Wednesday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 17:11-19
This story of Jesus’ compassion is unique to Luke. We are told that Jesus was travelling on the borders of Galilee, the northern province of Palestine, and Samaria, which lies between Galilee and the southern province of Judea. Jesus is making for the Jordan valley on his way south to Jericho, one of his last stops before reaching his final destination in Jerusalem.
Just as he entered a village he was met by ten lepers (it does not specify whether they were men or women). As lepers they were not allowed to come in close proximity with other people. This was because it was (rightly) known that the condition could be transmitted to others by physical contact—though we know now it needed to be fairly prolonged contact. (Remember how the famous Fr Damien, the Apostle to the Lepers, eventually contracted the disease through his ministering to a colony of lepers on the island of Molokai in Hawaii.)
Because of their dreaded disease, such people were outcasts, condemned to live their lives on the fringes of society. The tragedy is that, given the limited medical knowledge of the times, many such people were almost certainly not suffering from leprosy at all, but from some other non-contagious, perhaps chronic skin disease.
So, calling Jesus from a safe distance, they cried out:
Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!
Jesus simply told them to go and show themselves to the priests. And, while they were on their way, they were all cured. Presumably they continued on their way to see the priests who would give them an official declaration of being ‘clean’ so that they could once again legitimately return to life in society. A major element of their healing was their re-integration into society.
Just one of the cured lepers then came back to Jesus “praising God with a loud voice”, and in deep gratitude fell at the feet of Jesus:
And he was a Samaritan.
These words are loaded with meaning, for it is presumed that the rest were Jews. In the first place, Jews and Samaritans could not stand each other, and the Jews tended to look down on the Samaritans as ungodly and unclean. But in the misfortune of their leprosy, these Jews and Samaritans, rejected by both their own peoples, found common support in each other’s company.
But now that they are cured, only one of them comes to say thanks and he is still—in the eyes of the Jews—an outcast. Jesus, looking around at the Jews in his company, expresses surprise:
Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine?
The only one to come back and give thanks was a despised foreigner.
This unexpected action is also reflected in another of Luke’s stories, which we reflected on earlier, that of the so-called ‘good Samaritan’. Today, in this Gospel reading is another good Samaritan. And, of course, there is a third—the Samaritan woman who is featured prominently in John’s Gospel (John 4:4-42).
To the man in today’s Gospel, Jesus says:
Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.
That “get up” or ‘rise up’, which Jesus often uses with those he heals, has echoes of resurrection and entry into new life—a life of wholeness brought about by the man’s trust in Jesus and his acknowledgment of the source of his healing.
In the context of Luke’s Gospel, the story prepares us for developments in the growth of the early Church, described in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. This is because, as the early Christians (all of them Jews) flee from persecution in Jerusalem, the people of Samaria are among the first to accept Jesus as Lord and to become followers of the gospel. On the other hand, many of the Jews in Jerusalem remained closed to Jesus’ message and call.
We, too, must never give in to a temptation to exclude any people as possible followers of Christ. We must be ready to reach out to all, even the most unlikely. None must be treated as outsiders or untouchables, even those who show themselves extremely hostile to the gospel.
And while there may not be any real lepers in our own society, today is an occasion for us to reflect on who could be regarded as lepers, outsiders, outcasts and untouchables among us at the present time. I might also consider whether I personally treat any person as an outsider in my home, in my work or in other places where I meet people. Such exclusion is totally contrary to what we celebrate in the Eucharist.
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Saturday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 18:1-8
One of the attributes attributed to Luke’s Gospel is that his is a ‘Gospel of Prayer’. We see Jesus praying in this Gospel more than in the others and he gives more teaching about prayer. Urging perseverance, today:
Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.
This is very much a theme in Paul’s letters (see Rom 1:9-10; Rom 12:12; Eph 3:13; Eph 6:18; Col 1:3; 1 Thess 5:16-17; 2 Thess 1:11; 2 Thess 3:13; 2 Cor 4:1,16 and Gal 6:9).
The parable features a totally corrupt judge, who fears neither God nor man. It also features a widow, probably the most powerless, the most pitiful and least pitied of people in the society of that time. She has lost her husband, re-marriage is likely out of the question, she has lost the support of her own family and her husband’s family, and there is nothing comparable to social welfare for her to lean on.
As far as a corrupt judge is concerned, she can be ignored. She has neither power nor money (for bribing). But this widow is different—she is persistent and will not give up. Eventually, the judge, for his sheer peace of mind, settles in her favour.
If, Jesus concludes, a corrupt and ruthless judge can be moved by the perseverance of a helpless widow, what kind of response can we expect when we, his people, call out in our helplessness to our loving and compassionate God?
I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.
That is, he will give them what is rightfully due to them.
But asks Jesus, in a challenge which should make us sit up and take notice:
…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Times of persecution are on the way—they have already begun as this Gospel is written—and some followers will give up under pressure. They will not persevere in keeping close contact with God in prayer, so as to find him and his peace in the midst of their sufferings.
It is easy to pray when things are going well. It is often in times of pressure that we, too, give up praying when we need it most, when our faith is really being put to the test. We have to pray constantly and consistently. We should not be afraid to ask for what we believe we really need.
But then, if God is such a caring person, why should we have to pray to him at all? We need to keep praying, not for his sake, but for our own. By doing so, we maintain an awareness that:
I can do nothing on my own. (John 5:30)
As well, the more we pray, the closer we come to God. And as we pray, what we ask for will gradually change. Ultimately what we want is what we need. And what we need is to bring our thinking, our dreams, our ambitions totally into line with God’s way of seeing things. The problem is, as Jesus says at the end today, how many people will really be doing that when he comes looking for us?
How often do I pray? How consistently do I ask? What do I ask for? What do I really want? Do I distinguish between what I want and what I really need? And do I really have that faith and trust in the loving providence of my God?
There is another and very different interpretation of this passage. When we read this parable about perseverance, we usually think of it in these terms: God is the judge and we are the widow. This means we should persevere in pestering God until our needs are met.
But what happens if we turn that around and say that we are the judge and God is the widow? In some ways, this interpretation makes more sense. We, like the judge, are basically unjust. Sometimes we, too, have no fear of God; that is, we do not allow God to scare us into being good.
Similarly, like the judge we persist in refusing to listen to the cries of the poor all around us. But God is the persistent widow who will not go away. God keeps badgering us, refusing to accept as final our ‘No’ to love. God will persist until we render a just judgment, that is, until we let the goodness out, until we learn to love.*
In Genesis, we are told we are made in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps our prayer could be:
Dear God, Persevering One, help us to be more like you!
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*This second interpretation of the parable comes from Sister Melanie Svoboda SND, Review for Religious, Sept-Oct 1996.
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Saturday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 3 John 5-8
Like yesterday’s reading, today’s, from the Third Letter of John, is also very short, and it is a genuine letter. It is addressed to a Christian called Gaius, about whom we know nothing, and again the author is simply identified as “the Elder” or “Presbyter”. Unlike Letters 1 and 2, Letter 3 does not touch on the major issues of love and right teaching, but deals primarily with the question of hospitality shown to travelling preachers.
In Letter 2, the Christians in the church to whom the letter was written were urged not to give hospitality to people who were preaching unacceptable doctrines about Christ. In this letter the opposite problem seems to exist. A person called Diotrephes (see vs 9-12), who refuses to accept the authority of the Elder, seems to be refusing hospitality to teachers sent into his territory. He even excommunicated those who gave such hospitality.
In contrast, the letter praises Gaius for the hospitality that he has been giving to “brothers and sisters”, travelling preachers, who were sometimes complete strangers and were a feature of the Church at this time. As most local churches were small and isolated, it was necessary for them to be visited by competent people sent by the Apostles to bring them up to an acceptable understanding of the Christian life.
Local churches were expected to provide hospitality and support to such visiting missionaries. Paul generally did not avail of material help because he preferred to support himself, but he did emphasise that he had a right to such support. But he would certainly have availed himself of accommodation offered to him. Jesus speaks about this also in his discourse to his disciples who were being sent out on mission (see Matt 10:5-15).
This, of course, is completely in harmony with Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel. The final judgement will be made on the basis of how we treated strangers, especially those in need or who are marginalised. In crime-ridden cities of the ‘developed’ West, the keeping of this commandment becomes ever more of a challenge. But it must not be set aside.
Gaius’ behaviour is a model of Christian charity, and he is further urged even to give them the help they need to get to their next destination. The preachers deserve this hospitality because they preach purely for the sake of the name—that is, the name of Jesus and his Gospel—and without any remuneration. They depend entirely for their support on the Christian communities they come to help and serve, and they get help from no one else. By offering them hospitality, the community is making its contribution to their work of spreading the Gospel message.
In our time too, we are expected to help support those who give of themselves full-time to the work of the Gospel. And, in most places, people are indeed very generous in supporting their clergy and religious. With the increase of more and more lay people devoting themselves full-time to evangelising and voluntary work with the Church, they too deserve from us the basic support they need in terms of shelter, food and other necessities.
As mentioned above, hospitality, which is still an essential practice in some parts of the world, has become a real problem in more developed societies. It is regarded as foolish and naive to trust the stranger. As a result, our homes are heavily secured with locks and alarms and we are slow to open the door to anyone except those personally known to us. Is this the price of ‘civilisation’ in an ‘advanced’ country?
We offload the responsibility of taking care of the poor, the homeless and the victims of addiction to social welfare bodies. We are willing to help by giving money, but not to giving our Christian love by reaching out to them on a person-to-person basis. Sometimes we may even avoid contact with a family member who has fallen between the cracks. The feared criticism of strangers can make us strangers even to our own flesh and blood.
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Monday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Titus 1:1-9
As we come to the end of the liturgical year on this third-last week, we dip into four short letters (unless there is a feast day requiring different readings): the Letter to Titus (Mon-Wed), the Letter to Philemon (Thursday), the Second Letter of John (Friday), and the Third Letter of John (Saturday). The Letters to Titus and Philemon come last in the body of the Pauline Letters, because they are the two shortest. Philemon consists of only one chapter and is more in the nature of a personal note or memo to a friend.
The Letter to Titus is the third of the ‘Pastoral Letters’, so-called because they consist largely of pastoral advice to Paul’s colleagues, Timothy and Titus. They are the only Pauline letters addressed to individuals rather than a church. There is a good deal of dispute as to whether they really were written by Paul because they clearly deal with a period following Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, with which the Acts of the Apostles ends.
Some hold that Paul was released from that imprisonment and went on another pastoral mission which included Crete, where Titus was left in charge. Others would hold that such a mission is pure speculation made to fit the awkward fact that, not Paul, but another anonymous writer authored the three Pastoral Letters, which share a common style quite unlike that of letters definitely known to have been written by Paul. This theory would date the letters around the year 100, long after Paul’s death. If Paul did write them, they would belong to a period about 65 AD.
Whatever the truth, Titus was certainly one of Paul’s most important collaborators. Strangely, he is never mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, but his name occurs 13 times in other books of the New Testament. He played a very important role in restoring peace to the Church at Corinth, where it seems Paul had made himself very unpopular (see the reading from 1 Corinthians 4:6-15 of Saturday in the 22nd Week of Cycle II, where Paul’s problems can be read between the lines).
The letter purports to be from Paul to Titus and this commentary reflects as if that is actually the case, while keeping in mind that the letter may be from another hand at a much later date (after Paul had already been dead for many years). Whatever the Letter’s real origins, we need to remember that it is now in the canon of Scripture recognised by all Christians, and is to be read primarily as the Word of God.
Today’s reading consists of the opening address of the letter, and then sets the qualifications for the appointment of elders (presbyteroi) and overseers (episkopoi) to lead the communities. The writer begins by calling himself the “servant of God”. In other letters Paul always refers to himself as the “servant of Christ”. James, in his letter, uses both terms of himself.
Paul writes that he is an “apostle”, one of those specially and personally commissioned by Christ himself, even if he is not one of the Twelve, and that:
…in due time he revealed his word through the proclamation with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior…
He describes his mission as being to lead those chosen by God (through Baptism) to faith and a knowledge of the truth that brings one “in the faith we share”—i.e. into a true relationship with God that is coupled with the hope of eventually enjoying the life without end that God promises to his people.
He speaks of “God our Saviour”, and this is one of three times in the Letter when the Father is called “Saviour”. Jesus will also be referred to as “Saviour” three times.
Unlike the Cretans, known for their immorality (Titus is in Crete), God does not lie. In Christ, he has revealed his plans, and it is Paul’s mandate to make them widely known.
He then greets the addressee of the letter, Titus, wishing him the traditional:
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Titus is called “my true child”, for it was through Paul’s ministry that Titus was converted to Christianity “in the faith we share”. In the Letter to Philemon (to be read on Thursday), Onesimus is also called a son by Paul.
As the body of the letter begins, Titus is given his instructions. By saying that he had left Titus behind in Crete, Paul seems to imply that they had both been there together, although the Acts of the Apostles does not record any such visit by Paul, except as a stop off point on his way to Rome as a prisoner. It is an open question whether Paul did go there after being released in Rome, or whether it is simply an invention of the writer. In leaving Titus in Crete, Paul was simply following his usual custom by leaving someone in charge of a church he had evangelised. He saw himself as a ‘sower’ of the seed, leaving it to others to look after the growing crop and bring in the ‘harvest’.
Titus’ main mission was to appoint elders in every town where there was a Christian community. There are two Greek words used for “elders” at this stage in the Church’s development: presbyteros, which means an ‘elder” and episcopos, which means an ‘overseer’. Later, these words gave us ‘priest’ and ‘bishop’, respectively in the English language. However, at this stage the words could be applied to the same person, and referred simply to those who were given the role of leadership in the local church. There could also be several elders in one community. We are not yet into the distinction between ‘clergy’ and ‘laity’, and the term ‘priest’ would take on meanings it certainly did not have at this time.*
The connotation of ‘elder’ is that of an older, mature person who wins the respect of the community, while ‘overseer’ looks more to the authority and responsibility that the person has over the community. It is quite certain that Christian presbyteroi or episkopoi were not merely concerned with the practical side of organising things; they also had to teach and govern. They were appointed by the Apostles or their representatives by the imposition of hands; their powers derived from God, and were charismatic.
Elsewhere we will see reference to ‘deacons’. The Greek word for ‘deacon’ (diakonos), which points to a person in a serving capacity, was at first applied to those who gave practical assistance to the elder.
Paul then gives a list of qualifications expected of an elder, or church leader. He tells Titus he should appoint:
Finally, to better understand the above qualifications, here are four comments:
- Clearly the elder is seen as a man and not a woman as this “someone” in the reading is always referred to as “he”. This was probably the only possibility in the culture of the time. Whether it is an argument against women presbyteroi in our Church today continues to be a disputed issue.
- The phrase “married only once” means a ‘husband of one wife’, i.e. it excludes any form of polygamy or anything except a purely monogamous relationship. However, it does not necessarily exclude a bachelor, or a widower, nor remarriage by an elder whose first wife had died (although Paul told the Corinthians that it is more desirable not to marry again). Since elders, by definition, were chosen from among the older men of the congregation, Paul assumed they would already be married and have children. The most likely meaning is simply that a faithful monogamous married life must be maintained.
- The requirement that the children (and presumably the wife) be also Christian was most made likely so that the whole family would give witness to the Gospel. What kind of a Christian leader could not lead his own family members to Christ?
- The term “self-controlled” means possessing the inner strength to control one’s desires and actions. Given that the people of Crete had a notorious reputation for all that was gross and immoral, the elder had to give an outstanding example of a person free from such behaviour. Paul refers to this five times in two chapters.
- The emphasis on sound doctrine (“trustworthy word”) is a central theme of all the Pastoral Letters and reflects concerns about various erratic teachings, especially forms of Gnosticism, which were current in the post-Pauline period. The word “sound” occurs eight times in these letters, but is never used in any of the other Pauline letters.
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*In Greek and Latin, the words for ‘priest’ were hiereus and sacerdos, respectively. These words explicitly indicate a ritualistic, sacrificial priesthood as found in the Jewish priesthood of the Old Testament, and in the priests found in the pagan temples and places of religious worship in Greece and Rome. In the early New Testament, this word was applied only to Jesus, our Great High Priest and our only Priest, all other priesthoods having been abolished. This is put most clearly in the Letter to the Hebrews. How presbyter became hiereus is a question we cannot go into here. With the word hiereus comes, of course, both the concept and the reality of ‘hier-archy’, rule by priests. Paul and his Christian contemporaries might find all this very strange and even disturbing.
Thursday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Philemon 7-20
Today we begin reading from the three shortest books of the New Testament—a reading from Paul’s Letter to Philemon. The whole ‘book’ consists of just one chapter and is, in the strict sense, a letter from one friend to another. Paul even claims to have written it in his own hand; most of his longer letters were dictated to secretaries, or even partly written by them following Paul’s instructions. The letter was written about the same time as the Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians. Paul is in prison, but where is not quite certain. It is thought that Rome was too far away for him to have been visited by the slave, Onesimus. One possibility is Ephesus, where Paul seems to have been imprisoned for a while, and which was not too far from Colosse, where Philemon lived.
The situation is that a slave, Onesimus, seems to have run away from his master, Philemon, and found shelter with Paul. There is a suggestion that Onesimus may have run away because he had stolen from his master. In which case, Philemon—understandably—may not have been very well disposed to his slave. However, during his time with Paul, Onesimus became a Christian. Philemon was also a convert of Paul’s, so Paul felt a special affinity for these two men and was anxious for reconciliation between them as brothers in Christ. The letter is written in very tactful language (by one not particularly known for his gift of diplomacy), as if Paul is not at all sure of the outcome.
Today’s passage begins with outright praise for Philemon himself. Paul is delighted to hear of Philemon’s love:
…because the hearts of the saints [i.e. the Christians of his church] have been refreshed through you…
It seems as if Philemon is a church leader and that, of course, means that higher standards are expected of him, e.g. in dealing with a runaway slave.
Paul continues by appealing to Philemon’s love rather than his duty (which might be to punish the errant slave). He further appeals as an “old man” languishing in prison for his Christian faith. He calls Onesimus:
…my child…whose father I have become during my imprisonment.
This appears to be a way of indicating that the slave had been converted to Christianity. Paul was now his ‘father in Christ’. In Paul’s eyes, this changed the status of Onesimus with respect to his master, also a Christian and also a “child” of Paul’s.
He suggests that Onesimus—no doubt as a result of the formation that Paul has given him—has changed:
Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
This is a play on the Onesimus’ name which means ‘useful’.
Paul says that he would like to have kept Onesimus with him:
I wanted to keep him with me so that he might minister to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel…
Despite this, he wants to send Onesimus back to Philemon:
I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.
Clearly, he is not altogether sure of Philemon’s reaction, and that is why he is writing this letter first. He does not want to force Philemon’s hand; he would prefer that Philemon himself take the initiative in inviting back his slave, now that he knows where he is.
And Paul is sending back Onesimus now not just as a slave, but as someone who is a brother in Christ both to Paul and Philemon. The implication is not just that Onesimus is now a baptised Christian, but that he has changed as a person. So Paul begs Philemon to take Onesimus back and, if there is any talk of restitution for stolen property, Paul will take care of it himself. The guarantee is the letter written in his own handwriting. And because the gift of faith had come to Philemon through Paul, Philemon is, in a sense, indebted to Paul. He can pay part of that debt by taking Onesimus back.
We do not know, of course, what happened as a result of this letter. But it is a good example of Christian forgiveness and reconciliation. And in a world where slavery and its resultant inequality was never questioned, it shows how Christian love must eventually lead to people being treated on exactly the same level where human dignity and worth are concerned. It was already pointing the way to the abolition of slavery, a condition that would still continue for many centuries to come.
And that is why this informal letter of one friend to another finds its place in our Bible, as the Word of God. It gives an example for all of us to follow.
It is often difficult for us to trust a person who has wronged us in some way. It is often difficult to accept that people can change radically. We see this in our attitudes to people who have been in prison. There was great disquiet some time ago in the US, when a woman on death row, who had clearly become a totally rehabilitated person and a sincere convert to religious faith, was nevertheless sent to the electric chair for the crimes she committed earlier in a ‘different’ life. Our society tends to want to exact its ‘pound of flesh’, i.e. to want to punish rather than to reform or rehabilitate.
Jesus was not like that. He was the one who consistently ate and drank with sinners and social outcasts. As a Church, we should hope that accusation will be thrown at us frequently.
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Tuesday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Titus 2:1-8,11-14
Today the Letter continues by giving some moral instructions to the community at large. It also makes very clear and challenging demands on Titus himself. With the many false teachers in mind, Titus is told that he in particular is to spell out the kind of behaviour that follows from the true teaching of the Gospel. Paul writes, “as for you”—where the ‘you’ is emphatic and contrasts the teaching of Titus with that of the false and Gnostic teachers previously denounced.
Instructions are now given on the kind of behaviour that is expected of all, regardless of age, gender or status in the community. In living out the Gospel, the older men in the community, by virtue of their seniority and experience of life, were expected to be:
…temperate, serious, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.
This was to be in contrast to many Cretans, described earlier as:
…liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons. (Titus 1:12)
The same standards were expected of older women in the Christian community, where it is clear that they had a better status than their non-Christian counterparts. They are:
…not to be slanderers or enslaved to much wine…
This perhaps suggests that such behaviour was characteristic of Cretan women.
On the contrary, they are to give an example to younger women:
…to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind…
And in the mode of their time, they are also told to be:
…submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.
Notably, this last injunction should be balanced with what Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians says are the duties of the husband towards his wife:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… (Eph 5:25)
In these two passages, different Greek words for “love” are used: philia (in Titus) and agape (in Ephesians). Actually, philia is probably the more appropriate word for a united married couple.
And—it is important to remember this—all of this is part of living the Gospel message in a very practical way. This is how married couples give witness to the message of the Gospel. If they fail to live in this way, the effectiveness of the Gospel can be diminished.
Titus himself then is urged especially to give an example to younger men. The call to be “self-controlled in all things” was very much in the Greek tradition, but it is something frequently mentioned in these letters. It is also clear that young men then were not very different to those in every other age, including our own. “Moderation” is not usually considered one of their strong characteristics.
Titus is called on to be an example of integrity and consistency in his teaching and his lifestyle so that there can never be any serious criticism levelled at him. Perhaps Titus was still a young man, and not yet well respected by the Cretan churches. The demands on a leader are all-inclusive, involving not only his word but also his lifestyle. As the Letter of James tells us:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment. (James 3:1)
Whether we like it or not, the message is often identified with the messenger. So where Titus is seen to be consistently faithful, when his behaviour matches his word, his opponents will have nothing to throw against him.
Of course, in practice, we do have to distinguish between the message and the messenger. The Church or any member of it cannot and should not be identified with Christianity itself, which is a vision of life, an ideal to be aimed at. The message is sublime, but it is carried in very brittle and very porous vessels, and it is important to remember that.
At this point, two verses which deal with slaves are omitted, presumably on the assumption that they are no longer relevant. We might reflect, however, on how many people in our societies are treated virtually as slaves e.g. exploited migrant workers, young children abducted and trafficked for the sex industry, just to mention two examples.
The passage concludes with some general remarks about the Christian faith. Through Christ, God’s gratuitous love for peoples everywhere (and not just for an elite group) has been made known to us. Through Paul’s words, we know that this message must influence the way we live. It tells us what we need to do, and the kind of people we need to become so that we can one day be forever united with our God. Everything that does not point us in that direction should be removed from our lives. Orthodoxy must be accompanied by orthopraxis, i.e. right thinking by right doing.
To do so calls for certain standards of behaviour and acting as we prepare for the day when we come face to face with “our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ”, who has made it all possible for us. This phrase is often referred to by the Fathers of the Church to affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ.
It was the sacrifice of his own life on the cross which brought about our becoming a truly free people:
…a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
And that is a definition of freedom—the ability, in every situation, to do what is good.
Preaching alone will not bring about change in our communities. It must be followed up by individuals, families and groups consciously trying to implement the message that comes to us in the Gospel. And we can only do that really as a mutually supportive community. It is not something that can be done left entirely to our own devices. The ‘Church’ is not some amorphous entity which we can praise or blame at will—it consists of all of us—individuals, families and groups. If the Church is at fault, it means that the fault lies in ourselves—that is where it is to be tackled.
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Friday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 John 4-9
The three Letters of John all seem to have been written about the same time, by the same person and probably from Ephesus. The dates suggested vary from 85-100 AD. Today we have a reading of just six verses from the Second Letter, which is actually the shortest ‘book’ in the whole of the New Testament, not even taking up one page in most Bibles.
In the book’s first verse, the author calls himself “the Elder”, which indicates a level of authority over the community to which he is writing. Whether he is to be identified with John the Apostle is not certain, but also not very likely.
The Second Letter was written to a church under the jurisdiction of “the Elder”, which referred to in the reading as “the elect Lady”—’elect’ meaning chosen. This was in reply to people there who were publicly denying the truth of the Incarnation—that Jesus was truly God and Man.
Today’s reading is in two parts. In the first part, the author congratulates the church (now referred to as “dear lady”) for following the true teaching:
…walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father.
He is writing to them, not with a new commandment, but with one they have had since the beginning, that is, since the time of their conversion—namely, that they should love one another. Loving God and loving one’s neighbour was not a new commandment.
In the Gospel they had been taught, they were given love of God and love of neighbor as the most important of Jewish laws (as quoted in Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18). But at the Last Supper, Jesus gave a “new commandment” which was:
…as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
(John 13:34)
Jesus will spell that out by saying:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
Jesus called his disciples his “friends” and he gave his life for them. That is now to be the paradigm for our relationship with those around us.
In the Letter today, this commandment is simply being reemphasised. To love, says the Elder, is to live according to Jesus’ commandments, which can all be summed up in the one commandment:
And this is love…this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.
Love, however, should not blind them to the truth. And that brings us to the second part of the reading. The author warns his church about those who are denying:
…that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh…
In other words, they are denying the true humanity of Jesus. The Gnostics taught that the Son of God did not become a human being, but that he temporarily came down upon the man Jesus between his baptism and his crucifixion.
They held this belief under the conviction that all material things were evil, and the good person should withdraw as far as possible from the material world. In this thinking, God could not have taken on a material body. He only had the temporary appearance of being linked to a human.
The teachers of this doctrine are called here the “Antichrist” because they deny the very essence of what we believe Jesus Christ to be. The Christians are warned that to follow this teaching could jeopardise their faith and their ultimate salvation.
The author assumed his readers knew that a great enemy of God and his people was expected to appear before Christ’s final return. That person is called “antichrist”, “the deceiver”, and in Revelation (13:1-10), “the beast”. But prior to him, there will be many other antichrists.
In the Letters of John, the antichrists have the following characteristics:
- they deny the incarnation and that Jesus is the divine Christ;
- they deny the Father;
- they do not have the Father;
- they are liars and deceivers;
- they are many;
- in John’s day, they left the church because they had nothing in common with believers.
The ‘antichrists’ referred to in John’s letter were the early Gnostics. The Elder warns that those who do not keep to the Church’s teaching about Christ, but go beyond it as the Gnostics claimed to do, cannot be with God. They went beyond the apostolic teaching by indulging in pure speculation and presenting that as the teaching and belief of the Church.
However, says the Elder, only those who remain faithful to the original teaching are in union with both the Father and the Son. Because, as Jesus had said:
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)
The passage highlights two contrasting attitudes we need to have as Christians. On the one hand, our lives are to be governed entirely by the law of love—loving each other to the same degree that Christ has loved and continues to love us. It must be the touchstone of all our living.
But loving does not mean turning a blind eye to what is against the true or the good. It does not mean absolute tolerance for any idea or any action. We do not love people by turning a blind eye to the harm they may do to themselves or others, by ideas they hold, or the behaviour they indulge in.
In another part of this letter, the Christians are told to avoid giving to false teachers the hospitality traditionally extended to travelling teachers. The Gospel speaks of expelling people from the community when their behaviour is quite out of keeping with the standards that the Church wishes to maintain to be a credible witness to the Gospel.
Yet, love remains the criterion. Expulsion lasts only as long as there has been no repentance or reconciliation. The Church, like its Master, wishes that people be saved and not condemned.
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Tuesday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 17:7-10
Today we have another warning from Luke (and one which is only found in his Gospel) about complacency. As we read this parable we must be careful—as with many of the others—not to confuse matters by dragging in issues which are anachronistic. Jesus asks:
Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’.
Would we invite him to sit down, have his supper and take a good rest?
Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’?
Would we even express gratitude to a servant who was only doing what was expected of him?
Here, let us temporarily put aside our current understanding of workers’ rights, democracy and the evils and long-lasting repercussions of slavery of every kind. No one in Jesus’ time, either an employer or a slave, would have thought for a moment of questioning what he is saying. At the same time, we might remember Jesus saying that watchful servants will be welcomed by their master who will make them sit down and will wait personally on them (see Luke 12:37), and that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet as an example of service.
What we are dealing with here is our relationship with God. The point Jesus is making is that God need never be grateful to us for anything we do for him. No matter how much we do for him, we can never put him in our debt. Everything we give to God (or to God through others) is simply giving back to him a small portion of what he has already given us. It is well said in Preface IV for Weekday Masses:
You have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift. Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness, but makes us grow in your grace.
God can never be in our debt. He can never be under any obligation to us. Perhaps that is what some of the Pharisees thought. They believed that, because they kept the Law perfectly, God owed them salvation. We see that in the scene of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple, where the Pharisee’s prayer gives the impression that God should be deeply grateful to have, among so many negligent people, such a good person as himself.
We can do the same thing ourselves when, for instance, we think that by saying certain prayers or performing certain acts (like novenas, indulgences and pilgrimages), God should jump to attention and do what we are telling him to do or give us what we are asking for.
All our living out of the gospel is not a compliment paid to God. On the contrary, we can never be grateful enough to him for showing us the way to truth, love, freedom and happiness which Jesus taught us, and for giving us the grace to walk in his Way. With God, all our giving is only an imperfect and partial giving back.
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Friday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 17:26-37
Jesus is coming to the end of his public life. His passion and death are going to be traumatic experiences for his followers, which will take them by surprise and fill them with shock and alarm.
Later still, but before Luke had put his Gospel together, a cataclysm had overtaken Jerusalem when the city was laid siege to and utterly destroyed—the magnificent Temple along with it. The disaster is commemorated in the arch in Rome erected to honour the Emperor Titus’ victory, where one can see bas reliefs of the treasures of the Temple being carried off as loot.
Last of all, there is the end of all things, when our world will be no more. The what or the how of that end is something we know nothing about. In a sense, all three endings are included in Jesus’ warning today. His main lesson is for us to be ready and not to think that we can postpone our preparations. When the end strikes, it will be already too late.
Jesus gives the example of the time of the Flood, when people ate and drank right up to the moment of disaster (and we know from our own media how unprepared people can be when sudden floods and other sudden disasters strike). Similarly in the days of Lot, people were leading their ordinary lives when fire and brimstone (perhaps an earthquake?) rained down on the wicked city of Sodom. Only Lot and his family, who had been previously warned, escaped. In our time, almost every day we see something in our own media of similar cataclysms.
When “the day that the Son of Man is revealed” arrives, that is, when he comes at the end of time, it will be too late to take emergency measures. One will either be ready or not. If one is resting on the roof of one’s house (as was common at that time), don’t think of going down to save something. One person will be taken away and a companion left behind. The words seem to echo what happened at the fall of Jerusalem, and are similar to all natural disasters where some are swept away and those next to them survive. In context, the implication is that one goes to God and one does not.
These texts are not intended to fill us with fear and foreboding of a capricious God. They are timely advice not to be caught napping, but to remain alert to meet the Lord. It is good advice, not just for the end of our lives, but for every day and every moment of every day. If I am always ready now, I will be ready then.
By living continuously and consciously in the presence of God, in that ‘divine milieu’ of the Kingdom mentioned above—in the ever-present now—we are not going to be caught by surprise. Far from being afraid, we will look forward to the day with anticipation, leaving totally in God’s hands the hour of his call. In practice, too, that final call will not coincide with the end of our planet, but with the moment when our individual life on this earth will come to its end. Of the inevitability of that end, there is no doubt.
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Monday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 17:1-6
We move on to chapter 17 of Luke and today we have three separate sayings of Jesus which we find in different contexts in Matthew’s Gospel. The first is on the inevitability of scandals. Scandals are those actions or words which, literally, cause people to trip up and fall. Here they refer to words or actions which become obstacles, preventing or making it more difficult for people to believe in and accept Christ and the gospel.
These things are inevitable, Jesus says, but it is tragic for those who are responsible. It is a terrible thing to come between a person and the call of Christ—that is, to be the effective agent for blocking a person’s coming to know and love Christ and his Way. It would be better for the scandal-causer:
…if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Jesus is speaking about damage to the “little ones”. This can refer either to those who are young and innocent, or those who are frail in their Christian faith.
Sadly, over the years, our news has been full of many ‘scandals’ on the part of Catholic leaders—bishops, priests, brothers and sisters. It is difficult to say how many people’s faith was weakened by these events, but it is likely that they were enough to make some less committed people experience a sense of disillusionment and abandon the Church.
In some cases, there was probably no scandal in the strict sense, but simply failings due to human frailty. In other cases, especially where the young or the innocent were abused or led astray, real scandal and prolonged harm were certainly present.
Scandal in the gospel sense and in the tabloid sense are not quite the same, and we should be careful to distinguish them. Jesus himself caused ‘scandal’ among some of the religious leaders because he failed to observe certain rituals. This is known as ‘pharisaical scandal’ or ‘hypocritical scandal’. We Catholics can certainly be guilty of this kind of false scandal, and certainly the media at times, for purposes of sensationalism, can blow up certain trivial matters in a particularly obnoxious ‘holier-than-thou’ approach.
But it is not only people in public life who cause scandal. Parents, by an ambivalent, two-standard behaviour, can tell their children to behave in one way while they themselves act in a totally other way. Catholic parents, and others in charge of the guidance of children (such as teachers), need to be particularly careful of being stumbling blocks to their children’s faith.
The second saying is about forgiveness and reconciliation, and it is not unconnected with the question of scandal above. If a brother or sister, that is, a fellow-Christian is clearly in the wrong, he or she should be corrected. And, if the wrong-doer clearly repents, then forgiveness should be given. Even if someone commits the same offence any number of times and each time sincerely expresses sorrow, that person is to be forgiven.
This is not to say that a person can keep doing wrong and expect forgiveness simply by apologizing. Some kind of controlling action may have to be taken. This is especially true where the person is not in control of himself or herself, which could be the case with someone who is addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex, or is the victim of some other compulsive behaviour. But even here, punishment alone cannot be a satisfactory solution. Rather, every effort must be made to heal and rehabilitate.
As Christians, the whole thrust of our actions is for reconciliation, and not judgement and condemnation. We need to remember the teaching about God’s love for the sinner in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost (prodigal) son (see Luke chap 15).
The third saying is about faith, that is, deep trust in God. The apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith. This may be seen in the context of the warning about scandal, and the requirement to forgive indefinitely. He told them:
If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
Perhaps an area where we need a strong trust is in trying to rehabilitate both the givers and the victims of scandal, and certainly we need faith if we are to be able sincerely to forgive, again and again, those who have hurt us or others. But true forgiveness is not the simple writing off of a wrongdoing. Rather, it is taking the necessary steps to restore a status quo of harmony and peace and mutual love and respect. And it should be noted, that can take a long time.
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