact that many of the people we now regard as saints were guilty of seriously immoral behaviour in their earlier lives.

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Friday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 16:1-8

After the three wonderful parables about God’s mercy and longing for the reconciliation of the sinner, Luke swings back again in chapter 16 with two parables and related teaching about our use of material possessions, and he puts some of the responsibility for our salvation back on ourselves.

The first is a story about a rather dishonest steward or manager. His responsibilities were to handle all the business affairs of his employer. However, he had been mishandling his employer’s funds and was about to be fired. In this context, one may also think of the prodigal son who utterly wasted the inheritance his loving father had given him.

Immediately the steward begins to think of his future. He does not have the strength to do manual labour, and to go begging would be a terrible loss of face. So he thinks of a strategy by which he calls in all his employer’s debtors and reduces the amounts they owe.

The debts incurred were considerable. One hundred measures of olive oil was equivalent to about 800 gallons or the yield of 450 olive trees. One hundred measures of wheat was equal to about 1,000 bushels or the yield of 100 acres. Very few farmers would have had anything like that kind of land in Jesus’ time.

By doing this favour, the steward hopes to be able to find alternative employment with one of them. Surprisingly, his employer, far from being angry, praises the farsightedness of his corrupt steward.

Some commentators question whether the steward was actually acting dishonestly. Was he actually denying his employer money which he was really owed, or was he rather writing off the ‘commission’ which he was usuriously charging, thus inflating the proper amount owed? The Mosaic law forbade taking interest on loans from fellow Jews, so one way of getting round this was to overcharge debtors. By reducing the debts to the proper level, the steward was correcting an injustice and, at the same time, making these debtors favourably disposed towards him. Whatever the interpretation, the point Jesus is making is the same: the steward acted with shrewdness and intelligence to guarantee his future.

Jesus concludes by pointing out that the worldly (“the children of this age”) are far more astute in providing for their future than are those who are regarded as spiritual (”the children of light)”. Jesus is in no way condoning the steward’s dishonest and corrupt behaviour. What he does praise is his clear-sighted preparation for his future.

The lesson for us should also be clear. If a man can do that for his earthly career, what about our future in the life to come? If we want to guarantee our future life with God then we, too, need to take the necessary steps. Those steps are clearly laid out in the Gospel. In general, they involve a life which is built on truth and integrity, and on love, compassion and justice with regard to the people around us. Our task is to work with God in making his will our own and in building up the Kingdom. If we do this on a daily basis, then we have nothing to worry about and our future is assured.

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Tuesday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 14:15-24

Today we have the last of four teachings of Jesus linked with meals. It was prompted by the remark of a guest at table who said:

Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!

It was very common to associate the future Messianic Kingdom with a banquet. Jesus responds with a parable which is a warning to his complacent listeners, many of whom probably smugly presumed that they would be among the small minority chosen to eat in the Kingdom.

A man threw a large dinner party with many guests invited. But when the time came and the guests were reminded, one after another they gave excuses why they were not able to come. One had just bought a piece of land and had to inspect it; another had just bought some oxen and had to try them out; a third had just been married.

It seems that the original invitation had been accepted, but when the final invitation came, excuses were made. In fact, none of the excuses has much validity. One would not buy a field and only then look at it, nor would one buy oxen without having tried them out before the purchase.

On hearing this, the master got very angry and ordered his servants to:

Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

After this, the servants reported that there was still room, so they were given orders to scour the roads and bring in as many as they could find. Said the host:

Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.

The parable is a clear message from Jesus to his Jewish listeners. Many of them, especially the religious leaders steeped in complacency and presumption, had rejected the invitation to follow Jesus and enter the Kingdom. Some of them would actually conspire to bring about his death. Their place would be given to those formerly seen as outcasts, both Jews and Gentiles, people aware of their needs, i.e. the “poor in spirit”. There would be a special place for the poor and the disabled, people often seen by traditional Jews as people abandoned by God and buried in sin.

To go back to the beginning of the passage, blessed indeed are those who eat together in the Kingdom, but it is clear that only those who respond to the invitation will enjoy the privilege.

We have no more right to presumption than those Jews who rejected Christ. We too are being invited to go into the Lord’s banquet hall, but it is important that we respond to the call. We do that by our totally accepting and living out the teaching of Jesus our Lord. And part of that teaching is that we, too, invite and welcome into our community those who are poor, crippled (in some way), the blind and the lame—taking these words in their broadest sense. No more than those fellow diners of Jesus, our presence at the Kingdom banquet is never to be taken for granted.

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Monday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 14:12-14

After giving the scribes and Pharisees advice on how (not) to choose a place at a banquet, Jesus goes on to teach his host what to do when he holds a dinner. He should not invite family members, relatives, friends and the influential rich from whom he can expect to get similar invitations in return.

Rather he should go out of his way to:

…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind…you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

This will be a proof of the genuineness of his generosity. Sharing meals with friends is a lovely thing, but Jesus is making the point that our mutual entertainment should not be at the expense of those who do not have enough to eat. It will be a real act of love, and not be a form of self-seeking and self-aggrandisement or mutual back scratching in a never-ending entertainment circus.

It reminds us of what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount about loving those who love us:

Do not even the gentiles do the same? (Matt 5:47)

There is no real virtue in this. In fact, it can be a way of using people to our own advantage. It also reminds us of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In such circumstances, uncaring self-indulgence can in no way be justified.

We might remark here, of course, that there is no such thing as pure altruism, that is, an action that is done purely for others with absolutely nothing for self. Everything we do, we do ultimately for ourselves. We have no choice but to seek our own good—to act otherwise would be quite silly and even wrong. It all depends on how and why we do it.

A person can seek self by using, manipulating, and exploiting others for one’s own gain. But a person can use all their energies for the good of others, and in doing so, there is a feeling of satisfaction in doing the right thing. Even one’s life can be sacrificed as the only way of satisfying self. For instance, a mother may not hesitate to sacrifice her life to save a child in danger. Not to do so would lead to a situation she might find difficult to live with for the rest of her life.

We do have to seek our own interests. We can do that at the expense of others, or we can realise that it is by sharing what we have with others in need that we become enriched in a very special way.

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Friday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Romans 15:14-21

We begin today the reading of the epilogue to Paul’s rather long letter.  As he comes to the end of his message, he makes some general remarks about issues touching on his evangelising work.

He begins by saying that he is sure they will understand the reason for his writing to them even though the Roman church is not one founded by him, and even though they are:

…full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

But he wants to refresh their memories on a few points.  Does this mean that he had written to them earlier, or that he is just referring to general points of Christian teaching known to all?

He reminds them that he had been given a special grace to proclaim the gospel of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, so that they:

…may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

He always sees this as his special calling.  He sees this apostolic calling almost as a liturgical function in which the offerings are those people whom he has brought to Christ and offers to God.  Paul’s priestly function differed from that of the levitical priesthood which involved sacrifices in the Temple.  Paul’s apostolate was to bring Gentiles into the Christian family through preaching the gospel and making the gentile churches an offering in Christ to God.

He then reminds the Romans of what he has achieved:

In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God.

He is not bragging, for he knows that all he has done has been done through the power of Christ working in and through him:

For I will not be so bold as to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit…

Some of these ‘signs and wonders’ are described in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was not the only evangelist and there were, of course, all those who consolidated the work which he began in each place.

His evangelising extended all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum—these were the two extremes of his missionary journeys at the time of writing this Letter.  Jerusalem was the home of the Mother Church, from where the preaching of the gospel originated.  It is not certain whether he actually entered Illyricum because there is no mention in Acts of Paul being there.  Illyricum was at this time a Roman province, north of Macedonia (where Paul certainly had gone) in what is now Albania and the former Yugoslavia.

In saying that he has “fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ” in the eastern Mediterranean does not mean that evangelising work has been completed, but only that he has fulfilled his personal mandate which will, of course, have to be continued by the new Christians resident in each place.

He mentions another principle which he strictly observed.  He only preached the gospel in places where it had not been already preached:

I make it my ambition to proclaim the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation…

We know that there were other evangelisers and they are mentioned by Paul in his letters.  Paul was guided by a saying from the prophet Isaiah:

…for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.
(Is 52:15)

It is something that we might seriously reflect on in our own Church and in our own parishes today.  We would have to admit that a great deal, if not nearly all, of our pastoral energies are directed at the already converted.  Yet there are growing numbers of people even in so-called ‘Catholic’ countries who have never heard the gospel proclaimed.  And, as Paul says earlier in this Letter:

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? (Rom 10:14)

We too could reflect profitably on some of Paul’s words in today’s reading. We too have been called to be evangelists, to share the gospel message with others. Whatever we accomplish in bringing others to Christ will be his work and not ours alone.  Yet we may be the necessary instruments he needs to use. As well, there are places and people which will never hear the gospel message unless we speak and act. It may even be in our home, in our working place or with our friends.  Let us not deprive them of this grace which could transform their lives.

Two questions we might ask are: How many adults are baptised in our parish every year?  How many ‘lapsed’ members have been brought back in the past year?

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