Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, priest
Reading I
Jeremiah 26:11-16, 24
The priests and prophets said
to the princes and to all the people,
"This man deserves death;
he has prophesied against this city,
as you have heard with your own ears."
Jeremiah gave this answer to the princes
and all the people:
"It was the LORD who sent me to prophesy
against this house and city
all that you have heard.
Now, therefore, reform your ways and your deeds;
listen to the voice of the LORD your God,
so that the LORD will repent
of the evil with which he threatens you.
As for me, I am in your hands;
do with me what you think good and right.
But mark well: if you put me to death,
it is innocent blood you bring on yourselves,
on this city and its citizens.
For in truth it was the LORD who sent me to you,
to speak all these things for you to hear."
Thereupon the princes and all the people
said to the priests and the prophets,
"This man does not deserve death;
it is in the name of the LORD,
our God, that he speaks to us."
So Ahikam, son of Shaphan, protected Jeremiah,
so that he was not handed over to the people
to be put to death.
+++
Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s reading about the reaction to Jeremiah’s prophecy about the future fate of the Temple and Jerusalem.
We saw yesterday how Jeremiah had been arrested by the religious leaders after he had warned that the Temple and Jerusalem would be reduced to ruins if the people did not change their ways. His words sounded sacrilegious to his hearers and now judgement is being passed on him.
In a verse that comes between the two passages but not in either reading, we are told that the leaders of Judah were told of the situation and held a formal trial at the New Gate of the Temple. The priests and prophets told the leaders and the people gathered round that Jeremiah deserved to die because of what he had said against the Temple and the holy city. His accusers pass sentence on him even before Jeremiah has had a chance to defend himself.
When Jeremiah does get the opportunity to speak, he says that everything he told them came directly from the Lord. They were not his own thoughts. Once again he tells that they have only to change their ways and submit themselves to God’s law and the threatened disaster will not take place. Jeremiah is in their hands and he tells them they can do what they like with him. But, if they execute him, they will have innocent blood on their hands, “since the Lord truly sent me to you to say all these words in your hearing”.
This statement produces a division between the court officials and the people over against the religious leaders, the priests and the prophets. The former say that Jeremiah does not deserve to die because what he has said he has spoken in God’s name.
What happens next in the passage is not contained in our reading (27:17-23). First, some of the elders remind the people that the prophet Micah had made prophecies very similar to those of Jeremiah but he was not condemned to death. He had said that Zion would “become a ploughed field, Jerusalem a heap of ruins”. But then we are told of another prophet by the name of Uriah, who was preaching the same message as Jeremiah. When the king wanted to eliminate him, he fled into Egypt but he was pursued, brought back, executed and dumped in a common grave.
However, Jeremiah was rescued from certain death by some high-powered intervention. Ahikam, son of Shaphan, was a highly-placed official, a scribe in the court of King Josiah and always well-disposed to Jeremiah. He was also the father of Gedaliah, who would become governor of Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 BC and would also befriend Jeremiah.
Here we have an example of how the prophet’s integrity is rewarded, although it might always turn out like this. Whatever the consequences, Jeremiah had to speak out what he believed was the Lord’s message. Quite unknown to him, circumstances worked in his favour and preserved his life.
This is an example of one’s life being in the hands of potter. Jeremiah would die when his time had come and not before. Neither he nor anyone else could change that. Clearly, Yahweh had some more work for him to do.
For us it is the same. In our lives, too, God’s Providence can work in strange ways and use very unexpected instruments.
Let us today count our blessings and recall how many times God’s love has been experienced through surprising and unexpected interventions.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 69
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Rescue me out of the mire; may I not sink!
may I be rescued from my foes,
and from the watery depths.
Let not the flood-waters overwhelm me,
nor the abyss swallow me up,
nor the pit close its mouth over me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not."
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 14:1-12
Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus
and said to his servants, "This man is John the Baptist.
He has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him."
Now Herod had arrested John,
bound him, and put him in prison
on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
for John had said to him,
"It is not lawful for you to have her."
Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people,
for they regarded him as a prophet.
But at a birthday celebration for Herod,
the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests
and delighted Herod so much
that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for.
Prompted by her mother, she said,
"Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist."
The king was distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests who were present,
he ordered that it be given,
and he had John beheaded in the prison.
His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl,
who took it to her mother.
His disciples came and took away the corpse
and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.
+++
Our reading is about the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. When Herod the Great died his kingdom was divided among four of his sons. One of them, the Herod of today’s Gospel and also known as Herod Antipas is called a “tetrarch”, meaning that he was the ruler of a fourth part or a quarter of a territory.
Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD, that is, all during the life of Jesus and beyond. He is the one who wanted to see Jesus and whom Jesus called “that fox”. He is the one to whom Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. His rather painful and loathsome death is described in the Acts. Although only a tetrarch, Matthew calls him ‘king’ because that was his popular title among the Galileans and also in Rome.
It seems that, by all accounts, Herod was a nasty man and, as revealed by today’s story, a weak and highly superstitious one. It is striking how many powerful people are made insecure by superstition e.g. businessmen worried by the feng shui (lucky orientation) of their company buildings, anxious to have ‘lucky’ numbers on their cars, and the like.
Herod was hearing extraordinary things about Jesus and he came to the conclusion that Jesus was a re-incarnation of John the Baptist whom he had executed for reasons he knew very well to be totally wrong. Now here was John’s spirit come back to taunt him for he had killed God’s servant.
This leads to a re-telling by Matthew of the events which led to John’s death.
John, who was no respecter of persons, had openly criticised Herod for taking his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, as his own partner. This was in clear contravention of the Mosaic Law. Herod’s fault was not so much in marrying a close relative but for taking her as his wife when Philip was still living and, at the same time, putting away the wife he already had.
It was already an extraordinarily incestuous family. Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great and therefore a niece of Herod Antipas. First, she married another uncle, Herod Philip, who lived in Rome. He was a half-brother, from a different mother, of Herod Antipas. It was on a visit to Rome that Herod Antipas persuaded Herodias to leave her husband for him. This, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law: “You shall not have intercourse with your brother’s wife, for that would be a disgrace to your brother” (Leviticus 18:16).
Herod, doubtless under pressure from Herodias, had wanted to rid himself of the embarrassment John was causing him but was afraid to do anything because, in the eyes of the people, John was a prophet and spoke in the name of God.
Herodias got her chance on the occasion of Herod’s birthday. Knowing her new husband’s weakness, she got her daughter to dance in his presence. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter was known as Salome. She later married her granduncle, another Philip and a son of Herod the Great who ruled over the northern territories. He is mentioned by Luke.
Whether the dance was as lascivious as Cecil B. de Mille and others like to suggest, we do not know but Herod was greatly taken by the performance. In the presence of his courtiers and very likely having drunk a little too much he promised the girl he would give her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. Under the prompting of her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist delivered on a dish. Herod was clearly appalled and also afraid but he had made his oath in the presence of a large number of people. He could not go back. John was decapitated and the head delivered as requested. His disciples came and buried the body and then went to tell Jesus.
There are echoes in this story of Jesus’ own death. He also died because of the moral weakness of Pilate who gave in to the threats of the Jewish leaders for the sake of his own career. Jesus’ death too was the result of blind hatred. And when he died his disciples arranged to have him buried.
Undoubtedly John was a martyr. He died as a witness to truth and justice in the service of God.
Herod, on the other hand, put expediency and his own convenience before truth and justice. He was in an immoral relationship with another woman and he gave in to what he felt would be the criticism and perhaps the derision of others. He had indeed made an oath but it was one that, in the circumstances, he was obliged not to observe.
With whom do I identify with more? John the Baptist, the fearless champion of truth and justice? Or Herod, the vacillator, the one who compromised truth and justice because of pressure of opinion and his own personal interests? I am sure all of us can think of times when we compromised with what we knew was the good thing, the right thing to do and took the line of less resistance.
John is an example to us of integrity. And, like him, we have each one of us been called in our own way to be prophets, to be spokespersons for God’s way. It may not always be easy.*
*** *** *** ***
St Ignatius Loyola, Priest, Founder of Society of Jesus
Ignatius of Loyola (original name Inigo), born in 1491, was the youngest of eleven children of a Basque nobleman and was destined to become a soldier. During a battle against the French he was wounded at the siege of Pamplona in 1521. His broken leg was badly set and, very conscious of his appearance, insisted that it be broken again and re-set. However, the surgery was not well done and Ignatius was left with a limp for the rest of his life. During his long period of convalescence he was not able to get the knightly romances he craved and had to settle for a life of Christ and stories of saints, the only books available in the family castle. However, these books had a deep effect on him and the heroism he now dreamed of was that of saints like Francis of Assisi and Dominic. He pledged his loyalty to the Mother of God by visiting her shrine at the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia and then began a year of prayer and penance in the cave at Manresa not far away. Here he experienced both desolation and consolation and began to learn the causes for each. This led to the compiling his classic, the Spiritual Exercises. In 1523 he fulfilled a dream by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, begging his way like many before him. However, the Franciscans there persuaded him to give up his intention of converting Muslims and he returned to Spain without a clear plan of what to do next.
He decided that he needed to do some studies if he was to be an effective evangeliser. He began, at the age of 30, by sitting down with schoolboys to learn Latin. He went on to Barcelona, Alcala, Salamanca and finally to the University of Paris. In Paris he studied philosophy for three years and graduated in 1534 as a master of arts. All this time he led a life of austerity and, though still a layman, gave spiritual direction, especially to women. In Spain he spent some time in prison, suspected of heresy.
As a student in Paris he gathered six disciples, to whom he gave the Spiritual Exercises. They then made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience at the Chapel of St Denis in Montmartre, promising to serve the Church either by preaching the Gospel in the Holy Land or else at the exclusive service of the pope. In 1537 they met in Venice but were unable to continue on to the Holy Land so they went on to Rome to ask the pope to recognise them as a religious community. They were now all priests and had made an extra vow of special obedience to the pope. Their main priorities were the education of the young and going on missionary enterprises. They also were the first religious congregation to drop the communal recitation of the Divine Office so as to increase their freedom and mobility for apostolic works. In 1540 the new congregation, with the name Society of Jesus, got papal approval. Ignatius was unanimously, though against his will, elected as the first General and would hold the post for the rest of his life. He would also remain in Rome from where he directed the works of the Society. Other works he personally was involved in were houses for converted Jews and shelters for prostitutes. Given that so many members were scattered to so many places and often working on their own, obedience to the aims of the Society became very important for maintaining unity. It also explains the long letters which members on the missions regularly sent back to Rome to report on what they were doing. Among the most famous of these were the letter of St Francis Xavier and of the missionaries working in China and North America.
A tighter organisation was also called for because of the crisis situation caused in Europe by the Reformation. Peter Canisius was one of the leaders of the Counter-Reformation as were the many schools started by the Society. In missionary work, Francis Xavier was the pioneer with an astonishing career. He was followed by missionaries in India, China, Ethiopia, Latin America and North America. Spiritual direction, which was to complete rather than replace the work of parish priests, was undertaken by the Society. Ignatius, who had been plagued by chronic stomach problems due to the austere excesses in his younger years, died suddenly on 31 July 1556. By then the Jesuits numbered over 1,000 members in nine European provinces, besides those working in foreign missions.
He was canonized with Francis Xavier on 12 March 1622 and was declared Patron of Spiritual Exercises and Retreats by Pope Pius XI.
*** Living Space
The Irish Jesuits
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Lord, In Your Great Love, With Your Constant Help, Answer Me.
Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
Jer 26:1-9
In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim,
son of Josiah, king of Judah,
this message came from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
Stand in the court of the house of the LORD
and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah
who come to worship in the house of the LORD;
whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing.
Perhaps they will listen and turn back,
each from his evil way,
so that I may repent of the evil
I have planned to inflict upon them
for their evil deeds.
Say to them: Thus says the LORD:
If you disobey me,
not living according to the law I placed before you
and not listening to the words of my servants the prophets,
whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them,
I will treat this house like Shiloh,
and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth
shall refer when cursing another.
Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people
heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the LORD.
When Jeremiah finished speaking
all that the LORD bade him speak to all the people,
the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying,
"You must be put to death!
Why do you prophesy in the name of the LORD:
'This house shall be like Shiloh,' and
'This city shall be desolate and deserted'?"
And all the people gathered about Jeremiah
in the house of the LORD.
+++
Today’s reading is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.
It takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates rather the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC.
Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the Temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.
The Lord’s warning then comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the evils he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.
Shiloh was an ancient shrine which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read: “Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken” (1 Samuel 4:10-11). Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate. Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it.
The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.
All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become like Shiloh and the city become deserted. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?
But it would and very, very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus - never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.
Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as an enemy to be got rid of. But he has no option but to continue speaking out.
What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 69
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Those outnumber the hairs of my head
who hate me without cause.
Too many for my strength
are they who wrongfully are my enemies.
Must I restore what I did not steal?
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Since for your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother's sons,
Because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you
fall upon me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
But I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:54-58
Jesus came to his native place
and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
"Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?"
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house."
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.
+++
Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s gospel which it calls ‘Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church’. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses which are distinctive to Matthew.
As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did. “Where did he get his wisdom and his miraculous powers?” (The New International Version says that the word usually translated ‘carpenter’ could also mean ‘stonemason’.) All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have got it from them but they failed to make the next step as to the real origin of what he was saying and doing.
And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!
It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.
Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their lack of faith”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading 1
Jer 26:1-9
In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim,
son of Josiah, king of Judah,
this message came from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
Stand in the court of the house of the LORD
and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah
who come to worship in the house of the LORD;
whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing.
Perhaps they will listen and turn back,
each from his evil way,
so that I may repent of the evil
I have planned to inflict upon them
for their evil deeds.
Say to them: Thus says the LORD:
If you disobey me,
not living according to the law I placed before you
and not listening to the words of my servants the prophets,
whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them,
I will treat this house like Shiloh,
and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth
shall refer when cursing another.
Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people
heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the LORD.
When Jeremiah finished speaking
all that the LORD bade him speak to all the people,
the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying,
"You must be put to death!
Why do you prophesy in the name of the LORD:
'This house shall be like Shiloh,' and
'This city shall be desolate and deserted'?"
And all the people gathered about Jeremiah
in the house of the LORD.
+++
Today’s reading is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.
It takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates rather the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC.
Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the Temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.
The Lord’s warning then comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the evils he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.
Shiloh was an ancient shrine which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read: “Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken” (1 Samuel 4:10-11). Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate. Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it.
The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.
All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become like Shiloh and the city become deserted. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?
But it would and very, very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus - never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.
Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as an enemy to be got rid of. But he has no option but to continue speaking out.
What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 69
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Those outnumber the hairs of my head
who hate me without cause.
Too many for my strength
are they who wrongfully are my enemies.
Must I restore what I did not steal?
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Since for your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother's sons,
Because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you
fall upon me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
But I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:54-58
Jesus came to his native place
and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
"Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?"
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house."
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.
+++
Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s gospel which it calls ‘Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church’. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses which are distinctive to Matthew.
As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did. “Where did he get his wisdom and his miraculous powers?” (The New International Version says that the word usually translated ‘carpenter’ could also mean ‘stonemason’.) All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have got it from them but they failed to make the next step as to the real origin of what he was saying and doing.
And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!
It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.
Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their lack of faith”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Blessed Are They Whose Hope Is The LORD!
Memorial of Saint Martha
Reading I
Jeremiah 18:1-6
This word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
Rise up, be off to the potter's house;
there I will give you my message.
I went down to the potter's house and there he was,
working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making
turned out badly in his hand,
he tried again,
making of the clay another object
of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the LORD.
Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 146
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Put not your trust in princes,
in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.
When his spirit departs he returns to his earth;
on that day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Blessed he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD, his God.
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Luke 10:38-42
Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
"Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me."
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious
and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."
+++
or
John 11:19-27
Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother Lazarus, who had died.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
"Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you."
Jesus said to her,
"Your brother will rise."
Martha said to him,
"I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus told her,
"I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?"
She said to him, "Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world."
+++
There is a choice of Gospel readings, each one featuring Martha. The first is from Luke’s gospel and describes an occasion when Jesus went to visit the house of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, at their house in Bethany. It was not far from Jerusalem and it seems that Jesus was a regular visitor there.
On this occasion we are told that Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. Martha, on the other hand, was fussing about in the kitchen getting the meal ready. After a while, Martha complained (was there a slight hint of jealousy and resentment here?) that her sister was leaving all the work to her. “Tell her to help me.”
“Martha, Martha,” replied Jesus, “you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Jesus had said elsewhere that his followers should not be anxious or worried. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?… Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (As Father Anthony de Mello used to say: “Why worry? If you worry, you will die. If you don’t worry, you will die. So why worry?”)
Martha gives the impression that Mary is just sitting there doing nothing. But, in fact, she is listening to Jesus, listening to the Word of God. Many of us are very busy, run off our feet from dawn to dusk. But what are we busy about? What was Martha busy about? We need to stop and listen, as Mary did. Busy-ness is not a virtue. The important thing is to be active about the right things. And to know what is the right thing to do, we have to stop and listen.
The alternative Gospel reading is from John. It is story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha. Jesus had been told some days before that Lazarus was seriously ill but did not immediately respond. By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus was already dead for four days.
When the sisters heard that Jesus had arrived, Martha, typically, rushed out to greet him while Mary stayed mourning in the house. As soon as she saw Jesus she told him that if Jesus had been there earlier, Lazarus would not have died. But she was confident that any prayer Jesus would make to his Father would be answered.
“Your brother will rise,” Jesus said to her. “Yes,” replied Martha, expressing her faith in a future life, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” In so speaking she draws from Jesus one of the great sayings of John’s gospel: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” In other words, those who believe in Jesus as Lord and follow his Way immediately enter a life that will never end, although the body, of course, will pass away.
This, in turn, draws a great profession of faith from Martha: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” It is a statement on a par with that of Peter at Caesarea Philippi earlier on.
And that, of course, is what this whole chapter is about. Jesus, the Son of God, as the Source of Life. It is also a preparation for Jesus’ own death from which he will rise in glory and be reunited with his Father. The same future is promised to us.
LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading I
Jeremiah 18:1-6
This word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
Rise up, be off to the potter's house;
there I will give you my message.
I went down to the potter's house and there he was,
working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making
turned out badly in his hand,
he tried again,
making of the clay another object
of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the LORD.
Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 146
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Put not your trust in princes,
in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.
When his spirit departs he returns to his earth;
on that day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
Blessed he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD, his God.
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Luke 10:38-42
Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
"Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me."
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious
and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."
+++
or
John 11:19-27
Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother Lazarus, who had died.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
"Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you."
Jesus said to her,
"Your brother will rise."
Martha said to him,
"I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus told her,
"I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?"
She said to him, "Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world."
+++
There is a choice of Gospel readings, each one featuring Martha. The first is from Luke’s gospel and describes an occasion when Jesus went to visit the house of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, at their house in Bethany. It was not far from Jerusalem and it seems that Jesus was a regular visitor there.
On this occasion we are told that Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. Martha, on the other hand, was fussing about in the kitchen getting the meal ready. After a while, Martha complained (was there a slight hint of jealousy and resentment here?) that her sister was leaving all the work to her. “Tell her to help me.”
“Martha, Martha,” replied Jesus, “you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Jesus had said elsewhere that his followers should not be anxious or worried. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?… Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (As Father Anthony de Mello used to say: “Why worry? If you worry, you will die. If you don’t worry, you will die. So why worry?”)
Martha gives the impression that Mary is just sitting there doing nothing. But, in fact, she is listening to Jesus, listening to the Word of God. Many of us are very busy, run off our feet from dawn to dusk. But what are we busy about? What was Martha busy about? We need to stop and listen, as Mary did. Busy-ness is not a virtue. The important thing is to be active about the right things. And to know what is the right thing to do, we have to stop and listen.
The alternative Gospel reading is from John. It is story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha. Jesus had been told some days before that Lazarus was seriously ill but did not immediately respond. By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus was already dead for four days.
When the sisters heard that Jesus had arrived, Martha, typically, rushed out to greet him while Mary stayed mourning in the house. As soon as she saw Jesus she told him that if Jesus had been there earlier, Lazarus would not have died. But she was confident that any prayer Jesus would make to his Father would be answered.
“Your brother will rise,” Jesus said to her. “Yes,” replied Martha, expressing her faith in a future life, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” In so speaking she draws from Jesus one of the great sayings of John’s gospel: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” In other words, those who believe in Jesus as Lord and follow his Way immediately enter a life that will never end, although the body, of course, will pass away.
This, in turn, draws a great profession of faith from Martha: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” It is a statement on a par with that of Peter at Caesarea Philippi earlier on.
And that, of course, is what this whole chapter is about. Jesus, the Son of God, as the Source of Life. It is also a preparation for Jesus’ own death from which he will rise in glory and be reunited with his Father. The same future is promised to us.
LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
O God, You Are My Stronghold, My Refuge On The Day Of Distress.
Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I
Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21
Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!
a man of strife and contention to all the land!
I neither borrow nor lend,
yet all curse me.
When I found your words, I devoured them;
they became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
Because I bore your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.
I did not sit celebrating
in the circle of merrymakers;
Under the weight of your hand I sat alone
because you filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain continuous,
my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook,
whose waters do not abide!
Thus the LORD answered me:
If you repent, so that I restore you,
in my presence you shall stand;
If you bring forth the precious without the vile,
you shall be my mouthpiece.
Then it shall be they who turn to you,
and you shall not turn to them;
And I will make you toward this people
a solid wall of brass.
Though they fight against you,
they shall not prevail,
For I am with you,
to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.
I will free you from the hand of the wicked,
and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.
+++
The call of Jeremiah is renewed. We have today the third of Jeremiah’s so-called “confessions”, in which he bares his soul to God. It includes two responses from the Lord, of which part of one is included in today’s reading.
Jeremiah is experiencing a spiritual crisis half-way through his ministry and is feeling very sorry for himself. Here, God, far from issuing sympathetic noises, tells him to get his act together and to stop his orgy of self-pity. He calls Jeremiah back to a new conversion and renews, in almost the same words, the commands and promises of the prophet’s original call.
(For a helpful picture of Jeremiah and his difficulties, see the Introduction to the Prophets in the New Jerusalem Bible.)
The tone is set by the opening words: “Woe is me!” The reason for Jeremiah’s moaning is that he has become, as a prophet, a source of strife and dissension. He regrets that his mother gave birth to him to have to face such problems in his prophetic calling. He sees himself merely as a source of strife and division everywhere.
“I have neither lent nor borrowed,” he says and yet he has all this trouble, everyone is against him. We know how lending or borrowing money can be a serious source of friction and even violence between lenders and borrowers.
“Your anger is very slow” he complains to God. The people causing him so much trouble are those he is accusing of being unfaithful and disobedient to God but they are being allowed to get away with it. Where is God’s protection for his prophet?
“Realise that I suffer insult for your sake,” he says in case his God is not aware of what he is going through and who is the real cause of his troubles. It does not make sense because he has been so faithful to God and his Law. “When your words came, I devoured them: your word was my delight and the joy of my heart.” He had made God’s word and God’s law his very own; he had assimilated them into his very being. For he had been called in Yahweh’s name; he belonged to Yahweh in a special way.
He never had anything to do with “scoffers”, the rich and the arrogant who felt they were above any law, including God’s. They were those who mocked at and rejected the message he brought. Under God’s constraint, he “held himself aloof” in the sense that he never married and he had few friends because “with [God's] hand” on him he felt that that was part of his calling. Part of his loneliness was his distancing himself with indignation at the sins of Judah. The prophet’s lot can be a lonely one.
Why, then, does he have to suffer such continuous pain from a wound that will not heal? “Do you mean for me to be a deceptive stream with inconstant waters?” God has become for him a treacherous brook, whose waters are inconstant. Jeremiah here, with a hint of sarcasm, accuses God of being undependable, in contrast to the Lord’s own earlier description of himself as a “spring of living water”. In Jeremiah 2:13 Yahweh had said: “My people have forsaken me, the source of living waters” (see Thursday of Week 16).
Yahweh then replies to Jeremiah’s “confession”. The Lord commands Jeremiah to repent, then encourages him and renews his call. If Jeremiah is willing to return then God will happily take him back into his service. But there is a condition. He must speak “noble, not despicable” thoughts, like those he has just been uttering. Only then can he truly act as the “mouth” or spokesperson of God. Those negatives thoughts will come back to him but he must not go back to them.
If he follows the Lord’s command, then the Lord guarantees that he will be strong enough to face any opposition. “I will make you a bronze wall fortified against this people.” But there is no promise that life will be any easier. On the contrary, “they will fight against you but they will not overcome you”. Why? “Because I am with you to save you and deliver you.” A solemn pledge - “it is the Lord who speaks”.
Persecution and rejection is almost inevitable for anyone who takes a prophetic stance in the Church or outside it. The prophet, by his or her calling, calls into question the conventional wisdom of a society or church.
It is the role of the prophet not so much to tell the future as to point out the direction in which the community should be going, what it should be doing and what it should not be doing, and what the consequences of its actions are likely to be.
Sometimes the prophet, in order to be heard, may speak in very clear and blunt language. This is not likely to enhance his popularity with those who become the object of his attacks or criticisms.
Jesus told us to love unconditionally and to forgive for ever but he never, never said that we would be loved in return. On the contrary, he said that among the ‘blessed’ would be included those who suffered persecution for the sake of the Gospel.
Jeremiah does not seem to have understood this fully. He felt that because of his loyalty to God he should have been protected by God and respected by the people. He told God this in no uncertain terms. In reply he was told that, as a prophet, he would continue to be scorned and rejected but that he would be given the strength to carry on. We cannot expect anything different.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 59
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
Rescue me from my enemies, O my God;
from my adversaries defend me.
Rescue me from evildoers;
from bloodthirsty men save me.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
For behold, they lie in wait for my life;
mighty men come together against me,
Not for any offense or sin of mine, O LORD.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! for you I watch;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
As for my God, may his mercy go before me;
may he show me the fall of my foes.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
But I will sing of your strength
and revel at dawn in your mercy;
You have been my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of distress.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! your praise will I sing;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
my merciful God!
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:44-46
Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."
+++
Today we read the 5th and 6th parables which have basically the same message but with some difference in emphasis.
In the first, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however, “bankers”, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call moneylenders. (Remember the parable of the talents where the man who hid his talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done - buried it in a field.)
The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.
In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain possession of it.
These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. There is a significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The effect is to turn their whole life around.
In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has a very definite goal in mind - the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the Gospel of Jesus and they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know that this is it.
Once we truly understand what it really means to live under the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And, whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to go. Jesus is the Way. Jesus is Truth and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange his Way for anything.*
**LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading I
Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21
Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!
a man of strife and contention to all the land!
I neither borrow nor lend,
yet all curse me.
When I found your words, I devoured them;
they became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
Because I bore your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.
I did not sit celebrating
in the circle of merrymakers;
Under the weight of your hand I sat alone
because you filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain continuous,
my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook,
whose waters do not abide!
Thus the LORD answered me:
If you repent, so that I restore you,
in my presence you shall stand;
If you bring forth the precious without the vile,
you shall be my mouthpiece.
Then it shall be they who turn to you,
and you shall not turn to them;
And I will make you toward this people
a solid wall of brass.
Though they fight against you,
they shall not prevail,
For I am with you,
to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.
I will free you from the hand of the wicked,
and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.
+++
The call of Jeremiah is renewed. We have today the third of Jeremiah’s so-called “confessions”, in which he bares his soul to God. It includes two responses from the Lord, of which part of one is included in today’s reading.
Jeremiah is experiencing a spiritual crisis half-way through his ministry and is feeling very sorry for himself. Here, God, far from issuing sympathetic noises, tells him to get his act together and to stop his orgy of self-pity. He calls Jeremiah back to a new conversion and renews, in almost the same words, the commands and promises of the prophet’s original call.
(For a helpful picture of Jeremiah and his difficulties, see the Introduction to the Prophets in the New Jerusalem Bible.)
The tone is set by the opening words: “Woe is me!” The reason for Jeremiah’s moaning is that he has become, as a prophet, a source of strife and dissension. He regrets that his mother gave birth to him to have to face such problems in his prophetic calling. He sees himself merely as a source of strife and division everywhere.
“I have neither lent nor borrowed,” he says and yet he has all this trouble, everyone is against him. We know how lending or borrowing money can be a serious source of friction and even violence between lenders and borrowers.
“Your anger is very slow” he complains to God. The people causing him so much trouble are those he is accusing of being unfaithful and disobedient to God but they are being allowed to get away with it. Where is God’s protection for his prophet?
“Realise that I suffer insult for your sake,” he says in case his God is not aware of what he is going through and who is the real cause of his troubles. It does not make sense because he has been so faithful to God and his Law. “When your words came, I devoured them: your word was my delight and the joy of my heart.” He had made God’s word and God’s law his very own; he had assimilated them into his very being. For he had been called in Yahweh’s name; he belonged to Yahweh in a special way.
He never had anything to do with “scoffers”, the rich and the arrogant who felt they were above any law, including God’s. They were those who mocked at and rejected the message he brought. Under God’s constraint, he “held himself aloof” in the sense that he never married and he had few friends because “with [God's] hand” on him he felt that that was part of his calling. Part of his loneliness was his distancing himself with indignation at the sins of Judah. The prophet’s lot can be a lonely one.
Why, then, does he have to suffer such continuous pain from a wound that will not heal? “Do you mean for me to be a deceptive stream with inconstant waters?” God has become for him a treacherous brook, whose waters are inconstant. Jeremiah here, with a hint of sarcasm, accuses God of being undependable, in contrast to the Lord’s own earlier description of himself as a “spring of living water”. In Jeremiah 2:13 Yahweh had said: “My people have forsaken me, the source of living waters” (see Thursday of Week 16).
Yahweh then replies to Jeremiah’s “confession”. The Lord commands Jeremiah to repent, then encourages him and renews his call. If Jeremiah is willing to return then God will happily take him back into his service. But there is a condition. He must speak “noble, not despicable” thoughts, like those he has just been uttering. Only then can he truly act as the “mouth” or spokesperson of God. Those negatives thoughts will come back to him but he must not go back to them.
If he follows the Lord’s command, then the Lord guarantees that he will be strong enough to face any opposition. “I will make you a bronze wall fortified against this people.” But there is no promise that life will be any easier. On the contrary, “they will fight against you but they will not overcome you”. Why? “Because I am with you to save you and deliver you.” A solemn pledge - “it is the Lord who speaks”.
Persecution and rejection is almost inevitable for anyone who takes a prophetic stance in the Church or outside it. The prophet, by his or her calling, calls into question the conventional wisdom of a society or church.
It is the role of the prophet not so much to tell the future as to point out the direction in which the community should be going, what it should be doing and what it should not be doing, and what the consequences of its actions are likely to be.
Sometimes the prophet, in order to be heard, may speak in very clear and blunt language. This is not likely to enhance his popularity with those who become the object of his attacks or criticisms.
Jesus told us to love unconditionally and to forgive for ever but he never, never said that we would be loved in return. On the contrary, he said that among the ‘blessed’ would be included those who suffered persecution for the sake of the Gospel.
Jeremiah does not seem to have understood this fully. He felt that because of his loyalty to God he should have been protected by God and respected by the people. He told God this in no uncertain terms. In reply he was told that, as a prophet, he would continue to be scorned and rejected but that he would be given the strength to carry on. We cannot expect anything different.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 59
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
Rescue me from my enemies, O my God;
from my adversaries defend me.
Rescue me from evildoers;
from bloodthirsty men save me.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
For behold, they lie in wait for my life;
mighty men come together against me,
Not for any offense or sin of mine, O LORD.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! for you I watch;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
As for my God, may his mercy go before me;
may he show me the fall of my foes.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
But I will sing of your strength
and revel at dawn in your mercy;
You have been my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of distress.
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
O my strength! your praise will I sing;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
my merciful God!
God is my refuge on the day of distress.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:44-46
Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."
+++
Today we read the 5th and 6th parables which have basically the same message but with some difference in emphasis.
In the first, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however, “bankers”, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call moneylenders. (Remember the parable of the talents where the man who hid his talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done - buried it in a field.)
The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.
In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain possession of it.
These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. There is a significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The effect is to turn their whole life around.
In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has a very definite goal in mind - the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the Gospel of Jesus and they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know that this is it.
Once we truly understand what it really means to live under the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And, whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to go. Jesus is the Way. Jesus is Truth and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange his Way for anything.*
**LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
O God, You Are Our Only Hope. For The Glory Of Your Name, O LORD, Deliver Us!
Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I
Jeremiah 14:17-22
Let my eyes stream with tears
day and night, without rest,
Over the great destruction which overwhelms
the virgin daughter of my people,
over her incurable wound.
If I walk out into the field,
look! those slain by the sword;
If I enter the city,
look! those consumed by hunger.
Even the prophet and the priest
forage in a land they know not.
Have you cast Judah off completely?
Is Zion loathsome to you?
Why have you struck us a blow
that cannot be healed?
We wait for peace, to no avail;
for a time of healing, but terror comes instead.
We recognize, O LORD, our wickedness,
the guilt of our fathers;
that we have sinned against you.
For your name's sake spurn us not,
disgrace not the throne of your glory;
remember your covenant with us, and break it not.
Among the nations' idols is there any that gives rain?
Or can the mere heavens send showers?
Is it not you alone, O LORD,
our God, to whom we look?
You alone have done all these things.
+++
This passage was written during a period of death and famine in Jerusalem preceding the Babylonian captivity in 587 BC. It is also a response to Yahweh’s anger against false prophets who are raising expectations among the people that they are not going to experience “sword, famine and pestilence”. In fact, they are going to experience all these things. Jeremiah, as a true prophet, will not raise such expectations but, however unpopular his words, warn them of what is coming - and why. This won’t make him very popular; real prophets seldom are.
As written, however, today’s passage is another lovely reading today full of compassion and tenderness. There is no anger in God’s words today against his people. Rather he is presented as deeply upset over their sufferings.
“Tears flood my eyes… since a crushing blow falls on the daughter of my people.” The ‘daughter’ is Jerusalem. Everywhere God sees people in the countryside killed by the sword and in the city sick with hunger. Even the prophets and priests, who would normally be supported by the people, are reduced to foraging for food “in a land they know not”. All are at their wits’ end.
Jeremiah then expresses his own distress at what is happening and wonders what the Lord is doing about it. “Have you rejected Judah altogether?… Why have you struck us down without hope of cure?”
It is the cry of a people deep in despair at their never-ending sufferings.
“We were hoping for peace - no good came of it!
We wait for a time of healing - but terror comes instead!”
At the same time, the prophet acknowledges that his people are in no way innocent. They have brought their own tribulations on themselves. “We do confess our wickedness… we have indeed sinned against you.”
But he reminds the Lord that they are his own people and, for his own Name’s sake, he prays that they not be rejected. “Remember your covenant with us and break it not.” Their suffering and shame somehow reduces the glory of their God, especially in the eyes of Gentiles. Who could honour a God who allows his people to suffer in this way?
But it takes two to make a covenant and its observance depends on both sides keeping their promise. He is their God but they are his people and must show it by their behaviour. This they have miserably failed to do.
The prophet concludes by appealing to the unique power of their God. “Can any of the pagan Nothings make it rain? Can the heavens produce showers?” We remember the challenge that Elijah made to the priests of Baal about breaking a drought. Only Yahweh could bring the longed-for rain.
“Oh, our God, you are our only hope,
since it is you who do all this.”
We see here, on the one side, the picture of the tender God who cares so deeply for his people. This was all so graphically illustrated by the life of Jesus, our God incarnate. We must never forget it.
On the other side, during times of tragedy, pain, loss or distress it is easy for us to wonder if our God really does care that he allows such terrible things to happen to us or to our loved ones. But it is precisely at such times we need to be aware of the closeness of God’s love to us. His love for us was most clearly shown as Jesus hung dying in terribly agony and shame on the Cross.
“God did not spare his own Son” and Jesus himself cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The words died on his lips and were followed by total acceptance when he said, “It is finished” and he surrendered his life into his Father’s hands. That was the moment of supreme love, the moment of new life and glory.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 79
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name's sake.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Let the prisoners' sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:36-43
Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house.
His disciples approached him and said,
"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
He said in reply, "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the Evil One,
and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his Kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the Kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear."
+++
Today we have an interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds or darnel. It begins by telling us that Jesus left the crowds and went to “the house”. This is the nameless place where Jesus is at home with his disciples. As we suggested earlier, it is the place for the ‘insiders’, those who are close to Jesus in the sense of following him and accepting his way and is a symbol of where communities of Christians gathered in the early Church. Here Jesus is alone with his own disciples, away from the crowd.
His disciples ask for an explanation of the parable about the wheat and the weeds. Likely enough, what follows is less the actual words of Jesus than a reflection of the early Christian community applying the parable to their own situation. The parable, which basically makes one point, is now turned into an allegory where each part has a symbolic meaning of its own.
The sower is Jesus himself;
the field is the world;
the good seed represents the subjects of the Kingdom;
the darnel, the subjects of the evil one;
the enemy who sowed the weeds, the devil;
the harvest is the end of the world;
the reapers are the angels.
Whereas in the original parable the emphasis seems to be more on the necessary and unavoidable coexistence of good and bad within the Christian community, the emphasis here is more on what will happen at the end: the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the good.
Let us pray that we may be found among the good seed of the Kingdom. We do that by opening ourselves fully to Jesus our King and Lord and following the way he asks us to follow.*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading I
Jeremiah 14:17-22
Let my eyes stream with tears
day and night, without rest,
Over the great destruction which overwhelms
the virgin daughter of my people,
over her incurable wound.
If I walk out into the field,
look! those slain by the sword;
If I enter the city,
look! those consumed by hunger.
Even the prophet and the priest
forage in a land they know not.
Have you cast Judah off completely?
Is Zion loathsome to you?
Why have you struck us a blow
that cannot be healed?
We wait for peace, to no avail;
for a time of healing, but terror comes instead.
We recognize, O LORD, our wickedness,
the guilt of our fathers;
that we have sinned against you.
For your name's sake spurn us not,
disgrace not the throne of your glory;
remember your covenant with us, and break it not.
Among the nations' idols is there any that gives rain?
Or can the mere heavens send showers?
Is it not you alone, O LORD,
our God, to whom we look?
You alone have done all these things.
+++
This passage was written during a period of death and famine in Jerusalem preceding the Babylonian captivity in 587 BC. It is also a response to Yahweh’s anger against false prophets who are raising expectations among the people that they are not going to experience “sword, famine and pestilence”. In fact, they are going to experience all these things. Jeremiah, as a true prophet, will not raise such expectations but, however unpopular his words, warn them of what is coming - and why. This won’t make him very popular; real prophets seldom are.
As written, however, today’s passage is another lovely reading today full of compassion and tenderness. There is no anger in God’s words today against his people. Rather he is presented as deeply upset over their sufferings.
“Tears flood my eyes… since a crushing blow falls on the daughter of my people.” The ‘daughter’ is Jerusalem. Everywhere God sees people in the countryside killed by the sword and in the city sick with hunger. Even the prophets and priests, who would normally be supported by the people, are reduced to foraging for food “in a land they know not”. All are at their wits’ end.
Jeremiah then expresses his own distress at what is happening and wonders what the Lord is doing about it. “Have you rejected Judah altogether?… Why have you struck us down without hope of cure?”
It is the cry of a people deep in despair at their never-ending sufferings.
“We were hoping for peace - no good came of it!
We wait for a time of healing - but terror comes instead!”
At the same time, the prophet acknowledges that his people are in no way innocent. They have brought their own tribulations on themselves. “We do confess our wickedness… we have indeed sinned against you.”
But he reminds the Lord that they are his own people and, for his own Name’s sake, he prays that they not be rejected. “Remember your covenant with us and break it not.” Their suffering and shame somehow reduces the glory of their God, especially in the eyes of Gentiles. Who could honour a God who allows his people to suffer in this way?
But it takes two to make a covenant and its observance depends on both sides keeping their promise. He is their God but they are his people and must show it by their behaviour. This they have miserably failed to do.
The prophet concludes by appealing to the unique power of their God. “Can any of the pagan Nothings make it rain? Can the heavens produce showers?” We remember the challenge that Elijah made to the priests of Baal about breaking a drought. Only Yahweh could bring the longed-for rain.
“Oh, our God, you are our only hope,
since it is you who do all this.”
We see here, on the one side, the picture of the tender God who cares so deeply for his people. This was all so graphically illustrated by the life of Jesus, our God incarnate. We must never forget it.
On the other side, during times of tragedy, pain, loss or distress it is easy for us to wonder if our God really does care that he allows such terrible things to happen to us or to our loved ones. But it is precisely at such times we need to be aware of the closeness of God’s love to us. His love for us was most clearly shown as Jesus hung dying in terribly agony and shame on the Cross.
“God did not spare his own Son” and Jesus himself cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The words died on his lips and were followed by total acceptance when he said, “It is finished” and he surrendered his life into his Father’s hands. That was the moment of supreme love, the moment of new life and glory.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 79
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name's sake.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Let the prisoners' sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:36-43
Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house.
His disciples approached him and said,
"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
He said in reply, "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the Evil One,
and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his Kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the Kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear."
+++
Today we have an interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds or darnel. It begins by telling us that Jesus left the crowds and went to “the house”. This is the nameless place where Jesus is at home with his disciples. As we suggested earlier, it is the place for the ‘insiders’, those who are close to Jesus in the sense of following him and accepting his way and is a symbol of where communities of Christians gathered in the early Church. Here Jesus is alone with his own disciples, away from the crowd.
His disciples ask for an explanation of the parable about the wheat and the weeds. Likely enough, what follows is less the actual words of Jesus than a reflection of the early Christian community applying the parable to their own situation. The parable, which basically makes one point, is now turned into an allegory where each part has a symbolic meaning of its own.
The sower is Jesus himself;
the field is the world;
the good seed represents the subjects of the Kingdom;
the darnel, the subjects of the evil one;
the enemy who sowed the weeds, the devil;
the harvest is the end of the world;
the reapers are the angels.
Whereas in the original parable the emphasis seems to be more on the necessary and unavoidable coexistence of good and bad within the Christian community, the emphasis here is more on what will happen at the end: the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the good.
Let us pray that we may be found among the good seed of the Kingdom. We do that by opening ourselves fully to Jesus our King and Lord and following the way he asks us to follow.*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Monday, July 26, 2010
I Will Open My Mouth In Parables, And Announce What Has Been Hidden From The Foundation Of The World.
Memorial of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne,
parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Reading I
Jeremiah 13:1-11
The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD's command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.
+++
Today’s passage presents the symbol of the loincloth. It describes not something that actually happened but a symbolic vision. The meaning is clear: Israel, whom Yahweh had fastened as close to himself as a loincloth round his waist, had broken away and contracted the corruption of Babylonian idolatry. Not infrequently the prophets like to present the Lord’s message in the form of symbolic images, something like parables.
The prophet is told by Yahweh to purchase a linen loincloth and put it round his waist and he does so. Linen was the material from which the robes of the priests were made and was symbolic of Israel’s holiness as a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). So the linen loincloth or belt was a symbol of the formerly close relationship between God and his people. Jeremiah is also told not to put the loincloth in water, a symbol perhaps of the sinful pride of Judah, which did not want to be washed clean.
Later Jeremiah is told to take the loincloth around his waist and to hide it in a hole in a rock near the Perath, another name for the River Euphrates. The river Euphrates which flowed through Babylonia is here a symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influences which began during the reign of Ahaz and which brought about Judah’s abandonment of Yahweh for the idols of their conquerors.
The Perath may, however, refer to Parah (see Joshua 18:23), which was near the modern Wadi Farah, three miles northeast of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s birthplace). Since in other contexts the Hebrew for Perath refers to the river Euphrates, it serves as an appropriate symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influence on Judah that began during the reign of Ahaz. It is more likely that Jeremiah would have been told to put the loincloth in a place easily accessible to him. In any case, the symbol has the same connotation.
Jeremiah hides the loincloth, as instructed. After a considerable length of time Yahweh tells the prophet to retrieve the loincloth. The hiding of the loincloth for a long time beside the river represents the period of exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.
When Jeremiah found it, it had become filthy dirty and was fit for nothing, least of all to be worn. Clearly it had become dirty from contamination with the place where it was concealed.
The meaning of the symbol of the loincloth is then spelt out clearly:
The people of the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem are going to be punished for their arrogance and pride. “I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem… This evil people who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the dictates of their own hard hearts, who have followed alien gods, and served them and worshipped them, let them become like this loincloth, good for nothing.”
That had not been God’s idea originally. He had wanted the whole House of Judah to be in close and intimate relationship with him as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist. They were “to be my people, my glory, my honour and my boast”.
Unfortunately, in their arrogance and pride, they refused to listen. Now they will pay the price of their infidelity. They will be carried away by the very creators of the idols they worshipped.
Once again we are being asked to reflect on the idols in our own lives. What are the things, what are the desires and ambitions which come between us and our relationship with God? Do we try to compromise, to sit on the fence, try to have our cake and eat it? Do we try at the same time to serve God and ‘mammon’, something Jesus said was impossible?
Where your treasure is, there your heart is too, Jesus said on another occasion. Where and what is my treasure in life? How close am I to my God and his ways?*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Deuteronomy 32
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!"
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"Since they have provoked me with their 'no-god'
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a 'no-people';
with a foolish nation I will anger them."
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:31-35
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the 'birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'"
He spoke to them another parable.
"The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed
with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened."
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden
from the foundation of the world.
+++
Parables of the Kingdom (continued):
Two short parables which reflect both the experience of the early Church and also highlight features of the Kingdom. Considering when they were written, they exude an extraordinary level of trust and confidence in God’s power, a trust which was not disappointed although the results were not seen for generations.
The first is the parable of the mustard seed.
The mustard seed is not actually the smallest seed known today, but it was the smallest seed used by Palestinian farmers and gardeners. Nor did it, strictly speaking, produce the largest of trees but, under favourable conditions, it could reach some 10 feet (or 3 metres) in height, big enough to provide shelter for birds.
The early Church, scattered in tiny communities, largely cut off from each other, all over the Mediterranean area must have felt very small, very vulnerable. The idea that in time it would become the central cultural influence all over Europe, Roman and barbarian, must have been beyond the wildest dreams of those early Christians. But that tiny seed did become a large tree providing shelter and comfort to millions and, from the Mediterranean, spread to every corner of the world.
The parable of the yeast in the dough is similar but with a different nuance.
In the Bible, yeast is usually a symbol of that which is evil and corrupt. Jesus warned his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:15). Similarly, at the Passover, the Jews eat unleavened bread, that is, bread free from leaven or yeast. In this parable, however, it is presented as a symbol of growth.
A tiny amount of yeast put into a large batch of dough produces striking results. (The 3 measures would produce enough to feed 100 people!) A dough batch, over a matter of hours, can swell to twice its original size as the process of fermentation takes place. The effects of the yeast, quite invisible, reach to every corner. Again, when this was written, that was not yet the case. The Church had made very little impact on its surrounding societies. But, over the years, its influence grew until Christianity became the prevailing faith and cultural influence of the whole of Europe and then continued to spread out to other parts of the world.
This parable points to a very important element in the life and work of the Church. It only exerts its influence when it is totally immersed in the society it wishes to reach and influence. And it can do this while still being only a small part of the whole. While never identifying itself with many of the prevailing ideologies and values of our societies, Christian communities must at the same time never separate themselves from their surroundings. There is a danger that we become inward-looking and spend most of our energies on the already converted. There is a strong evangelising element in this parable which cannot be ignored.
We need to remember that these are primarily parables of the Kingdom and not just of the Church, which is the imperfect sign of the work of the Kingdom going on in our world. And what these parables say applies first of all to the work of building the Kingdom in our world - it is a work which will go on inexorably, because it is based on truth, love and justice, and which slowly penetrates every corner of every society.
We can become aware to the point of depression at the amount of evil that we see around us and yet there is a gradual forward movement at all levels. But, as the previous parable reminds us, the wheat has always to co-exist with the weeds - both inside and outside the Church, both inside and outside the Kingdom.
Today’s reading concludes with a repetition of the statement that Jesus only spoke to the crowds in parables. And Matthew sees this as the fulfilment of a prophetic text from the Old Testament. It is in fact a quotation from Psalm 78:2 - “I will open my mouth in a parable.”*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++
Joachim and Anne, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you. For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of him. Joachim and Anne, how blessed and spotless a couple! You will be known by the fruit you have borne, as the Lord says: “By their fruits you will know them.” The conduct of your life pleased God and was worthy of your daughter. For by the chaste and holy life you led together, you have fashioned a jewel of virginity: she who remained a virgin before, during, and after giving birth. She alone for all time would maintain her virginity in mind and soul as well as in body. Joachim and Anne, how chaste a couple! While leading a devout and holy life in your human nature, you gave birth to a daughter nobler than the angels, whose queen she now is. -
from a sermon by Bishop Saint John Damascene
parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Reading I
Jeremiah 13:1-11
The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD's command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.
+++
Today’s passage presents the symbol of the loincloth. It describes not something that actually happened but a symbolic vision. The meaning is clear: Israel, whom Yahweh had fastened as close to himself as a loincloth round his waist, had broken away and contracted the corruption of Babylonian idolatry. Not infrequently the prophets like to present the Lord’s message in the form of symbolic images, something like parables.
The prophet is told by Yahweh to purchase a linen loincloth and put it round his waist and he does so. Linen was the material from which the robes of the priests were made and was symbolic of Israel’s holiness as a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). So the linen loincloth or belt was a symbol of the formerly close relationship between God and his people. Jeremiah is also told not to put the loincloth in water, a symbol perhaps of the sinful pride of Judah, which did not want to be washed clean.
Later Jeremiah is told to take the loincloth around his waist and to hide it in a hole in a rock near the Perath, another name for the River Euphrates. The river Euphrates which flowed through Babylonia is here a symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influences which began during the reign of Ahaz and which brought about Judah’s abandonment of Yahweh for the idols of their conquerors.
The Perath may, however, refer to Parah (see Joshua 18:23), which was near the modern Wadi Farah, three miles northeast of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s birthplace). Since in other contexts the Hebrew for Perath refers to the river Euphrates, it serves as an appropriate symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influence on Judah that began during the reign of Ahaz. It is more likely that Jeremiah would have been told to put the loincloth in a place easily accessible to him. In any case, the symbol has the same connotation.
Jeremiah hides the loincloth, as instructed. After a considerable length of time Yahweh tells the prophet to retrieve the loincloth. The hiding of the loincloth for a long time beside the river represents the period of exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.
When Jeremiah found it, it had become filthy dirty and was fit for nothing, least of all to be worn. Clearly it had become dirty from contamination with the place where it was concealed.
The meaning of the symbol of the loincloth is then spelt out clearly:
The people of the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem are going to be punished for their arrogance and pride. “I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem… This evil people who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the dictates of their own hard hearts, who have followed alien gods, and served them and worshipped them, let them become like this loincloth, good for nothing.”
That had not been God’s idea originally. He had wanted the whole House of Judah to be in close and intimate relationship with him as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist. They were “to be my people, my glory, my honour and my boast”.
Unfortunately, in their arrogance and pride, they refused to listen. Now they will pay the price of their infidelity. They will be carried away by the very creators of the idols they worshipped.
Once again we are being asked to reflect on the idols in our own lives. What are the things, what are the desires and ambitions which come between us and our relationship with God? Do we try to compromise, to sit on the fence, try to have our cake and eat it? Do we try at the same time to serve God and ‘mammon’, something Jesus said was impossible?
Where your treasure is, there your heart is too, Jesus said on another occasion. Where and what is my treasure in life? How close am I to my God and his ways?*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Deuteronomy 32
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!"
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"Since they have provoked me with their 'no-god'
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a 'no-people';
with a foolish nation I will anger them."
You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:31-35
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the 'birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'"
He spoke to them another parable.
"The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed
with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened."
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden
from the foundation of the world.
+++
Parables of the Kingdom (continued):
Two short parables which reflect both the experience of the early Church and also highlight features of the Kingdom. Considering when they were written, they exude an extraordinary level of trust and confidence in God’s power, a trust which was not disappointed although the results were not seen for generations.
The first is the parable of the mustard seed.
The mustard seed is not actually the smallest seed known today, but it was the smallest seed used by Palestinian farmers and gardeners. Nor did it, strictly speaking, produce the largest of trees but, under favourable conditions, it could reach some 10 feet (or 3 metres) in height, big enough to provide shelter for birds.
The early Church, scattered in tiny communities, largely cut off from each other, all over the Mediterranean area must have felt very small, very vulnerable. The idea that in time it would become the central cultural influence all over Europe, Roman and barbarian, must have been beyond the wildest dreams of those early Christians. But that tiny seed did become a large tree providing shelter and comfort to millions and, from the Mediterranean, spread to every corner of the world.
The parable of the yeast in the dough is similar but with a different nuance.
In the Bible, yeast is usually a symbol of that which is evil and corrupt. Jesus warned his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:15). Similarly, at the Passover, the Jews eat unleavened bread, that is, bread free from leaven or yeast. In this parable, however, it is presented as a symbol of growth.
A tiny amount of yeast put into a large batch of dough produces striking results. (The 3 measures would produce enough to feed 100 people!) A dough batch, over a matter of hours, can swell to twice its original size as the process of fermentation takes place. The effects of the yeast, quite invisible, reach to every corner. Again, when this was written, that was not yet the case. The Church had made very little impact on its surrounding societies. But, over the years, its influence grew until Christianity became the prevailing faith and cultural influence of the whole of Europe and then continued to spread out to other parts of the world.
This parable points to a very important element in the life and work of the Church. It only exerts its influence when it is totally immersed in the society it wishes to reach and influence. And it can do this while still being only a small part of the whole. While never identifying itself with many of the prevailing ideologies and values of our societies, Christian communities must at the same time never separate themselves from their surroundings. There is a danger that we become inward-looking and spend most of our energies on the already converted. There is a strong evangelising element in this parable which cannot be ignored.
We need to remember that these are primarily parables of the Kingdom and not just of the Church, which is the imperfect sign of the work of the Kingdom going on in our world. And what these parables say applies first of all to the work of building the Kingdom in our world - it is a work which will go on inexorably, because it is based on truth, love and justice, and which slowly penetrates every corner of every society.
We can become aware to the point of depression at the amount of evil that we see around us and yet there is a gradual forward movement at all levels. But, as the previous parable reminds us, the wheat has always to co-exist with the weeds - both inside and outside the Church, both inside and outside the Kingdom.
Today’s reading concludes with a repetition of the statement that Jesus only spoke to the crowds in parables. And Matthew sees this as the fulfilment of a prophetic text from the Old Testament. It is in fact a quotation from Psalm 78:2 - “I will open my mouth in a parable.”*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++
Joachim and Anne, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you. For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of him. Joachim and Anne, how blessed and spotless a couple! You will be known by the fruit you have borne, as the Lord says: “By their fruits you will know them.” The conduct of your life pleased God and was worthy of your daughter. For by the chaste and holy life you led together, you have fashioned a jewel of virginity: she who remained a virgin before, during, and after giving birth. She alone for all time would maintain her virginity in mind and soul as well as in body. Joachim and Anne, how chaste a couple! While leading a devout and holy life in your human nature, you gave birth to a daughter nobler than the angels, whose queen she now is. -
from a sermon by Bishop Saint John Damascene
Sunday, July 25, 2010
If You Know How To Give Good Gifts To Your Children, How Much More Will The Father Give The Holy Spirit To Those Who Ask!
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading I
Genesis 18:20-32
In those days, the LORD said:
"The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,
and their sin so grave,
that I must go down and see whether or not their actions
fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.
I mean to find out."
While Abraham's visitors walked on farther toward Sodom,
the LORD remained standing before Abraham.
Then Abraham drew nearer and said:
"Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?
Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;
would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it
for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing,
to make the innocent die with the guilty
so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!
Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?"
The LORD replied,
"If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom,
I will spare the whole place for their sake."
Abraham spoke up again:
"See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord,
though I am but dust and ashes!
What if there are five less than fifty innocent people?
Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?"
He answered, "I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five there."
But Abraham persisted, saying "What if only forty are found there?"
He replied, "I will forbear doing it for the sake of the forty."
Then Abraham said, "Let not my Lord grow impatient if I go on.
What if only thirty are found there?"
He replied, "I will forbear doing it if I can find but thirty there."
Still Abraham went on,
"Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord,
what if there are no more than twenty?"
The LORD answered, "I will not destroy it, for the sake of the twenty."
But he still persisted:
"Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time.
What if there are at least ten there?"
He replied, "For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it."
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 138
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
Because of your kindness and your truth;
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
The LORD is exalted, yet the lowly he sees,
and the proud he knows from afar.
Though I walk amid distress, you preserve me;
against the anger of my enemies you raise your hand.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Reading II
Colossians 2:12-14
Brothers and sisters:
You were buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.
And even when you were dead
in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
he brought you to life along with him,
having forgiven us all our transgressions;
obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims,
which was opposed to us,
he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.
+++
Gospel
Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."
And he said to them,
"Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,'
and he says in reply from within,
'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.'
I tell you,
if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.
"And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
+++
Today’s reading from the Book of Genesis follows last Sunday’s first reading, which told of the visit to Abraham of three messengers from God prophesying that Sarah would give birth to a son in her old age. Now, we hear a decree from the LORD God himself: “The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah have sinned greatly, and I must punish them.” God does not punish – or threaten punishment – unless He is sure they deserve to be punished. He “went down to the earth before the great flood to warn the people, and again, before the tower of Babel was destroyed. Here, he visits Abraham, with a similar warning.
In our text, the LORD says: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is grave”. In the original Hebrew text, we read, “I have heard the protests that have come to me”, which tells us more clearly why He is speaking with Abraham about this situation: “I have to go and see for myself whether their actions really deserve to be punished.”
Abraham understands God’s intention, but he also has learned about God’s goodness. After all, he has promised that Sarah, in her old age, will bear a child. Abraham doesn’t understand – but he believes. And his faith gives him the courage to speak out to his three visitors:
“Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? If there are fifty innocent people in Sodom, will you spare the city for their sake?” “If I find fifty innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the city.” Abraham is a “quick learner”, as we see when he makes his next move: “What about 45?” then 40, and 30, and 20. But Abraham is persistent: “Please, don’t get mad if I speak out one more time: What if there are at least ten innocent people in Sodom?” And the LORD replies, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy the city.”
A few years ago, I was talking about this reading from Genesis with the religion class at Saint Joseph’s High in North Adams, and one of the students asked this question: “Father, God must have known all along that he was going to spare the city. So, why did God play this game with Abraham?” “God doesn’t ‘play games’ with us, Martha.” “Then, what lesson did God want Abraham to learn?”
That was a much better question. The real purpose of what God said to Abraham – and to everyone who reads this passage from Genesis – is to teach us how to pray: with confidence, and with persistence.
That lesson is echoed in today’s reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians. Many of the people of Colossae that Paul baptized were pagans, but there was a group of Jewish people there who had become Christians through Paul’s preaching and teaching. They wanted the converts to become Jews before they became Christians. If a pagan man wanted to become a Jew, he had to be circumcised. That would have been a rather painful experience for the adult male converts. Paul, a Pharisee and a teacher of the Law, knew that the Hebrew Scriptures refer both to “circumcision of the flesh”, and “circumcision of the heart”. It is, Paul teaches, by baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit that converts, whether they had been Jews or pagans, become disciples of Jesus Christ.
In today’s gospel, we find Jesus praying “in a certain place” – which means “a place away from the hustle and bustle, where he could be alone in conversation with the Father”. When he finished, and came back to his disciples, one of them asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist taught his disciples.”
Jesus replied: “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins,
For we forgive everyone in debt to us,
And do not subject us to the final test."
This is a shorter form of the Lord’s Prayer than the version in Matthew’s gospel, which we use in the liturgy of the Mass and in our prayers. The Scripture scholars say that this is the original, but the key message of both versions is the same.
Jesus goes on with his lesson to the disciples: Suppose you go to a neighbor’s house late at night, and say, “Please lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine is on a journey, and he just stopped at my house. But I don’t have any food to share with him.” If your neighbor answers from inside the house –without opening the door – “Don’t bother me! The door is locked. My children are in bed. I am not going to get up to give you anything.”
But the story Jesus tells doesn’t end there. He goes on to say: “Your neighbor might not get up and give you what you ask for because he is your friend. But, if you keep on asking, he will eventually give you whatever you need.”
And finally, we come to “the moral of the story”:
God doesn’t act like the next door neighbor in the story. He is always ready and willing to listen to his children’s prayers. Whenever they make requests, he will answer them. On the other hand, God is different from human parents. We do not give our children anything that would hurt them, but sometimes, we don’t realize that what they are asking for may not be what is best for them.
God, our heavenly Father, knows perfectly what is best for each and every one of His children. He can be more generous to us than any human parent can be. And so, as the gospel concludes: "Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened."
Human parents are not perfect. But they would not willingly give their children anything that would hurt them. On the other hand, God, our heavenly father, is perfect. He knows what is best for his children, and he can be far more generous that any human parent can be. If we ask for something that God knows will not be good for us, and He will show his love and mercy by giving us something else instead – something even better. Luke tells us that the Father will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the best of gifts, through whom all blessings come.
All we have to do is pray – and trust!
Reading I
Genesis 18:20-32
In those days, the LORD said:
"The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,
and their sin so grave,
that I must go down and see whether or not their actions
fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.
I mean to find out."
While Abraham's visitors walked on farther toward Sodom,
the LORD remained standing before Abraham.
Then Abraham drew nearer and said:
"Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?
Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;
would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it
for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing,
to make the innocent die with the guilty
so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!
Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?"
The LORD replied,
"If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom,
I will spare the whole place for their sake."
Abraham spoke up again:
"See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord,
though I am but dust and ashes!
What if there are five less than fifty innocent people?
Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?"
He answered, "I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five there."
But Abraham persisted, saying "What if only forty are found there?"
He replied, "I will forbear doing it for the sake of the forty."
Then Abraham said, "Let not my Lord grow impatient if I go on.
What if only thirty are found there?"
He replied, "I will forbear doing it if I can find but thirty there."
Still Abraham went on,
"Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord,
what if there are no more than twenty?"
The LORD answered, "I will not destroy it, for the sake of the twenty."
But he still persisted:
"Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time.
What if there are at least ten there?"
He replied, "For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it."
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 138
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
Because of your kindness and your truth;
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
The LORD is exalted, yet the lowly he sees,
and the proud he knows from afar.
Though I walk amid distress, you preserve me;
against the anger of my enemies you raise your hand.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Reading II
Colossians 2:12-14
Brothers and sisters:
You were buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.
And even when you were dead
in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
he brought you to life along with him,
having forgiven us all our transgressions;
obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims,
which was opposed to us,
he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.
+++
Gospel
Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."
And he said to them,
"Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,'
and he says in reply from within,
'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.'
I tell you,
if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.
"And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
+++
Today’s reading from the Book of Genesis follows last Sunday’s first reading, which told of the visit to Abraham of three messengers from God prophesying that Sarah would give birth to a son in her old age. Now, we hear a decree from the LORD God himself: “The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah have sinned greatly, and I must punish them.” God does not punish – or threaten punishment – unless He is sure they deserve to be punished. He “went down to the earth before the great flood to warn the people, and again, before the tower of Babel was destroyed. Here, he visits Abraham, with a similar warning.
In our text, the LORD says: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is grave”. In the original Hebrew text, we read, “I have heard the protests that have come to me”, which tells us more clearly why He is speaking with Abraham about this situation: “I have to go and see for myself whether their actions really deserve to be punished.”
Abraham understands God’s intention, but he also has learned about God’s goodness. After all, he has promised that Sarah, in her old age, will bear a child. Abraham doesn’t understand – but he believes. And his faith gives him the courage to speak out to his three visitors:
“Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? If there are fifty innocent people in Sodom, will you spare the city for their sake?” “If I find fifty innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the city.” Abraham is a “quick learner”, as we see when he makes his next move: “What about 45?” then 40, and 30, and 20. But Abraham is persistent: “Please, don’t get mad if I speak out one more time: What if there are at least ten innocent people in Sodom?” And the LORD replies, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy the city.”
A few years ago, I was talking about this reading from Genesis with the religion class at Saint Joseph’s High in North Adams, and one of the students asked this question: “Father, God must have known all along that he was going to spare the city. So, why did God play this game with Abraham?” “God doesn’t ‘play games’ with us, Martha.” “Then, what lesson did God want Abraham to learn?”
That was a much better question. The real purpose of what God said to Abraham – and to everyone who reads this passage from Genesis – is to teach us how to pray: with confidence, and with persistence.
That lesson is echoed in today’s reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians. Many of the people of Colossae that Paul baptized were pagans, but there was a group of Jewish people there who had become Christians through Paul’s preaching and teaching. They wanted the converts to become Jews before they became Christians. If a pagan man wanted to become a Jew, he had to be circumcised. That would have been a rather painful experience for the adult male converts. Paul, a Pharisee and a teacher of the Law, knew that the Hebrew Scriptures refer both to “circumcision of the flesh”, and “circumcision of the heart”. It is, Paul teaches, by baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit that converts, whether they had been Jews or pagans, become disciples of Jesus Christ.
In today’s gospel, we find Jesus praying “in a certain place” – which means “a place away from the hustle and bustle, where he could be alone in conversation with the Father”. When he finished, and came back to his disciples, one of them asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist taught his disciples.”
Jesus replied: “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins,
For we forgive everyone in debt to us,
And do not subject us to the final test."
This is a shorter form of the Lord’s Prayer than the version in Matthew’s gospel, which we use in the liturgy of the Mass and in our prayers. The Scripture scholars say that this is the original, but the key message of both versions is the same.
Jesus goes on with his lesson to the disciples: Suppose you go to a neighbor’s house late at night, and say, “Please lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine is on a journey, and he just stopped at my house. But I don’t have any food to share with him.” If your neighbor answers from inside the house –without opening the door – “Don’t bother me! The door is locked. My children are in bed. I am not going to get up to give you anything.”
But the story Jesus tells doesn’t end there. He goes on to say: “Your neighbor might not get up and give you what you ask for because he is your friend. But, if you keep on asking, he will eventually give you whatever you need.”
And finally, we come to “the moral of the story”:
God doesn’t act like the next door neighbor in the story. He is always ready and willing to listen to his children’s prayers. Whenever they make requests, he will answer them. On the other hand, God is different from human parents. We do not give our children anything that would hurt them, but sometimes, we don’t realize that what they are asking for may not be what is best for them.
God, our heavenly Father, knows perfectly what is best for each and every one of His children. He can be more generous to us than any human parent can be. And so, as the gospel concludes: "Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened."
Human parents are not perfect. But they would not willingly give their children anything that would hurt them. On the other hand, God, our heavenly father, is perfect. He knows what is best for his children, and he can be far more generous that any human parent can be. If we ask for something that God knows will not be good for us, and He will show his love and mercy by giving us something else instead – something even better. Luke tells us that the Father will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the best of gifts, through whom all blessings come.
All we have to do is pray – and trust!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Blessed Are They Who Dwell In Your House! They Go From Strength To Strength.
Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I
Jeremiah 7:1-11
The following message came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD,
and there proclaim this message:
Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah
who enter these gates to worship the LORD!
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
"This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!"
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.
But here you are, putting your trust
in deceitful words to your own loss!
Are you to steal and murder,
commit adultery and perjury,
burn incense to Baal,
go after strange gods that you know not,
and yet come to stand before me
in this house which bears my name, and say:
"We are safe; we can commit all these abominations again"?
Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?
I too see what is being done, says the LORD.
+++
Today we read Jeremiah’s famous ‘Temple Sermon’. At the Jerusalem Temple itself Jeremiah preached against the shallow, superstitious trust in Temple sacrifices. True religion, he said, is on the inside and results in external works of justice and charity.
Today’s passage is the opening of a set of oracles dating mainly from the reign of King Jehoiakim, about 608 BC. The opening theme is true worship and today’s passage deals with worship in the Temple.
Later on, in chapter 26, Jeremiah will describe the events prompting this oracle. The belief that the Temple was made holy by the very presence of Yahweh in the Holy of Holies led to the conviction that it could never be destroyed by pagan enemies. This was further strengthened when Sennacherib was forced to withdraw in 701 BC because of the epidemic that decimated his army at the walls of the city. The sanguine belief now was that Yahweh would protect them again in some similar way.
But Jeremiah is going to shock his countrymen by telling them, as Micah did earlier, that their confidence had no foundation and that God could abandon his Temple. Ezekiel would also have a vision of the glory of Yahweh abandoning the sanctuary. This, of course, happened when Nebuchadnezzar razed Jerusalem and the Temple later, in 587 BC. It would happen in a far more significant way when, at the death of Jesus the Messiah, the veil of the Temple was torn apart, signifying that the Lord was no longer present in the Holy of Holies but in the Risen Body of Jesus - the Christian community.
So, at the instructions of the Lord, Jeremiah stood at the gate between the inner and outer courts of the temple (perhaps the so-called ‘New’ Gate) to proclaim God’s message to the people. The words are addressed to all those “who enter these gates”, that is, the gates leading from the outer courts to the inner courts (of the women and beyond that of the men). They are being given a very clear warning: if they want God to remain among his people in this land, then they must change their ways and abandon their sinful and immoral behaviour.
There is no use in their trying to reassure themselves by constantly taking refuge in the Temple and constantly repeating: “This is the sanctuary of the Lord, this is the sanctuary of the Lord…”, as if that were a guarantee that nothing could happen to them. This was the kind of meaningless prayer urged on them by false prophets, who raised false and optimistic expectations. Later, Jesus would also point out the uselessness of such superstitious babbling (Matthew 6:7).
The idea that God would not destroy Jerusalem simply because his dwelling, the Temple, was located there was a delusion, fostered in part by the miraculous delivery of the city during the reign of Hezekiah, when, as mentioned, Sennacherib’s army was struck down by a mysterious epidemic. In the light of Judah’s sinful rebellion against the Lord such an idea was “worthless”.
On the other hand, if they did change their ways and their behaviour, then God would stay forever with them in the land which he had given to their ancestors in perpetuity. The changes that Jeremiah suggests include treating others with justice, not exploiting foreign immigrants and outsiders, orphans or widows, not shedding innocent blood (as in the frightening example of King Manasseh, who “shed so much innocent blood as to fill the length and breadth of Jerusalem” [2 Kings 21:16]) and following alien gods who can only bring them harm.
However, they are instead putting their trust in deceptive words, the words of false prophets who had assured them that God would never allow Jerusalem to be destroyed because his house, the Temple, was there. This assurance had been strengthened, as we mentioned, by the miraculous delivery of the city during the reign of King Hezekiah. In Jeremiah’s eyes there was no justification for such confidence.
Why? Because on the one hand they stole, murdered, committed adultery, perjured themselves, worshipped the god Baal and other alien gods whose origin they hardly knew, behaviour which would result in their being carried off into lands they did not know. In this one sentence, Jeremiah includes the violation of no less than five of the Ten Commandments.
At the same time, the people brazenly entered the Temple, the house that bears God’s Name and where he is present, thinking that doing so would fully protect them from the effects of their behaviour. And just as robbers try to escape justice by taking refuge in caves, so God’s people treated the very house of God. Later on, Jesus would quote this sentence in accusing people of his own time of doing commercial business inside the Temple precincts. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17. The first half of this quotation comes from Isaiah 56:7).
It is very possible for us Christians to act in similar ways. There are even those who say by their behaviour, if not actually in words, “Let’s eat, drink and be merry; let’s have a great time and break all the rules. Later on, we can go to Confession and have it all straightened out.” It is a very foolish policy and a dangerous one. Remember the man in the Gospel who had made his pile and then sat down to enjoy it. He died that night.
We must be careful not to abuse the privileges and helps that our Christian faith and our membership of the Christian community give. Our only true guarantee of security is a life that is centred on God and totally in harmony with truth, love and justice. It is not just what we do in church that indicates our relationship with God but even more how in our everyday life we deal with our brothers and sisters, especially those who are in need of any kind.
Our worship is not a guarantee of protection but a sign of where the desires of our heart truly lie.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 84
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
My soul yearns and pines
for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh
cry out for the living God.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest
in which she puts her young —
Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my king and my God!
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
Blessed they who dwell in your house!
continually they praise you.
Blessed the men whose strength you are!
They go from strength to strength.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
I had rather one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:24-30
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
"The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man
who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?'
He answered, 'An enemy has done this.'
His slaves said to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
"First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn."
+++
This parable, which is only found in Matthew, is also about the planting of seed but the concern is quite different and again it reflects the experience of the early Church.
A man has sown good seed in his field but, unknown to him, an enemy has come and planted weeds among the wheat. As the plants come up the farmer sees the weeds growing all through his wheat. His slaves want to pull them out but the farmer tells them to wait until the harvest time. The wheat and the weeds are similar in appearance in the early stages and it will be much easier to differentiate them as they mature. In the meantime, let both grow side by side.
This is a picture of the Kingdom and also of the Church which is trying to be part of it. For the early Church more distressing in many ways than persecution from outside must have been betrayal and shortcomings on the inside. There would have been a strong temptation immediately to get rid of such people. But wiser heads prevailed. Wait. Let God be the judge and, in any case, people can change. The sinner of today may be the saint of tomorrow.
This has been a problem all through the history of the Church and today is no exception. There is always a strong temptation among those who feel themselves more committed to living out the Gospel to adopt an elitist approach to the faith. This can take two forms: either members who are seen as falling short of the Church’s requirements in faith and behaviour are got rid of, or, which may be more common, those who see themselves more committed form a relatively closed group, a church within a church. There has been a certain amount of tension over such situations with the appearance of a number of Catholic movements in recent times.
Today’s parable reminds us of something very important, namely, that the Church is and always will be a Church of sinners and for sinners. Our Church is, as Paul puts it, a vessel of clay, leaking and easily broken. At the same time, we have been called to help bring about the Kingdom in our world and we have constantly to try to do that. But we need to distinguish between the vessel and its contents, the weeds and the wheat, to distinguish between the Christian vision and the Church which tries to communicate it.
Some have been disturbed by so-called ‘scandals’ and some have left the Church because of them. This, I feel, is not to understand today’s parable. These scandals far from undermining the Christian vision only affirm it. That vision remains a shining ideal. But the Church, which is not to be identified with the vision, is the flawed and fragile bearer of that vision. It has always been so and always will be. The Church is called to proclaim the Kingdom but it has to struggle to realise that Kingdom in itself also.
Today’s parable is a call for tolerance, patience, compassion and understanding while not compromising on the vision that comes to us from Jesus.*
**LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading I
Jeremiah 7:1-11
The following message came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
Stand at the gate of the house of the LORD,
and there proclaim this message:
Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah
who enter these gates to worship the LORD!
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
"This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!"
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.
But here you are, putting your trust
in deceitful words to your own loss!
Are you to steal and murder,
commit adultery and perjury,
burn incense to Baal,
go after strange gods that you know not,
and yet come to stand before me
in this house which bears my name, and say:
"We are safe; we can commit all these abominations again"?
Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?
I too see what is being done, says the LORD.
+++
Today we read Jeremiah’s famous ‘Temple Sermon’. At the Jerusalem Temple itself Jeremiah preached against the shallow, superstitious trust in Temple sacrifices. True religion, he said, is on the inside and results in external works of justice and charity.
Today’s passage is the opening of a set of oracles dating mainly from the reign of King Jehoiakim, about 608 BC. The opening theme is true worship and today’s passage deals with worship in the Temple.
Later on, in chapter 26, Jeremiah will describe the events prompting this oracle. The belief that the Temple was made holy by the very presence of Yahweh in the Holy of Holies led to the conviction that it could never be destroyed by pagan enemies. This was further strengthened when Sennacherib was forced to withdraw in 701 BC because of the epidemic that decimated his army at the walls of the city. The sanguine belief now was that Yahweh would protect them again in some similar way.
But Jeremiah is going to shock his countrymen by telling them, as Micah did earlier, that their confidence had no foundation and that God could abandon his Temple. Ezekiel would also have a vision of the glory of Yahweh abandoning the sanctuary. This, of course, happened when Nebuchadnezzar razed Jerusalem and the Temple later, in 587 BC. It would happen in a far more significant way when, at the death of Jesus the Messiah, the veil of the Temple was torn apart, signifying that the Lord was no longer present in the Holy of Holies but in the Risen Body of Jesus - the Christian community.
So, at the instructions of the Lord, Jeremiah stood at the gate between the inner and outer courts of the temple (perhaps the so-called ‘New’ Gate) to proclaim God’s message to the people. The words are addressed to all those “who enter these gates”, that is, the gates leading from the outer courts to the inner courts (of the women and beyond that of the men). They are being given a very clear warning: if they want God to remain among his people in this land, then they must change their ways and abandon their sinful and immoral behaviour.
There is no use in their trying to reassure themselves by constantly taking refuge in the Temple and constantly repeating: “This is the sanctuary of the Lord, this is the sanctuary of the Lord…”, as if that were a guarantee that nothing could happen to them. This was the kind of meaningless prayer urged on them by false prophets, who raised false and optimistic expectations. Later, Jesus would also point out the uselessness of such superstitious babbling (Matthew 6:7).
The idea that God would not destroy Jerusalem simply because his dwelling, the Temple, was located there was a delusion, fostered in part by the miraculous delivery of the city during the reign of Hezekiah, when, as mentioned, Sennacherib’s army was struck down by a mysterious epidemic. In the light of Judah’s sinful rebellion against the Lord such an idea was “worthless”.
On the other hand, if they did change their ways and their behaviour, then God would stay forever with them in the land which he had given to their ancestors in perpetuity. The changes that Jeremiah suggests include treating others with justice, not exploiting foreign immigrants and outsiders, orphans or widows, not shedding innocent blood (as in the frightening example of King Manasseh, who “shed so much innocent blood as to fill the length and breadth of Jerusalem” [2 Kings 21:16]) and following alien gods who can only bring them harm.
However, they are instead putting their trust in deceptive words, the words of false prophets who had assured them that God would never allow Jerusalem to be destroyed because his house, the Temple, was there. This assurance had been strengthened, as we mentioned, by the miraculous delivery of the city during the reign of King Hezekiah. In Jeremiah’s eyes there was no justification for such confidence.
Why? Because on the one hand they stole, murdered, committed adultery, perjured themselves, worshipped the god Baal and other alien gods whose origin they hardly knew, behaviour which would result in their being carried off into lands they did not know. In this one sentence, Jeremiah includes the violation of no less than five of the Ten Commandments.
At the same time, the people brazenly entered the Temple, the house that bears God’s Name and where he is present, thinking that doing so would fully protect them from the effects of their behaviour. And just as robbers try to escape justice by taking refuge in caves, so God’s people treated the very house of God. Later on, Jesus would quote this sentence in accusing people of his own time of doing commercial business inside the Temple precincts. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17. The first half of this quotation comes from Isaiah 56:7).
It is very possible for us Christians to act in similar ways. There are even those who say by their behaviour, if not actually in words, “Let’s eat, drink and be merry; let’s have a great time and break all the rules. Later on, we can go to Confession and have it all straightened out.” It is a very foolish policy and a dangerous one. Remember the man in the Gospel who had made his pile and then sat down to enjoy it. He died that night.
We must be careful not to abuse the privileges and helps that our Christian faith and our membership of the Christian community give. Our only true guarantee of security is a life that is centred on God and totally in harmony with truth, love and justice. It is not just what we do in church that indicates our relationship with God but even more how in our everyday life we deal with our brothers and sisters, especially those who are in need of any kind.
Our worship is not a guarantee of protection but a sign of where the desires of our heart truly lie.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Psalm 84
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
My soul yearns and pines
for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh
cry out for the living God.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest
in which she puts her young —
Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my king and my God!
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
Blessed they who dwell in your house!
continually they praise you.
Blessed the men whose strength you are!
They go from strength to strength.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
I had rather one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:24-30
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
"The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man
who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?'
He answered, 'An enemy has done this.'
His slaves said to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
"First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn."
+++
This parable, which is only found in Matthew, is also about the planting of seed but the concern is quite different and again it reflects the experience of the early Church.
A man has sown good seed in his field but, unknown to him, an enemy has come and planted weeds among the wheat. As the plants come up the farmer sees the weeds growing all through his wheat. His slaves want to pull them out but the farmer tells them to wait until the harvest time. The wheat and the weeds are similar in appearance in the early stages and it will be much easier to differentiate them as they mature. In the meantime, let both grow side by side.
This is a picture of the Kingdom and also of the Church which is trying to be part of it. For the early Church more distressing in many ways than persecution from outside must have been betrayal and shortcomings on the inside. There would have been a strong temptation immediately to get rid of such people. But wiser heads prevailed. Wait. Let God be the judge and, in any case, people can change. The sinner of today may be the saint of tomorrow.
This has been a problem all through the history of the Church and today is no exception. There is always a strong temptation among those who feel themselves more committed to living out the Gospel to adopt an elitist approach to the faith. This can take two forms: either members who are seen as falling short of the Church’s requirements in faith and behaviour are got rid of, or, which may be more common, those who see themselves more committed form a relatively closed group, a church within a church. There has been a certain amount of tension over such situations with the appearance of a number of Catholic movements in recent times.
Today’s parable reminds us of something very important, namely, that the Church is and always will be a Church of sinners and for sinners. Our Church is, as Paul puts it, a vessel of clay, leaking and easily broken. At the same time, we have been called to help bring about the Kingdom in our world and we have constantly to try to do that. But we need to distinguish between the vessel and its contents, the weeds and the wheat, to distinguish between the Christian vision and the Church which tries to communicate it.
Some have been disturbed by so-called ‘scandals’ and some have left the Church because of them. This, I feel, is not to understand today’s parable. These scandals far from undermining the Christian vision only affirm it. That vision remains a shining ideal. But the Church, which is not to be identified with the vision, is the flawed and fragile bearer of that vision. It has always been so and always will be. The Church is called to proclaim the Kingdom but it has to struggle to realise that Kingdom in itself also.
Today’s parable is a call for tolerance, patience, compassion and understanding while not compromising on the vision that comes to us from Jesus.*
**LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Lord Will Guard Us As A Shepherd Guards His Flock.
Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading I
Jeremiah 3:14-17
Return, rebellious children, says the LORD,
for I am your Master;
I will take you, one from a city, two from a clan,
and bring you to Zion.
I will appoint over you shepherds after my own heart,
who will shepherd you wisely and prudently.
When you multiply and become fruitful in the land,
says the LORD,
They will in those days no longer say,
"The ark of the covenant of the LORD!"
They will no longer think of it, or remember it,
or miss it, or make another.
At that time they will call Jerusalem the LORD's throne;
there all nations will be gathered together
to honor the name of the LORD at Jerusalem,
and they will walk no longer in their hardhearted wickedness.
+++
Today’s reading is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.
It takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates rather the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC.
Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the Temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.
The Lord’s warning then comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the evils he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.
Shiloh was an ancient shrine which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read: “Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken” (1 Samuel 4:10-11). Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate. Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it.
The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.
All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become like Shiloh and the city become deserted. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?
But it would and very, very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus - never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.
Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as an enemy to be got rid of. But he has no option but to continue speaking out.
What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Jeremiah 31
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,
they shall come streaming to the LORD's blessings:
The grain, the wine, and the oil, the sheep and the oxen.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:18-23
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Hear the parable of the sower.
The seed sown on the path
is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom
without understanding it,
and the Evil One comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word
and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution
comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns
is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches
choke the word and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit
and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold."
+++
Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s gospel which it calls ‘Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church’. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses which are distinctive to Matthew.
As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did. “Where did he get his wisdom and his miraculous powers?” (The New International Version says that the word usually translated ‘carpenter’ could also mean ‘stonemason’.) All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have got it from them but they failed to make the next step as to the real origin of what he was saying and doing.
And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!
It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.
Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their lack of faith”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
Reading I
Jeremiah 3:14-17
Return, rebellious children, says the LORD,
for I am your Master;
I will take you, one from a city, two from a clan,
and bring you to Zion.
I will appoint over you shepherds after my own heart,
who will shepherd you wisely and prudently.
When you multiply and become fruitful in the land,
says the LORD,
They will in those days no longer say,
"The ark of the covenant of the LORD!"
They will no longer think of it, or remember it,
or miss it, or make another.
At that time they will call Jerusalem the LORD's throne;
there all nations will be gathered together
to honor the name of the LORD at Jerusalem,
and they will walk no longer in their hardhearted wickedness.
+++
Today’s reading is in historical or biographical form. Some believe these passages may come from the prophet Baruch. It tells of Jeremiah’s discourse to the people warning them about disasters which will come unless they change their ways. His message will not be well received by the priests and people.
It takes place at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. The Hebrew term indicates rather the beginning of his first official (calendar) year as king, rather than the time of his immediate succession. This places it in the year 609-608 BC.
Jeremiah is told by Yahweh to go to the Temple court, perhaps near what was called the New Gate, and to speak to all those who had come from the surrounding countryside of Judah to worship. He is to say exactly what Yahweh has told him. Through his prophet, Yahweh promises that, if they listen to Jeremiah and change their ways, he will not bring disaster on them.
The Lord’s warning then comes in the clearest language. If each person listens and turns back from their evil ways, the Lord may repent of the evils he planned to inflict on them. On the other hand, if they will not observe the Law and listen to the words of his prophet, the Temple will end up like Shiloh and the city of Jerusalem will become a curse word among the nations of the earth.
Shiloh was an ancient shrine which was now in ruins. The sanctuary there was apparently destroyed by the Philistines. In the first book of Samuel we read: “Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the Ark of God was taken” (1 Samuel 4:10-11). Jerusalem, says Yahweh, will meet the same fate. Not surprisingly, this message did not go down well with those who heard it.
The priests and prophets seized Jeremiah and threatened him with death. The phrase they used described the ultimate penalty for those who seriously violated the law of Moses. The ‘prophets’ here are those false prophets who gave upbeat prophecies putting unrealistic hopes in the people’s minds and glossing over their wrongdoings.
All were horrified and enraged that the Temple should become like Shiloh and the city become deserted. These were absolutely unthinkable ideas. How could God allow such a thing to happen?
But it would and very, very soon. And it would happen again about 40 years after the death of Jesus - never to recover. St Augustine had similar feelings when he saw Rome (for him the centre of the world and its civilisation) fall to the ‘barbarian’ invaders.
Once again we see the dangerous vocation of the prophet. He is blessed with a special insight and he can see where the behaviour of people is leading them. He gives warnings but they fall on deaf ears. Even worse, they are rejected and the prophet is seen as an enemy to be got rid of. But he has no option but to continue speaking out.
What makes the matter more complex is that there will be confusion between true and false prophets and often the beguiling messages of the latter will be listened to. Careful discernment is needed to distinguish the genuine prophet from those who either lull us into complacency or, on the other hand, tell us that “the end of the world is nigh”.*
+++ +++ +++ +++
Responsorial
Jeremiah 31
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,
they shall come streaming to the LORD's blessings:
The grain, the wine, and the oil, the sheep and the oxen.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Gospel
Matthew 13:18-23
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Hear the parable of the sower.
The seed sown on the path
is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom
without understanding it,
and the Evil One comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word
and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution
comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns
is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches
choke the word and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit
and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold."
+++
Immediately following the discourse on the parables of the Kingdom, we see Jesus going to his home town of Nazareth. The New American Bible marks this as the beginning of a new section in Matthew’s gospel which it calls ‘Jesus, the Kingdom and the Church’. It ends with chapter 18, which contains the fourth of the five discourses which are distinctive to Matthew.
As was his right, Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth. The townspeople were quite amazed to hear the local carpenter’s son speaking as he did. “Where did he get his wisdom and his miraculous powers?” (The New International Version says that the word usually translated ‘carpenter’ could also mean ‘stonemason’.) All his family were well known to the people and they knew he could not have got it from them but they failed to make the next step as to the real origin of what he was saying and doing.
And, in the contrariness of human nature, they were so impressed that they rejected him! He was just too much. A perfect example of familiarity breeding contempt and blinding the eyes to the obvious. And Jesus sadly comments that a prophet can get a hearing everywhere except among his own. Probably all of us have had some experience, directly or indirectly, of this! We Irish, in particular, are well known for our ‘begrudgery’!
It might be helpful for us to see how often and where we ourselves have been guilty of this. How often have we written off what people we know very well, or think we know very well, suggest to us? It is important for us to realise that God can communicate with us through anyone at all and we must never decide in advance who his spokespersons will be.
Finally, we are told that Jesus could not do in Nazareth any of the wonderful things he had done elsewhere “because of their lack of faith”. His hands were tied. Jesus can only help those who are ready to be helped, those who are open to him. How open am I?*
** LIVING SPACE
The Irish Jesuits
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