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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Saturday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 16:9-15

Yesterday we saw Jesus give the example of a corrupt, but astute manager who took effective steps to guarantee his future employment. Today he goes on to warn us about our own use of material things.

We are to use “dishonest wealth” in such a way that we “make friends” for ourselves (our most important friend being God!). When this approach fails us (as it ultimately will), we hope that a “welcome…into the eternal homes” will be ours. We are reminded of how the crafty steward in the parable ensured his future.

In the mind of Luke, the friends we should be making are the poor and needy, who will be on our side before God’s judgement seat because we had “invested” our wealth in them. As we read in Matthew:

…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)

Earlier we saw a good example of a man who had made so much money out of his harvest that he sat back to enjoy the rest of his life—which ended that very night. That is not the way to ‘make friends’ with one’s material goods. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with having a lot of money. Rather, it is how we use those riches that is the question:

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much…

In other words, if we can be trusted with the material goods that come into our lives, and use them to build the Kingdom of God, to create a more just and equitable society, then we can be trusted with something much greater, to live forever face to face with our God.

If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

And again:

…if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

And that reminds us that the material goods that come into our lives (no matter how they may have been acquired) do not belong absolutely to us. Everything on this earth belongs to all. We are only the stewards of what has come into our possession, and we will be judged on how we make use of it. On our use will depend to a large extent our receiving the one thing that will really become our own, the unending happiness that God wishes us to have in company with him.

That leads obviously to the next warning, that we cannot at the same time give ourselves totally to God and become slaves of money and the material. We saw that in the case of the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus. He was the slave of his possessions and so could not surrender his life to Jesus. Many of us think we can, and we try to compromise but, to give ourselves to God completely, we must become free of the lure of money and the acquisition of material things. It does not mean we do not have money or material things, but what we do have is ultimately used for God’s love and service and the love and service of our brothers and sisters.

On hearing all this, the Pharisees, whom Luke calls “lovers of money”, mocked Jesus for what they felt was unrealistic idealism.

There are many today who would echo their views, but those who have taken Jesus’ words to heart know that what he says is true. We have seen this in the lives of some people in our own time. And sadly, we have also seen the opposite. Some, with all their money, and fame and luxurious living, are missing something precious—the freedom to give and share their whole self with those who are destitute:

…for what is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God.

The opposite is also true. On which side do I find myself?

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