Saturday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 12:8-12
Jesus continues to prepare his disciples for trials to come in the future. He encourages them to be faithful to their Christian commitment and to their faith in Christ as Lord. When we publicly acknowledge Jesus as Christ and Lord, Jesus too will acknowledge us as his faithful disciple.
Of course, it will be difficult during times of abuse and persecution, but disciples must always be ready to acknowledge their allegiance to Jesus. To deny that allegiance may win them a reprieve in this life, but not in the next. Jesus said on an earlier occasion:
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt 16:25)
The word for ‘deny’ in today’s Gospel is the same word used in Peter’s denial and disowning of his Master (see Luke 22:34,61).
Then comes a saying which can cause difficulty for some:
…everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
Why should there be this one exception to the forgiveness of sin? And why is speaking against the Son acceptable, but not against the Spirit?
To speak against the Son is clearly wrong, but with repentance, there can be reconciliation. But to sin against the Spirit is to go against Truth itself. This was basically the sin of the Scribes and Pharisees. They not only criticised Jesus—that could be understood. But they locked themselves into a situation where they shut out any openness to the Truth—the Truth that others could so easily see present in Jesus. As long as they were in that situation, there was no possibility of reconciliation. To sin against the Spirit—the Truth—is to close the door on reconciliation.
It seems that in Luke’s context he may be applying the saying to those Christians who are under attack for their faith. If they deny the Spirit of Truth, they too lock themselves out from being reached by God. In times to come—even up through our own time—Jesus’ disciples will be dragged before civil and religious authorities. He is telling them they are not to be afraid or worried about how to defend themselves or about what they should say.
Again and again, people who have been in this position have attested that the words do indeed come and with them a certain peace and strength—provided one retains one’s integrity and wholeness. And it is the presence of that Spirit, the Spirit of God and of Jesus, that is at work.
Most of us will not have to suffer severely for our faith. But there will likely be times when we may find our religious beliefs and practices ridiculed and made fun of. We can be tempted at such times to go into hiding, to conceal our Christian identity. We may even fail to come to the support of people who are under attack, refuse to stand by them and refuse to stand up and be counted as committed followers of the gospel.
If that has happened in the past, let us ask forgiveness. Let us pray that in future we may have the courage and integrity in word and deed to let people know who we are and what we stand for.
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Friday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 12:1-7
After his confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus now turns to the crowds. We are told that they were gathering round him by the thousands, so densely packed that they were trampling on each other. Clearly they were hungry to hear a man who had spoken in such extraordinary and daring ways to their religious leaders.
But Jesus begins by speaking first to his own disciples.
Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy.
The fermenting characteristic of yeast is seen by the Jews as a corrupting agent. That is why they only use unleavened bread at the Passover.
The corrupting agent in the Pharisees was their hypocrisy. On the outside they pretended to be what they were not on the inside:
Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known.
It can mean that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees will ultimately be laid bare. In contrast, the followers of Jesus must practice transparency. And although much of the teaching that the disciples receive is in private, ultimately all will have to come out into the open.
The Church is not a secret society, although it has its ‘mysteries’, its special teachings and rituals, which are only fully understood by those who are ‘inside’. The Church is of its very essence evangelical. Its purpose is to share the vision of Christ with the whole world. This is crucial to the setting up of the Kingdom, the accepted reign of God in the world.
Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.
This, of course, will involve dangers. The gospel will be resisted; it will be seen as a dangerous threat to other views of life. Christians will die and, in fact, thousands have sacrificed their lives simply because they were followers of Jesus.
But physical death is not the worst enemy—it is the consequence of living. It is an end we will all have to face one day, sooner or later, one way or the other. But Paul says:
I will show you whom to fear: fear the one who, after killing, has authority to cast into hell.
Only God as the Supreme Judge has this power. Of course, the only person God “casts into hell” is one who has chosen to separate himself or herself definitively from God.
Hell (in Hebrew ge-hinnom meaning the ‘Valley of Hinnom’ or ge-ben-hinnom, ‘Valley of the Son of Hinnom’) refers to an area situated to the southwest of Jerusalem. In the time of the kings it had been the centre of a cult in which children were sacrificed (see 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 7:31), and hence was seen as a place of abomination. The Hebrew is transliterated into Greek as gaihenna, which appears in some translations of the New Testament as gehenna.
The punishment of sinners by fire after death first appeared in Jewish apocalyptic literature, but the name gehenna for this punishment only appears in the New Testament. The term is only used in Matthew, Mark, the Letter of James and here. The word is not to be confused with Hades, which was a general name for the place of the dead.
The one we are really to fear is the one who can make us deny Christ and all that Christ means, and to die in a state of denial. But whatever threats hang over us, we are not to fear. We have the example of many before us who have gone to their deaths in peace and without hesitation. They knew they had no other choice: either death or Truth. Jesus says:
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
So our duty is clear: to proclaim the good news of the gospel with openness and integrity and not to fear the consequences. We are not alone.
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Thursday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 11:47-54
There are more strong words from Jesus against the Pharisaic mentality. Today the charge is of hypocrisy:
Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed.
The people build monuments to remember the prophets of old, but those same prophets were killed by their ancestors. On the one hand, they are building the monuments as an act of atonement, while they themselves have exactly the same attitudes as their ancestors. They do not listen to their own teaching.
Jesus utters words which he identifies as “the Wisdom of God”:
I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute…
It is not a quotation from the Old Testament or any other book known to us. It could refer to God speaking through Jesus (the Word, the Wisdom of God) or presenting, in quotation form, God’s decision to send prophets and apostles, even though they would be rejected.
Jesus is basically saying that the mission of the Church (his Apostles) is linked with the mission of the Old Testament prophets, who, like Jesus’ disciples, suffered and, in some cases, died at the hands of their contemporaries. Jesus, of course, himself will be one of them, the last and greatest Prophet.
Jesus says the scholars of the Law carry with them guilt for the killing of every good person and every prophet since the murder of Abel down to that of Zechariah. The murder of Abel by his brother Cain is recorded in Genesis (4:8), the opening book of the Old Testament, and that of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada in 2 Chronicles (24:20-22). This latter book is regarded as the closing of the Hebrew Testament by the Jews. It is like our describing the whole Bible in terms of ‘from Genesis to Revelation’. Jesus was referring to the history of martyrdom right through the whole of the Old Testament.
There is one final attack against the scribes and their way of thinking and acting. They interpret the Law in such a way that they make it inaccessible to the ordinary person. And, what is worse, they do not observe it themselves:
For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.
They kept both themselves and the people in ignorance of the true way to salvation and wholeness. As it is put in Matthew’s Gospel:
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 23:13)
One wonders how many of our Church leaders, teachers and theological and moral ‘experts’ have not done exactly the same thing over the years and down to the present day? How many Catholic parents and teachers have made the Christian message basically inaccessible to the young, and then we wonder why they have no interest in religion?
Not surprisingly, all these attacks only increased the hostility of the Pharisees and the religious leaders against Jesus. They were able to get him to speak on a multitude of religious questions hoping that he would convict himself out of his own mouth. As far as they were concerned, they were more than successful.
What they did not realise was that Jesus was operating from a completely different vision of what life is really about. His new wine could not fit into their old wineskins. The questions for each one to ask are: Do I share the vision of Jesus? What does ‘Christianity’ mean to me?
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Tuesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 11:37-41
Jesus continues to highlight what is central to our relationship with God. We skip over a short passage which is about various aspects of light. In short, the Christian is to be a person full of light through and through—not like the kind of people Jesus now goes on to describe.
He had been invited to dinner by a Pharisee. Jesus apparently went straight into the dining area and reclined at the table prepared to eat. The Pharisee was quite shocked because Jesus had not first washed his hands before eating. Of course, we are strongly recommended to wash our hands before sitting down to eat. But here we are not dealing with a question of hygiene, but of ritual washing. Jesus had omitted to perform a religious ritual which was laid down by the stricter Jews, although not actually part of the Law. The rule probably had originally a hygienic purpose. By giving it a religious sanction, one made sure that it was carried out. Many other obligations, some of them contained in the Mosaic Law like those from Leviticus, seem to be of the same kind.
Most probably, Jesus, in the ordinary course of events, would have had no problem about performing this ritual, but it is likely that here he is deliberately making a point. It allows him to draw attention to what he sees as false religion. A person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external rite.
As Jesus tells this man in a graphic image, the Pharisees concentrate on making sure that the outside of the cup is clean while inside it is full of all kinds of depravity and corruption (like the judgmental thoughts in this man’s mind and the sinister plotting that the Pharisees in general were directing against Jesus). God is as much, if not much more, concerned about the inside as the outside.
Instead, Jesus says:
So give as alms those things that are within and then everything will be clean for you.
When the inside is clean, there is no need to worry about the outside. Giving alms is a positive act of kindness to another person, an act of love and compassion. It neutralises the greed and rapacity of which he accuses them. It is not, like the washing of hands, a purely empty ritual which says little and is almost totally self-directed.
It is so easy to judge people, including our fellow-Catholics, by their observance or non-observance of certain Christian customs, which of themselves are of a non-moral nature. In the past, for instance, we might have criticised a woman for not wearing a hat in church, or a priest for appearing without his Roman collar. Today, some might be scandalised because a person goes to communion having had a huge meal well within the designated one hour of fasting, or for some still, eating meat on Friday, even though the ‘law’ does not require it. We need to recognize that most of the passages in the Gospels attacking the Pharisees are really directed against ‘pharisees’ in our Christian communities, not to mention the pharisee in our own hearts.
Elsewhere, Jesus has told us not to judge because it is very difficult for us to know what is going on within another person’s mind. What Jesus is really emphasising here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once that is right, everything else will be taken care of.
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Saturday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ephesians 1:15-23
Immediately following his great picture of God’s plan for all of his creation, Paul now makes a beautiful prayer for the Christians to whom he is writing. Let us see, phrase by phrase, what he says. He begins by saying:
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus…
The letter is purportedly being written from Paul’s place of imprisonment in Rome. Clearly he has been getting reports from the various churches by Christians who have been visiting him. He has been deeply gratified by what he has been hearing about the faith of the Christians and the loving support they show towards each other and he remembers them constantly, with gratitude, in his prayers.
In two lovely petitions he prays that God and Jesus may give them an ever deeper understanding of their faith:
…I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him…
Each one of us could reword that prayer and ask that God give each one of us, too, the spirit of wisdom and revelation which will lead us to an ever deeper understanding of Jesus and his gospel. Without that we cannot grow in loving and serving him.
He continues:
…so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
“The eyes of your heart…”—the heart is used in the Scripture as the seat of knowledge and also of love. We need to be strengthened in knowledge, understanding and love.
“The hope to which he has called you…”—hope here expresses a confidence in a future that is not yet here, but is guaranteed. It is a form of faith.
“The saints…”—indicates all the baptised and not just a special minority.
Seeing in the sense of understanding is a concept that goes right through the Gospels. Many blind people are healed, and when they can see, they praise and follow Jesus. Jesus is the Light of the world, a light that can only be enjoyed and benefited from by those who can see. We, too, are called in imitation of Jesus to be, in our own way, a light to the world (see Matt 5:14).
Here we are asked to pray that we may see just what God’s call in Christ means for us. We ask to understand the nature of Christian hope, which is not just something wishful, but a certainty that promises will be kept. It is the promise of a future glory that is waiting for us, along with a deeper understanding of the power that God exercises on our behalf.
And to know “the immeasurable greatness of his power”—Paul piles term upon term to emphasise that the extraordinary divine force by which Jesus Christ was raised is the same power at work in and through believers. Paul is saying that the Christians already have some notion of all this from the power of God that was made evident in the life of Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead and given a seat at the Father’s right hand, in effect, a position of sharing in the nature, power and authority of God. This places him above all the hierarchies of ministering angels around God’s throne and all other powerful spirits now and forever.
Summing up, Paul says that God has put “all things under [Christ’s] feet”; he is Lord of all creation. As such, he has also been made “the head over all things for the church, which is his body”. The psalmist had already expressed it:
…what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet… (Ps 8:4-5)
The Psalm emphasises the destiny of man in general. The Letter to the Hebrews, using the same text, reiterates the words “subjecting all things under his feet” and applies them to Jesus as the Son of Man and Ruler of all. (Heb 2:6-9).
The Church, then, as the Body of the Risen Christ, is the visible manifestation of his ongoing presence in the world, just as my body is the means by which I am made sensibly present to those around me. And that Body, together with its Head, is “the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
According to the Jerusalem Bible:
“The Church, as the body of Christ (see 1 Cor 12:12-31), can be called the fullness (Greek, pleroma) in so far as it includes the whole new creation that shares (since it forms the setting of the human race) in the cosmic rebirth under Christ its ruler and head.”
In today’s reading, we have an awesome vision of the overwhelming greatness of Jesus now in glory with the Father while, at the same time, intimately part of our Christian communities. It is a frightening responsibility that we are the visible ‘re-presentation’ of Christ to the world and it is a responsibility of which we need to be constantly aware. The rest of this Letter will spell out what that union between Christ and his Church entails.
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Friday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ephesians 1:11-14
Today we continue our reading of God’s plan of salvation at the beginning of the Letter. As Paul continues his panoramic vision of God’s plan for the whole human race and the whole of creation, he speaks today first of the Jews, his own people, and then of the Gentiles or ‘pagans’ (that is, non-Jews) who had responded to God’s call.
Paul begins:
In Christ we have…obtained an inheritance…
In using the word “we”, Paul speaks to his fellow-Jews. He tells them that Christ is at the centre of God’s plan. Whether we speak of the whole of creation or the individual, it is only in relationship to Christ that there is a meaningful future destiny. Christ is the paradigm for all creation, the visible ‘re-presentation’ of God himself among us. He is the Alpha and the Omega. However, Paul goes on now to speak, not of the whole of creation, but of those who have responded to God’s call in Jesus.
In saying “we have…obtained an inheritance” (in some translations, “We were claimed as God’s own…”), he speaks of the Jewish people, who were called in a special way to be his witnesses to the coming of the Messiah. The completion of their call would only take place in Jesus, who, of course, was also a Jew, a descendant of David and a son of Abraham (see the genealogies of Matthew: 1:1-17 and Luke: 3:23-38).
Paul writes that the Jews:
…were the first to set [their] hope on Christ.
That is to say, it was among the Jews that God would become incarnate and it was they who gave witness over the centuries to the hope of a saviour Messiah. A number of Jews would recognise that hoped-for Messiah in the person of Jesus, but many others would not. These latter still live in the hope of a Messiah yet to come.
Paul continues:
In him [i.e. Christ] you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…believed in him…
Paul, in saying “you also” is speaking to the Gentiles—very likely the majority of his readers—who have heard the message of the gospel, have accepted it and have become followers of Jesus.
They, like their Jewish brothers and sisters, have been “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit”. Paul completes his trinitarian account of God’s plan with the Spirit, since the giving of the Spirit shows the plan has reached its final stage. The Gentiles, too, are called to share exactly the same salvation as the Jews. The proof of this is the clear evidence that the Spirit has come upon them and made them his own. They also share in that special kind of freedom that Christ gives to those who are truly his own, and which puts an end to the moral slavery they experienced during their pre-Christian life.
Nevertheless, though this gift has already begun, it is only given in a hidden way while the unspiritual world lasts, and will only be given fully when the Kingdom of God is complete and Christ comes in glory.
There is a great wealth of ideas in this magnificent presentation of what God has planned for his people through the saving work begun by his incarnate Son and carried out by the Spirit. These words are addressed as much to us as they were to the original readers of this letter. They can provide an endless source for prayer, reflection, praise and thanksgiving when we realise the kind of God we believe in.
Let us, too, ask him to help us live up to the calling which has come from him—a calling going back to long before we were even thought of.
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Thursday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ephesians 1:1-10
We begin today reading from the Letter to the Ephesians and we will continue with it until middle of Week 30. In our Bibles, this letter follows immediately on Galatians, but belongs to a later period in Paul’s missionary life.
It is useful to be aware that the Pauline letters, from Romans to Philemon, are arranged, not according to the date on which they were written, but according to their length. Early editors would not have been too clear on the chronological order of the letters. They did not have the editorial tools which are available to us now.
Because of the general nature of its contents, the Letter to the Ephesians is often thought to be a kind of ‘encyclical’ sent to several churches in the region. Many of the best manuscripts do not have the name “Ephesus” in the opening verse. Also, because of noticeable differences in style and language compared to letters regarded as definitely from Paul, doubts have been raised about the Pauline authorship of this letter. It is possible that it was written by a disciple familiar with Paul’s teaching and issued even after the Apostle’s death.
The letter is thought to date from late in the first century AD, and seems to be addressed to a predominantly gentile church which already has lost most of its links with Jewish traditions. Overall it is a letter extremely rich in its ideas and that is why we will stay with it over the next nine weekdays.
In commenting on the readings, for convenience we will attribute the contents to Paul, because, although he may not have penned the letter himself, it undoubtedly reflects his teachings.
In the opening sentence, the greeting is from Paul, who calls himself an Apostle of Christ Jesus appointed by Christ. An ‘apostle’ (Greek, apostolos, from the verb apo-stello) is someone who has been entrusted with handing on an official message—an ambassador or emissary. This responsibility has come directly from God and, later in the course of the letter, Paul will emphasise the role of God’s planning in the unfolding course of events.
The letter is addressed to the “saints” (Greek, hagioi), who are defined as those who are “faithful in Christ Jesus”. In fact, the word “saints” was used at this time for all the baptised members of the community. The word really denotes people who are set apart from others.
In our passage today we find the usual greeting, in words that we now use in our Eucharistic liturgy:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Familiarity with such phrases can prevent us from fully savouring the content of the greeting, which asks for “grace” and “peace”.
These are both key words in this letter: “grace” is used no less than 12 times and “peace” occurs seven times. “Grace” (Greek, charis) is the unmerited love of God as experienced in our lives and “peace” (Greek, eirene) is that deep harmony between God, other people, our environment and ourselves. We could hardly wish people richer gifts than these.
The words “Blessed be God the Father…” now introduce a beautiful prayer of blessing which goes to the end of today’s reading and continues up to the end of tomorrow’s reading as well. In the Greek, it forms a single sentence (writers of classical Greek and Latin liked long sentences, but in our writing style they need to be broken up). The prayer is what we call a ‘doxology’ because it is a paean of worship and praise for all that God has done. The term comes from the Greek word doxa which means ‘glory’.
Paul speaks first of the blessings we have through the Father (v 3), then of those that come through the Son (vv 4-13) and finally of those through the Holy Spirit (vv 13-14). Today’s reading ends at verse 10 and the rest will be read tomorrow.
It begins with praise for the Father, who is the source of all the spiritual or “heavenly” blessings we have received through Jesus Christ. The terms “heavenly places” or “heavenly realm” occur five times in this letter; they emphasise that Christ is now in glory and they point to our future sharing in his life. Paul calls them the “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”. In other words, these blessings are not just recent. God had chosen us from the very beginning, long before our world came into existence. And the complete fulfilment of these blessings will only be experienced after our time on this earth. In the meantime we continue to experience them in this life, hopefully in ever-growing degrees.
These blessings come from the Father “in Christ”, a phrase which is used 12 times in this prayer alone and expresses our close union with him as members of his Body.
Why were we were chosen (why us…why me)? Paul now gives a number of reasons:
- We are called to live “in Christ” and to be “holy and blameless”. Holiness is the result—not the basis—of God’s choosing. It refers both to the holiness imparted to the believer because of Christ and to the believer’s personal sanctification (see 1 Cor 1:2). It is both our vocation and God’s gift to us. Holiness is not our doing. And let us never say, “I don’t have a vocation”. Every baptised person has been called from all eternity, truly a sobering thought. The question each one of us needs to answer is: to what role in the community am I being particularly called? (We will see something of that later in the Letter.)
- We are called—in a lovely phrase—to be “before him in love”. That phrase makes a perfect summary of a Christian life; everything is there and the rest is icing on the cake. ‘Love’ here is primarily the love God has for us (agape), and that leads him to ‘choose’ us and to call us to be ‘holy’. At the same time, this love does not exclude our reaching out in love for God which results from, and is a response to, his own love for us.
- We are called to “adoption as his children”. In a sense every person is a child of God by virtue of creation, but through our baptism and our special relationship through Jesus, we become adopted children of God, to be in a special way brothers and sisters of Jesus and partners in his work to establish the Kingdom. Jesus Christ, the only Son, is both the source and the model of the way God has chosen for us to become holy, i.e. by adopting us as his heirs.
- We are called “to the praise of his glorious grace”. God’s grace is the gift of being called to share God’s life through Jesus Christ. These are the two themes that run through this account of God’s blessings: their source is God’s liberality, and their purpose is to make his glory appreciated by creatures. Everything comes from him, and everything should lead to him.
This we are to proclaim ‘from the housetops’ so that others too may open themselves to this gift. This is what Jesus meant in another context when he spoke of our being the “salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” so that people may come to be drawn to the love and service of the Lord (see Matt 5:13-16).
- And lastly, by our being called to Jesus we have “redemption through his blood”. This means that by his suffering and death on the cross Jesus has, so to speak, bought back our freedom. The New International Version Bible explains:
“The Ephesians were familiar with the Greco Roman practice of redemption: Slaves were freed by the payment of a ransom. Similarly, the ransom necessary to free sinners from the bondage of sin and the resulting curse imposed by the law (see Gal. 3:13) was the death of Christ.”
This freedom comes through the forgiveness of our sins, which in effect means a total reconciliation with God through what Jesus has done for us. As we mentioned earlier when reading Galatians, the experience of freedom is an important element in our Christian life.
Summing up, Paul refers to all this as the “riches of his grace”, the abundance of freely-given love which has been “showered” on us in God’s unique wisdom and insight. The word ‘grace’ (charis) as it is used here, emphasises not so much the interior gift that makes a human being holy: rather, it refers to the gratuitousness of God’s favour and the way he manifests his glory. These are the two themes that run through this account of God’s blessings: their source is God’s liberality, and their purpose is to make his glory appreciated by creatures. Everything comes from him, and everything should lead to him.
All this happens because of God’s “wisdom and insight”. That wisdom is, in an extraordinary way, being shared with us:
[God]…has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ…
The word “mystery” is used here in a sense somewhat different from our contemporary usage, which usually refers to something we cannot understand. In Paul’s day, the Greek word mysterion was used in the context of certain cults whose inner workings were only revealed to the initiated. Paul uses the word here and in other letters to refer to truths which were formerly hidden or obscure, but now have been revealed by God for all to know and understand. For instance, it is used by Paul of the Incarnation, the death of Christ and its meaning in God’s plan and God’s intention for people everywhere—both Jews and Gentiles—to be his people.
The mystery or ‘hidden plan’ which he mentions here is God’s:
…plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Paul uses a significant term here that not only has the idea of leadership, but also was often used of adding up a column of figures. A contemporary way of putting it might be to say that in a world of confusion, where things do not ‘add up’ or make sense, we look forward to the time when everything will be brought into meaningful relationship under the headship of Christ.
The main theme of this letter is how the whole body of creation, having been cut off from the Creator by sin, is decomposing, and how its rebirth is effected by Christ, reuniting all its parts into an organism with himself as the head, so as to reattach it to God. The human (both Jew and Gentile) and the angelic worlds are brought together again through the fact that they were saved by a single act.
Of course, this is all a mystery in the contemporary sense too, something we will never fully grasp on this side of the grave. What Paul is emphasising is the uncovering of an exciting aspect of God in his relationship with his creatures, of which even God’s people up to this time had hardly any inkling. The rest of this magnificent blessing-prayer will be concluded in tomorrow’s reading.
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Tuesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Galatians 5:1-6
Paul continues to speak to the Galatians about freedom, a freedom they cannot find by submitting themselves again to the Mosaic Law:
For freedom Christ has set us free.
If only those words were emblazoned in huge letters in all of our churches! One finds either that people feel Christianity is restrictive of a ‘normal’ human life, or that it consists of living a restricted life for the sake of some future salvation.
By taking on again the requirements of the Law to which they are being urged by certain Judaising missionaries, the Galatians are, in Paul’s view, going backwards. They are giving up the freedom which came to them through the gospel of Jesus. This freedom is a freedom from a life based on a law of external observances, many of them clearly of human origin and not part of being a totally fulfilled person. It was this kind of legalistic mentality which was creeping back into Church life that made the Reformers emphasise the importance of faith in Christ as the basis of life:
Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
To make the Law the rule of one’s life is to undergo a kind of slavery. By trying to live up to the rigorous demands of the Law—which few, if any, people could observe in its totality—the Galatians were taking on a heavy burden, a real yoke, which could only fill them with feelings of inadequacy and guilt.
Jesus in the Gospel invites us to carry a very different yoke, a yoke which he will carry along with us (Matt 11:28-30). It is a yoke which is “easy” and whose “burden is light”. It is a yoke of total surrender to his Way of truth, integrity and love. Because of our many weaknesses, to follow such a way can at times mean the denial of our lower appetites, but the bearing of this yoke can only be beneficial in the long run. It brings us to where we really belong. And it brings true peace.
In particular, Paul tells the Galatians not to submit to the requirement of circumcision which, of itself, has nothing whatever to do with the following of Jesus. Moreover, anyone who accepts to be ritually circumcised, in practice is bound to the observance of the whole Law. The Law is a unit and one cannot pick and choose—it’s all or nothing. Consider circumcision as a kind of sacrament that expressed one’s total allegiance to the Law of the Old Testament (of course, it also has a similar meaning for other faiths, e.g. Islam).
Again, those who look for fulfilment and salvation in the keeping of the Law have in effect separated themselves from Christ. They have “fallen away from grace”. They have put themselves outside the scope of divine favour, because gaining God’s favour by external observance of the law and submitting in faith to love and service of Christ are mutually exclusive.
Those who follow the Law believe that, by keeping it perfectly, God ‘owes’ them salvation. Their model is the Pharisee in the Gospel who thanked God, that through his meticulous observance of the Law, he was not like others (Luke 18:9-14). He saw all his imagined virtue as emanating from him personally. God should be grateful to have people like him around. However, his contemptuous remarks about the tax collector behind him revealed that, while his external behaviour was without fault, he was far from that inner love and compassion that the following of Christ expects.
On the other hand, those who follow Jesus know that salvation comes as a “grace”, a freely-given gift which none of us can earn, but which is given to those who surrender totally into the hands of the Lord. Ideally, that surrender takes place all during our lives as Christians, but the extraordinary thing is that, even if it is not made until the 11th hour, that salvation is still given.
Of course, as we shall see in tomorrow’s reading, putting off the day of surrender is not a very smart thing to do, but the point is that the door is never closed until we close our eyes in death. God does not have an accountant’s ledger. He only looks at me in the here and now.
So it is through faith in Christ and surrender in loving trust (itself a gift!), that we live in the firm hope of finding ourselves right with God. It does not matter a whit whether one is circumcised or not. The Christian community that Paul was addressing consisted of both circumcised Jews and uncircumcised gentiles.
Paul, in a lovely expression, says:
…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Faith is much more than intellectual assent to certain truths or dogmas which we are told to accept as true. It involves the total and unconditional surrender in trust to Jesus as Lord and as the Way to Truth and Life.
When this faith is active and strong, it results quite spontaneously in a life lived in love for God and in care and compassion for all those around us. The only really free person is the one who, in all circumstances, is able to respond in love, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation to all the people and situations of one‘s life.
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Wednesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Galatians 5:18-25
In our final reading from Galatians today we have a magnificent passage where Paul once again touches on the Spirit-given freedom which is the characteristic of the true Christian.
He begins with a statement which we Catholics should have engraved on our hearts:
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
In the Letter to the Romans Paul had also said:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.(Rom 8:14)
And just prior to these verses, he had said to the Galatians:
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Gal 5:16)
By putting oneself under the Spirit, one is not under the bondage of trying to please God by minute observance of the law for salvation or sanctification.
The sign of the Spirit’s presence is love (agape). If we are genuinely filled with the Spirit of truth and love, then we really have no need of law. As we read in the First Letter of John:
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (1 John 4:16)
And as St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) once said:
Where there is (agape) love, there is God.
St Augustine put it:
Love and do what you like.
If we were able to be truly loving, we could not commit sin, even though in certain circumstances we might violate the letter of a particular law. On the other hand, a person who meticulously carries out the smallest detail of a law may be a very unloving person, an intolerant bigot or a person full of hate.
In practice, of course, every institution or organisation needs some kinds of rules which help members to live according to the spirit of the group. Ignatius of Loyola realised this when he wrote his detailed Constitutions for the Society of Jesus. But the principle enunciated by Paul here must remain paramount. The rules are to help advance the spirit and goals of the group; any rule or any application of a rule that frustrates that spirit or goal is to be set aside.
Paul illustrates the difference between a life which is purely self-directed (lived according to the “flesh”) and one lived in the Spirit by describing two kinds of people. These are diametrically opposed to each other and mutually exclusive.
One kind consists of those who act in a spirit of total self-indulgence, those who do what they like whenever they feel like it. It is a description of the self-centred hedonistic, individualistic, person.
He gives a partial list of 15 kinds of behaviour:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
These emerge from our lower instincts and are destructive both of others and oneself. Such lists of vices and virtues were common in the ancient world, and others can be found in the New Testament. This type of behaviour is clearly at odds with what one expects in a world where God’s way is paramount.
On the other hand, those who live in the Spirit of the Father and Christ behave in a very different way. The presence and power of the Spirit in such people results in very different characteristics. Paul says:
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
Christian character is produced by the Holy Spirit, not by the mere moral discipline of trying to live by following the laws. Paul makes it clear that justification by faith does not result in a law-less life. The indwelling Holy Spirit produces Christian virtues in the believer’s life. These are not just ‘virtues’ which I can acquire by constant practice. Much more they are the natural outcome of a life lived in close relationship with Jesus through his Spirit, and allowing the Way of Jesus to guide one’s life. It is not a question of self-discipline or self-control, but rather of having a vision of where the good life really is and following that path.
We might notice that Paul contrasts “works of the flesh” with the “fruit” (not ‘works’) of the Spirit. It is the Spirit, not the following of laws, which lead to such qualities in a person. And, as Paul points out, there is no law covering such characteristics. They are above and beyond any law and, when they are operative, the keeping of the law is more than adequately looked after.
The only way, then, to belong to Christ is by letting go of all—for us to:
…have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The Spirit of Jesus directs such lives. As stated in the NIV Bible:
“Christian character is produced by the Holy Spirit, not by the mere moral discipline of trying to live by law.”
On the other hand, absence of law does not mean lawlessness or spiritual anarchy. On the contrary, our deepening relationship with Jesus, our prayerful reflection on his teaching and our acceptance of that teaching, points us firmly in the direction of truth, love and freedom.
The Letter to the Galatians, although it seems to be dealing with a very specific problem of a very specific group of people, in fact has a great deal of relevance for Christians of every age and every place. The lesson about the freedom of the Christian is of the greatest importance. It is very sad if we see our being Christian as a restricted form of being human, with limitations set as a condition for ‘salvation’ in a future existence. It is not a means of ‘numbing’ the lower classes to accepting an unjust existence as the price for a future happiness.
To the contrary, it is the person who is a world unto himself, with no thought of the needs of others, who becomes the slave of his own passions and fantasies. And when society is full of such people, then we see the kind of behaviour that Paul deplores in today’s passage. Paradoxically, it is the loving person, the one who lives for the genuine well-being of others, who becomes the most enriched. The best society is one where, when everyone gives, then everyone gets.
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Monday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 11:29-32
Jesus has just said (last Saturday’s reading):
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it! (Luke 11:28)
Now, with large crowds pressing around him, he throws out a warning which indicates that not many are hearing the word in the sense of accepting and following it:
This generation is an evil generation…
Why? Jesus says this generation is evil because it keeps asking for a sign by which he can prove his credentials. Today he says the only sign they will be given is the “sign of Jonah”.
Jonah was a sign from God to the people of Nineveh, a pagan city which heard his message, repented and was reconciled to God. Jesus too comes on a mission from God (“as the Father has sent me”) and he will find a hearing—not from many of his own people, but from Gentiles.
So, Jesus says, the “queen of the south will rise in judgement” on the present generation for she, a gentile outsider, came from a long distance to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. But Jesus, who now faces this generation, is far greater than Solomon. The “queen of the south” is the queen of Sheba, whose visit to Solomon is recorded in the First Book of Kings (1 Kgs 10:1-10).
Similarly, the people of Nineveh, the great pagan and wicked city, will stand in judgement over the present generation because:
…they repented at the proclamation of Jonah…
And now:
…something greater than Jonah is here!
But they refuse to listen to him.
There is always a danger that we take our faith for granted. Worse, we may even feel we are in a superior and safer position than others not of our faith or denomination. The fact that we carry the name ‘Catholic’ is not enough. Baptism and the reception of the other sacraments is not by itself a guarantee of our salvation. What counts is that we hear, understand, accept and assimilate the word of Jesus and carry it out at every moment of our lives.
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