In today’s First Reading, Moses speaks to the Israelites:
Ask now about the days of old, when God created people upon the earth. Has anything so great happened before, as happened to you? Did any other people hear the voice of God from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Did any pagan god venture to take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by his strong hand and outstretched arm, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt?
All of this, you were allowed to see so that you might recognize that the LORD is God, and him alone. You have heard his voice thundering from the heavens to discipline you. You have seen his fire upon the earth, and have heard him speaking from the midst of the fire.
It was out of love for your ancestors that he chose their descendants as his own, and led you out of Egypt by his great power, driving out of your path other nations greater and mightier than you, so as to settle you on their land, and make it your own inheritance, as it is to this day.
This is why you must know, and fix firmly in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other. This is why you must keep his statutes and commandments, which I enjoy upon you today, so that you and your children may prosper, and you may have long life in the land the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.
In the gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples:
If you wish to come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
What good is in if you gain the whole world, but forfeit your soul? What can you give in exchange for your soul? The Son of Man is going to come in the glory of the Father, with all his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing beside me here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming into his kingdom.
+++ +++ +++ +++
When something is truly yours, you are free to give it way. It is only when something is not really yours that you cling to it. A truly rich person is not someone who has accumulated more than anyone else; it is someone who has given more away. “Wealthy” people, by accumulating wealthy and amassing property, “wealthy” folks show just how poor they are. The same is true about love: it is when you give love that you show that you have love. The song says, “Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
The people of this world are always trying to “better” themselves. It starts with material things: we need to have better cars, better jobs, and better computers. It seems natural that we should also thing about trying to become “better” people. While this is a worthwhile goal, experience teaches us that it is the ego that tries to improve upon itself.
The Gospel does not tell us to become better people, but to become new people. “Better” presupposes a definition of good. Can we rely on our ego’s definition of what is good? We have good reason not to. Can we trust society’s definition of good? We should, at the very least, not take it at face value. Depending on the society in question, we can be called “good” if we are wealthy, or a heavy consumer, or a perfect conformist.
The Gospel asks us to love our life, not to improve it. Saint John Chrysostom commented, “Can you see how the wrongful preservation of life amounts to destruction as is worse than all destruction?” The Gospel goes deeper than any self-improvement program, telling us, “Those who would save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
It would be impossible to make sense of these phrases unless we understand the distinction between the ego and our true nature. This distinction is rarely made explicit in Christian spirituality, but it is fully explicit in Zen, for example. In Zen literature, there is a parable about a monk who kept polishing an earthenware tile, day after day. Asked what he was trying to accomplish he replied that he was trying to make a mirror. That tile is oneself. No amount of polishing will ever turn it into a mirror.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
Reading 1
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
As I watched:
Thrones were set up
and the Ancient One took his throne.
His clothing was bright as snow,
and the hair on his head as white as wool;
his throne was flames of fire,
with wheels of burning fire.
A surging stream of fire
flowed out from where he sat;
Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him,
and myriads upon myriads attended him.
The court was convened and the books were opened.
As the visions during the night continued, I saw:
One like a Son of man coming,
on the clouds of heaven;
When he reached the Ancient One
and was presented before him,
The one like a Son of man received
dominion, glory, and kingship;
all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not be taken away,
his kingship shall not be destroyed.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
let the many islands be glad.
Clouds and darkness are round about him,
justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
Because you, O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth,
exalted far above all gods.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
Reading II
2 Peter 1:16-19
Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
Gospel
Mark 9:2-10
Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John,
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them,
and his clothes became dazzling white,
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses,
and they were conversing with Jesus.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Rabbi, it is good that we are here!
Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;
from the cloud came a voice,
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone
but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain,
he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,
except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves,
questioning what rising from the dead meant.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a brief moment in time when the glory of the Risen Lord is revealed to three of his Apostles. At first, they are terrified, then Peter totally misunderstands the meaning of the event, and eventually, Jesus leaves them, still confused as to what “rising from the dead” means.
By the time Peter wrote his Second Epistle, he was beginning to understand the meaning of the resurrection. As Christians, we do not rely on cleverly devised myths about the power of Our Lord, but on the testimony of an eyewitness, who has seen Jesus in the fullness of his glory, and heard the voice of the LORD declaring, “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” He encourages us to be attentive to the prophetic message he, and the other witnesses, apostles , evangelists, and writers of epistles, have passed on to the generations to come, from the First Century to the Twenty-First.
On the other hand, like all of the Christian mysteries, the Transfiguration of the Lord is not only about Jesus, but about us. It must make a discernable difference in our own life today.
During the three years since Jesus had chosen Andrew and his brother Peter, James and his brother John, as the first of his disciples, he had become well known to them, or so they thought. But in this moment, he was so transformed – transfigured – that they scarcely recognized him. Why? Because his Divinity shone through his resurrected body, revealing depths of his person that they could never have imagined. Once upon a time, a little girl was asked what a saint was, and she replied, thinking of the stained glass windows of the church, “Someone who lets the light shine through.” Can this be more than a image? Could you and I allow the light of Christ to shine through? Or are we so aware of our weakness and imperfection that we are ill at ease with such considerations? Yet, as Paul reminds us in one of his epistles, the material of transfiguration is these “wretched bodies of ours”.
Some time ago, on a visit to the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Cross in Berryville, Virginia, I purchased a beautiful book, The Illustrated Rumi, A Treasury of Wisdom from the Poet of the Soul. In a poem called “The Sunrise Ruby", Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), a Sufi mystic, writes of a lover who asks her beloved,
“Do you love me more than yourself?
He responds: “More than myself?
For sure, I have no self anymore –
I am you already.
The “I” has gone, the “you” has come about.
Even my identity is gone.
I am like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world made of redness?
It has no resistance to sunlight.”
There it is: in one way it is a stone; in another, a world of redness. This gives some impression of what transfiguration means. When you are completely absorbed as you look at the night sky, or the sea, or a friend, you are still yourself, of course; but you are more than yourself. At any rate, you are a sort of larger self, not the petty self that speaks before thinking, and counts pennies, and always looks out for its own self-interest .
Sadly, this perspective on the Christian faith is not as familiar to most of us as it ought to be. We have accustomed ourselves to settle for less. Most of us believe that they best things are not for them, because we don’t deserve them. Yet, each and all of us have been called by God to enlightenment in this life, and union with Him in the next life. He would not have made that call if we were not capable of answering it.
The Feast of the Transfiguration invites us to conform ourselves to Christ our Lord. As we peer at the glory which pours out from every pore of the transfigured Christ, we cast off everything unworthy of our personal relationship with the Infinite, and we take on the luster of the Son of God. Jesus gazes back at us with a luminous look of love that makes us desire to live in his translucent beauty – to be beacons of the light. From Tabor’s peak, the Savior calls us, “Become what you behold!”
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
As I watched:
Thrones were set up
and the Ancient One took his throne.
His clothing was bright as snow,
and the hair on his head as white as wool;
his throne was flames of fire,
with wheels of burning fire.
A surging stream of fire
flowed out from where he sat;
Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him,
and myriads upon myriads attended him.
The court was convened and the books were opened.
As the visions during the night continued, I saw:
One like a Son of man coming,
on the clouds of heaven;
When he reached the Ancient One
and was presented before him,
The one like a Son of man received
dominion, glory, and kingship;
all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not be taken away,
his kingship shall not be destroyed.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
let the many islands be glad.
Clouds and darkness are round about him,
justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
Because you, O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth,
exalted far above all gods.
R. The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.
Reading II
2 Peter 1:16-19
Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
Gospel
Mark 9:2-10
Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John,
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them,
and his clothes became dazzling white,
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses,
and they were conversing with Jesus.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Rabbi, it is good that we are here!
Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;
from the cloud came a voice,
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone
but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain,
he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,
except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves,
questioning what rising from the dead meant.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a brief moment in time when the glory of the Risen Lord is revealed to three of his Apostles. At first, they are terrified, then Peter totally misunderstands the meaning of the event, and eventually, Jesus leaves them, still confused as to what “rising from the dead” means.
By the time Peter wrote his Second Epistle, he was beginning to understand the meaning of the resurrection. As Christians, we do not rely on cleverly devised myths about the power of Our Lord, but on the testimony of an eyewitness, who has seen Jesus in the fullness of his glory, and heard the voice of the LORD declaring, “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” He encourages us to be attentive to the prophetic message he, and the other witnesses, apostles , evangelists, and writers of epistles, have passed on to the generations to come, from the First Century to the Twenty-First.
On the other hand, like all of the Christian mysteries, the Transfiguration of the Lord is not only about Jesus, but about us. It must make a discernable difference in our own life today.
During the three years since Jesus had chosen Andrew and his brother Peter, James and his brother John, as the first of his disciples, he had become well known to them, or so they thought. But in this moment, he was so transformed – transfigured – that they scarcely recognized him. Why? Because his Divinity shone through his resurrected body, revealing depths of his person that they could never have imagined. Once upon a time, a little girl was asked what a saint was, and she replied, thinking of the stained glass windows of the church, “Someone who lets the light shine through.” Can this be more than a image? Could you and I allow the light of Christ to shine through? Or are we so aware of our weakness and imperfection that we are ill at ease with such considerations? Yet, as Paul reminds us in one of his epistles, the material of transfiguration is these “wretched bodies of ours”.
Some time ago, on a visit to the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Cross in Berryville, Virginia, I purchased a beautiful book, The Illustrated Rumi, A Treasury of Wisdom from the Poet of the Soul. In a poem called “The Sunrise Ruby", Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), a Sufi mystic, writes of a lover who asks her beloved,
“Do you love me more than yourself?
He responds: “More than myself?
For sure, I have no self anymore –
I am you already.
The “I” has gone, the “you” has come about.
Even my identity is gone.
I am like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world made of redness?
It has no resistance to sunlight.”
There it is: in one way it is a stone; in another, a world of redness. This gives some impression of what transfiguration means. When you are completely absorbed as you look at the night sky, or the sea, or a friend, you are still yourself, of course; but you are more than yourself. At any rate, you are a sort of larger self, not the petty self that speaks before thinking, and counts pennies, and always looks out for its own self-interest .
Sadly, this perspective on the Christian faith is not as familiar to most of us as it ought to be. We have accustomed ourselves to settle for less. Most of us believe that they best things are not for them, because we don’t deserve them. Yet, each and all of us have been called by God to enlightenment in this life, and union with Him in the next life. He would not have made that call if we were not capable of answering it.
The Feast of the Transfiguration invites us to conform ourselves to Christ our Lord. As we peer at the glory which pours out from every pore of the transfigured Christ, we cast off everything unworthy of our personal relationship with the Infinite, and we take on the luster of the Son of God. Jesus gazes back at us with a luminous look of love that makes us desire to live in his translucent beauty – to be beacons of the light. From Tabor’s peak, the Savior calls us, “Become what you behold!”
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Great Is Your Faith! Let It Be Done As You Wish.
Reading 1
Numbers 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
The LORD said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,]
“Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan,
which I am giving the children of Israel.
You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe,
all of them princes.”
After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned,
met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel
in the desert of Paran at Kadesh,
made a report to them all,
and showed the fruit of the country
to the whole congregation.
They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us.
It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.
However, the people who are living in the land are fierce,
and the towns are fortified and very strong.
Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there.
Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb;
Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands,
and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.”
Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
“We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.”
But the men who had gone up with him said,
“We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.”
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted, saying,
“The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants.
And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants
(the Anakin were a race of giants);
we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”
At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,
and even in the night the people wailed.
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:
“How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me?
I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me.
Tell them: By my life, says the LORD,
I will do to you just what I have heard you say.
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.
Forty days you spent in scouting the land;
forty years shall you suffer for your crimes:
one year for each day.
Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.
I, the LORD, have sworn to do this
to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me:
here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”
Gospel
Matthew 15: 21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
But he did not say a word in answer to her.
His disciples came and asked him,
“Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
He said in reply,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
And her daughter was healed from that hour.
+++ +++ +++ +++
In today’s First Reading, the LORD tells Moses to send a dozen men, one from each tribe of Israel, to reconnoiter the land of Canaan. Forty days later they return and make their report: This land is indeed flowing with milk and honey, and we have brought back delicious fruit. But the people who live there are fierce warriors and the towns are well fortified. Caleb, leader of the expedition, recommended attack, but most of the other scouts warned against it, and their option prevailed.
The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron: I have heard the grumblings of the Israelites against me. Tell them: You spent forty days scouting the land; you will spent forty years in this desert, suffering for your stubbornness. As for the twelve members of the scouting party, none of them will survive to enter the Land of Promise.
There is a parallel between the attitude expressed by the LORD in today’s First Reading and the attitude expressed by Jesus in the gospel. The mission of Moses was to lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Nations that opposed them were conquered; those who rebelled against Moses’ leadership were exiled, in this case for forty years, because of their stubbornness. In the gospel, the mission of Jesus is to the people of Israel, not to the pagan people of the land to the north.
Commentators on the scriptures give many and varied reasons for Jesus’ attitude toward the Canaanite woman and her ailing daughter : These are some of the points they make:
• Jesus needed to rest, and to have time to teach his disciples, so he was “off-duty”.
• In Mark’s version of this incident, he said that the children of Israel had to be fed first.
• He made no attempt to convert the woman to Jewish beliefs, as other teachers might have.
• He wanted to distinguish himself from the many wandering “wonder-workers” who were all too willing to perform healing rituals for the sake of fame or financial reward.
• The reference to “dogs” was not intended as a racial snub, but to children’s pets, whose needs would be secondary to those of the children.
The only consistent element among these comments is that they represent the opinions of the commentators. Other than that, they are “speculative at best”, an expression one of my professors used as a more genteel version of “pure guesswork”.
We close with the words of Saint Augustine: “The woman was ignored, not that mercy might be denied but that desire might be enkindled; but not only that desire might be enkindled, but … that humility might be praised.”
At the end of the day, Jesus granted this foreign pagan woman’s prayer, and praised her confidence – we might even say her faith. This is certainly a challenge to any intellectual definition of faith, since true faith is not mere assent to the conclusion of a logical syllogism, but commitment to conversion. Like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:25-29), this Canaanite woman became aware of Jesus’ identity long before any of the disciples (Matthew 16:16).
Numbers 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
The LORD said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,]
“Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan,
which I am giving the children of Israel.
You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe,
all of them princes.”
After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned,
met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel
in the desert of Paran at Kadesh,
made a report to them all,
and showed the fruit of the country
to the whole congregation.
They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us.
It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.
However, the people who are living in the land are fierce,
and the towns are fortified and very strong.
Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there.
Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb;
Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands,
and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.”
Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
“We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.”
But the men who had gone up with him said,
“We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.”
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted, saying,
“The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants.
And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants
(the Anakin were a race of giants);
we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”
At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,
and even in the night the people wailed.
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:
“How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me?
I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me.
Tell them: By my life, says the LORD,
I will do to you just what I have heard you say.
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.
Forty days you spent in scouting the land;
forty years shall you suffer for your crimes:
one year for each day.
Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.
I, the LORD, have sworn to do this
to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me:
here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”
Gospel
Matthew 15: 21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
But he did not say a word in answer to her.
His disciples came and asked him,
“Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
He said in reply,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
And her daughter was healed from that hour.
+++ +++ +++ +++
In today’s First Reading, the LORD tells Moses to send a dozen men, one from each tribe of Israel, to reconnoiter the land of Canaan. Forty days later they return and make their report: This land is indeed flowing with milk and honey, and we have brought back delicious fruit. But the people who live there are fierce warriors and the towns are well fortified. Caleb, leader of the expedition, recommended attack, but most of the other scouts warned against it, and their option prevailed.
The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron: I have heard the grumblings of the Israelites against me. Tell them: You spent forty days scouting the land; you will spent forty years in this desert, suffering for your stubbornness. As for the twelve members of the scouting party, none of them will survive to enter the Land of Promise.
There is a parallel between the attitude expressed by the LORD in today’s First Reading and the attitude expressed by Jesus in the gospel. The mission of Moses was to lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Nations that opposed them were conquered; those who rebelled against Moses’ leadership were exiled, in this case for forty years, because of their stubbornness. In the gospel, the mission of Jesus is to the people of Israel, not to the pagan people of the land to the north.
Commentators on the scriptures give many and varied reasons for Jesus’ attitude toward the Canaanite woman and her ailing daughter : These are some of the points they make:
• Jesus needed to rest, and to have time to teach his disciples, so he was “off-duty”.
• In Mark’s version of this incident, he said that the children of Israel had to be fed first.
• He made no attempt to convert the woman to Jewish beliefs, as other teachers might have.
• He wanted to distinguish himself from the many wandering “wonder-workers” who were all too willing to perform healing rituals for the sake of fame or financial reward.
• The reference to “dogs” was not intended as a racial snub, but to children’s pets, whose needs would be secondary to those of the children.
The only consistent element among these comments is that they represent the opinions of the commentators. Other than that, they are “speculative at best”, an expression one of my professors used as a more genteel version of “pure guesswork”.
We close with the words of Saint Augustine: “The woman was ignored, not that mercy might be denied but that desire might be enkindled; but not only that desire might be enkindled, but … that humility might be praised.”
At the end of the day, Jesus granted this foreign pagan woman’s prayer, and praised her confidence – we might even say her faith. This is certainly a challenge to any intellectual definition of faith, since true faith is not mere assent to the conclusion of a logical syllogism, but commitment to conversion. Like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:25-29), this Canaanite woman became aware of Jesus’ identity long before any of the disciples (Matthew 16:16).
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Be Brave! Don't Be Afraid!
Today’s Gospel is the last episode in the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus tells his disciples to board their boat, and return to the other side of the lake, while he stayed behind. After the crowd has dispersed, Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray. By nightfall, he was there all by himself. In the meantime, the boat, now several miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, since it was travelling against the wind. During the fourth watch of the night – between three and six o’clock in the morning – Jesus came to them, walking on the surface of the water. They were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear.
At once, Jesus spoke to them. “Be brave. Don’t be afraid.” Then Peter said, “If it is you, Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come ahead!”
When Peter started to walk on the water, he soon became aware of how strong the wind was, and he began to founder, and to sink. He cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately stretched out his hand, caught him, and said, “O you of little faith! Why were you doubtful?”
We are pretty much like the disciples. For some reason we find it difficult to believe that Jesus will keep his promises. That may be because we rarely experience someone to be constantly faithful to us, or perhaps that we are aware of our own weaknesses, and we do not consistently abide by our promises to others. In a word, we have trouble living up to our commitments.
After Peter got back aboard the boat, the wind died down. The disciples in the boat turned to Jesus and did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God!”
The little boat crossing the stormy lake is a perfect parable of our own life. My ancestors in Normandy used this expression, “Le bateau est si petit, et la mer est si grande!” (The boat is so small, and the sea is so vast!”) Another resident of Normandy, Therese Martin, a young woman from Lisieux, echoes the same sentiments, when she writes, “I was in a sad desert -- or rather, my soul was like a fragile boat without a pilot, given up to the mercy of the waves. I knew that Jesus was sleeping in my boat, but the night was so dark that it was impossible to see Him.” After a while, the sadness was replaced by joy, and she wrote, “Instead of the wind that had tried me, now a gentle breeze filled my sails, and I began to believe that I would reach the blessed shore, now starting to seem so close!” There would be many more storms during Therese’s brief life, but her patient endurance – and her trust in God – gave her courage during the storms and patience in the doldrums.
Fifteen hundred years earlier, Augustine of Hippo mediated on the same boat, and saw the image not so much of an individual incident, but as a figure of the community.
“The boat carrying the disciples – that is the church – is rocking and shaking amidst the storms of temptation, while the cross winds rage on. Our enemy, the devil, strives to keep the wind from calming down. But greater is he who is persistent on our behalf, for amid the ups and downs of our life, he gives us confidence. He comes to us and strengthens us, so that we are not jostled and thrown overboard. Although the boat is cast into a stormy sea, it remains a boat. It carries the disciples and it receives Christ. On the water, the boat is in certain danger; but without it, we would surely perish.
The conclusion is this: Stay in the boat and call upon God. When all good advice has failed, the rudder is useless, and the spread of the full rig is more of a danger than an advantage, when all human assistance and strength have been forsaken, the only recourse of the sailor is to cry out to God. The question is this: Will He who helps those who are sailing to reach port safely abandon his church and prevent it from attaining to peace and tranquility?
At once, Jesus spoke to them. “Be brave. Don’t be afraid.” Then Peter said, “If it is you, Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come ahead!”
When Peter started to walk on the water, he soon became aware of how strong the wind was, and he began to founder, and to sink. He cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately stretched out his hand, caught him, and said, “O you of little faith! Why were you doubtful?”
We are pretty much like the disciples. For some reason we find it difficult to believe that Jesus will keep his promises. That may be because we rarely experience someone to be constantly faithful to us, or perhaps that we are aware of our own weaknesses, and we do not consistently abide by our promises to others. In a word, we have trouble living up to our commitments.
After Peter got back aboard the boat, the wind died down. The disciples in the boat turned to Jesus and did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God!”
The little boat crossing the stormy lake is a perfect parable of our own life. My ancestors in Normandy used this expression, “Le bateau est si petit, et la mer est si grande!” (The boat is so small, and the sea is so vast!”) Another resident of Normandy, Therese Martin, a young woman from Lisieux, echoes the same sentiments, when she writes, “I was in a sad desert -- or rather, my soul was like a fragile boat without a pilot, given up to the mercy of the waves. I knew that Jesus was sleeping in my boat, but the night was so dark that it was impossible to see Him.” After a while, the sadness was replaced by joy, and she wrote, “Instead of the wind that had tried me, now a gentle breeze filled my sails, and I began to believe that I would reach the blessed shore, now starting to seem so close!” There would be many more storms during Therese’s brief life, but her patient endurance – and her trust in God – gave her courage during the storms and patience in the doldrums.
Fifteen hundred years earlier, Augustine of Hippo mediated on the same boat, and saw the image not so much of an individual incident, but as a figure of the community.
“The boat carrying the disciples – that is the church – is rocking and shaking amidst the storms of temptation, while the cross winds rage on. Our enemy, the devil, strives to keep the wind from calming down. But greater is he who is persistent on our behalf, for amid the ups and downs of our life, he gives us confidence. He comes to us and strengthens us, so that we are not jostled and thrown overboard. Although the boat is cast into a stormy sea, it remains a boat. It carries the disciples and it receives Christ. On the water, the boat is in certain danger; but without it, we would surely perish.
The conclusion is this: Stay in the boat and call upon God. When all good advice has failed, the rudder is useless, and the spread of the full rig is more of a danger than an advantage, when all human assistance and strength have been forsaken, the only recourse of the sailor is to cry out to God. The question is this: Will He who helps those who are sailing to reach port safely abandon his church and prevent it from attaining to peace and tranquility?
Monday, August 3, 2009
I Will Feed Them With The Best Of Wheat
Reading 1
Numbers 11:4-15
The children of Israel lamented, "Would that we had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt,
and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna.”
Manna was like coriander seed and had the color of resin. When they had gone about and gathered it up,
the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar,then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves,which tasted like cakes made with oil. At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell.
When Moses heard the people, family after family,crying at the entrance of their tents,so that the LORD became very angry, he was grieved.
“Why do you treat your servant so badly?” Moses asked the Lord.“Why are you so displeased with me
that you burden me with all this people? Was it I who conceived all this people? Or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?
Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me,'Give us meat for our food.’I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you will deal with me,
then please do me the favor of killing me at once,so that I need no longer face this distress.”
Gospel
Matthew 14:13-21
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,“This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”
He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over– twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Today’s First Reading, from the Book of Numbers, echoes yesterday’s Old Testament reading. Once again, the children of Israel are nostalgic about the meat, fish and vegetables which they had enjoyed back in Egypt. Now, there was nothing but manna, and they have lost their appetite. They were slaves, but at least, they were well fed.
There is a bit more detail about the manna. It resembled coriander seed, and was the color of resin. The people went about gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They either cooked it in a pot, or made it into cakes. In the evening, when the dew settled on the camp, the manna also appeared.
When Moses heard the people wailing, family after family, each at the entrance of their tents, he was troubled. He asked the LORD, “What have you brought this trouble upon your servant? What have I done to displease you, that you place the burdens of all these people on me? Am I the one who conceived them? Did you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse would hold an infant, to the land you promised under oath to their ancestors? Where am I going to find meat for these people? They keep crying out to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!” I am not able to carry these people all by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, you might as well put me to death right now. You would be doing me a favor, since I would no longer be facing my own ruin.”
Today’s gospel is Matthew’s version of the multiplication of the loaves, the miracle which prompted Jesus teaching on the living bread which was the subject of yesterday’s gospel of John.
The meal in the desert is a common theme in the Old Testament: Moses, Elijah and Elisha provided food for people without the benefit of resources. Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of loaves is especially similar to the one performed by Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44.
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing the man of God twenty barley loaves made from the first fruits, and fresh grain in the ear. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.
But his servant objected, "How can I set this before a hundred men?" "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha insisted. "For thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and there shall be some left over.'"
And when they had eaten, there was some left over, as the LORD had said.
In both instances, there are leftovers, unlike manna in the desert. Leftovers are a sign that everyone has eaten enough and more than enough. Here, the message is that this miracle is greater that of the manna in the desert.
Jesus did not say, “I will feed the people”, but “You feed them!” To be granted a miracle, we need to participate actively, however small our contribution. When God asked Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, he wanted a sign of authority, and God said, “You have one in your hand”. The shepherd’s staff was sign enough (Exodus 4:1-3). When Elisha asked the widow of Zarephath for shelter, she was willing to have him share the house with her and her son. When he asked her what food she had in the house, she replied that she had only a little bit of oil. The prophet asked her to borrow jars in which to store the oil, and multiplied the little bit until all the jars were filled (2 Kings 4:1-7). In today’s gospel, Jesus asked for the people to bring him food. He accepted the five barley loaves and two fish from the lad, and with them, he fed five thousand men, and only God knows how many women and children.
God was not content to give life and to provide for our needs. He sent us his only-begotten Son, to redeem us from the burden of our sinfulness. And he sends his Holy Spirit to give us grace, so what we can respond to the gifts He gives us by giving of ourselves to meet our neighbors’ needs. We are bound to give ourselves as he has given himself, not just in words, but in deeds.
Numbers 11:4-15
The children of Israel lamented, "Would that we had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt,
and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna.”
Manna was like coriander seed and had the color of resin. When they had gone about and gathered it up,
the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar,then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves,which tasted like cakes made with oil. At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell.
When Moses heard the people, family after family,crying at the entrance of their tents,so that the LORD became very angry, he was grieved.
“Why do you treat your servant so badly?” Moses asked the Lord.“Why are you so displeased with me
that you burden me with all this people? Was it I who conceived all this people? Or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?
Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me,'Give us meat for our food.’I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you will deal with me,
then please do me the favor of killing me at once,so that I need no longer face this distress.”
Gospel
Matthew 14:13-21
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,“This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”
He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over– twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.
+++ +++ +++ +++
Today’s First Reading, from the Book of Numbers, echoes yesterday’s Old Testament reading. Once again, the children of Israel are nostalgic about the meat, fish and vegetables which they had enjoyed back in Egypt. Now, there was nothing but manna, and they have lost their appetite. They were slaves, but at least, they were well fed.
There is a bit more detail about the manna. It resembled coriander seed, and was the color of resin. The people went about gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They either cooked it in a pot, or made it into cakes. In the evening, when the dew settled on the camp, the manna also appeared.
When Moses heard the people wailing, family after family, each at the entrance of their tents, he was troubled. He asked the LORD, “What have you brought this trouble upon your servant? What have I done to displease you, that you place the burdens of all these people on me? Am I the one who conceived them? Did you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse would hold an infant, to the land you promised under oath to their ancestors? Where am I going to find meat for these people? They keep crying out to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!” I am not able to carry these people all by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, you might as well put me to death right now. You would be doing me a favor, since I would no longer be facing my own ruin.”
Today’s gospel is Matthew’s version of the multiplication of the loaves, the miracle which prompted Jesus teaching on the living bread which was the subject of yesterday’s gospel of John.
The meal in the desert is a common theme in the Old Testament: Moses, Elijah and Elisha provided food for people without the benefit of resources. Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of loaves is especially similar to the one performed by Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44.
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing the man of God twenty barley loaves made from the first fruits, and fresh grain in the ear. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.
But his servant objected, "How can I set this before a hundred men?" "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha insisted. "For thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and there shall be some left over.'"
And when they had eaten, there was some left over, as the LORD had said.
In both instances, there are leftovers, unlike manna in the desert. Leftovers are a sign that everyone has eaten enough and more than enough. Here, the message is that this miracle is greater that of the manna in the desert.
Jesus did not say, “I will feed the people”, but “You feed them!” To be granted a miracle, we need to participate actively, however small our contribution. When God asked Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, he wanted a sign of authority, and God said, “You have one in your hand”. The shepherd’s staff was sign enough (Exodus 4:1-3). When Elisha asked the widow of Zarephath for shelter, she was willing to have him share the house with her and her son. When he asked her what food she had in the house, she replied that she had only a little bit of oil. The prophet asked her to borrow jars in which to store the oil, and multiplied the little bit until all the jars were filled (2 Kings 4:1-7). In today’s gospel, Jesus asked for the people to bring him food. He accepted the five barley loaves and two fish from the lad, and with them, he fed five thousand men, and only God knows how many women and children.
God was not content to give life and to provide for our needs. He sent us his only-begotten Son, to redeem us from the burden of our sinfulness. And he sends his Holy Spirit to give us grace, so what we can respond to the gifts He gives us by giving of ourselves to meet our neighbors’ needs. We are bound to give ourselves as he has given himself, not just in words, but in deeds.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Lord Gave Them Bread From Heaven!
The entire chapter of the Book of Exodus from which today’s First Reading is taken is a marvelous story of the relationship between God and God’s people. The children of Israel have been released from more than four centuries of slavery in Egypt. They have been led out into the desert, being led by a pillar of smoke, which became a pillar of fire at night. At this point, they’ve been stranded in the Sinai desert for what seems like forever and a day. They are frustrated, and they are hungry. So, being human, they complain to Moses, their leader: “We were better off as slaves in Egypt. We had meat and fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. We weren’t free, but we were fed! Now we have nothing to eat but this stuff, whatever it is!” It is their complaint that gives “this stuff” its name.
We read, “In the morning dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing this, the Israelites asked one another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was.” The Hebrew for “What is this?” is Ma nah? So the stuff is called manna. But there is more, just after the last words of the First Reading: Moses said, “This is the bread that the LORD has give you to eat. Each of you is to gather as much as he needs.” In other words, God asks them to take only their “daily bread”, and nothing for tomorrow or the next day.
Of course, being human, the Israelites set aside a little extra for the future, but it spoiled before they could eat it. God wanted to teach his children a lesson. God’s gift for today is a prelude and a promise of God’s goodness tomorrow. Providere, in Latin, the root word of provide and provision in English, means “to look ahead”. Or, as the saying goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery; today is the only day there is.”
The wonder here is that God never takes back his gifts. The children of Israel are his children, and he is not surprised, much less disappointed, when they act like children. Truth told, God is neither surprised nor disappointed when you and I behave like children, who are not yet mature enough to trust Him. In fact, that’s just what Jesus teaches us, in another gospel, “Unless you become like little children …” the saying goes. How “little” does he mean? Saint Peter gives us that answer: “Quasimodo geniti infantes” “Like newborn children” (1 Peter 2:2). Too new to even raise the question: Can I trust the source of my food?
Today’s gospel takes place after Jesus and his disciples return to the other side of the Sea of Galilee after feeding the crowd with the young boy’s five loaves and two fishes. When the crowd finally catch up with them, Jesus questions why they are looking for him. “You aren’t looking for me because you saw me perform miracles, but because you’ve been well fed. You should be looking for food that lasts forever.”
“We want to do God’s work.”
“God’s work is this: Believe in the One God sent.”
But they aren’t ready to believe that Jesus is the One God sent. They want a miracle, like the one their ancestors were given in the desert – the manna that was spoken about in the First Reading.
“But it was not Moses who gave the people bread from heaven, but God, who gives bread from heaven, and the real bread from heaven is the One who gives life to the world.” And he concludes: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; and whoever believes in my will never be thirsty.”
In sending manna daily to the children of Israel, the Lord said “I will test them, to see whether they follow my instructions, or not.” When Jesus reveals to the crowd that he is “the bread of God which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”, he gives them a similar instruction: They are to “work for the food that endures for eternal life.” That work is believing in the One whom God sent.
For us, this means putting aside “the old self”, our former way of life, and being renewed, by putting on “the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth”, as Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians.
Once upon a time, someone came to me after hearing these readings to ask this question: “After I put on the new self, in righteousness and holiness of truth”, does that garment stay with me forever, like the baptismal garment?” The answer is back in the reading from Exodus. The manna lasted only for a day, because God wants his children to renew our trust in him day by day. Like Saint Richard of Chichester wrote, that Schwartz and Tebelac borrowed for Godspell:
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day.
Day by day, by day, by day, by day.
We read, “In the morning dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing this, the Israelites asked one another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was.” The Hebrew for “What is this?” is Ma nah? So the stuff is called manna. But there is more, just after the last words of the First Reading: Moses said, “This is the bread that the LORD has give you to eat. Each of you is to gather as much as he needs.” In other words, God asks them to take only their “daily bread”, and nothing for tomorrow or the next day.
Of course, being human, the Israelites set aside a little extra for the future, but it spoiled before they could eat it. God wanted to teach his children a lesson. God’s gift for today is a prelude and a promise of God’s goodness tomorrow. Providere, in Latin, the root word of provide and provision in English, means “to look ahead”. Or, as the saying goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery; today is the only day there is.”
The wonder here is that God never takes back his gifts. The children of Israel are his children, and he is not surprised, much less disappointed, when they act like children. Truth told, God is neither surprised nor disappointed when you and I behave like children, who are not yet mature enough to trust Him. In fact, that’s just what Jesus teaches us, in another gospel, “Unless you become like little children …” the saying goes. How “little” does he mean? Saint Peter gives us that answer: “Quasimodo geniti infantes” “Like newborn children” (1 Peter 2:2). Too new to even raise the question: Can I trust the source of my food?
Today’s gospel takes place after Jesus and his disciples return to the other side of the Sea of Galilee after feeding the crowd with the young boy’s five loaves and two fishes. When the crowd finally catch up with them, Jesus questions why they are looking for him. “You aren’t looking for me because you saw me perform miracles, but because you’ve been well fed. You should be looking for food that lasts forever.”
“We want to do God’s work.”
“God’s work is this: Believe in the One God sent.”
But they aren’t ready to believe that Jesus is the One God sent. They want a miracle, like the one their ancestors were given in the desert – the manna that was spoken about in the First Reading.
“But it was not Moses who gave the people bread from heaven, but God, who gives bread from heaven, and the real bread from heaven is the One who gives life to the world.” And he concludes: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; and whoever believes in my will never be thirsty.”
In sending manna daily to the children of Israel, the Lord said “I will test them, to see whether they follow my instructions, or not.” When Jesus reveals to the crowd that he is “the bread of God which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”, he gives them a similar instruction: They are to “work for the food that endures for eternal life.” That work is believing in the One whom God sent.
For us, this means putting aside “the old self”, our former way of life, and being renewed, by putting on “the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth”, as Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians.
Once upon a time, someone came to me after hearing these readings to ask this question: “After I put on the new self, in righteousness and holiness of truth”, does that garment stay with me forever, like the baptismal garment?” The answer is back in the reading from Exodus. The manna lasted only for a day, because God wants his children to renew our trust in him day by day. Like Saint Richard of Chichester wrote, that Schwartz and Tebelac borrowed for Godspell:
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day.
Day by day, by day, by day, by day.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Trust God, and everything will turn out for the best.
Today’s First Reading (Leviticus 12:1, 8-17) continues the narrative in Leviticus of the establishment of civil and liturgical calendar. The LORD directs Moses to “count off seven Sabbaths of years”, that is, forty-nine years. Beginning on the tenth day of the seven month of that year – Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement – the fiftieth year was to be set aside as a Year of Jubilee.
Just as the seventh day is a Sabbath, a day dedicated to the LORD, a day of worship and of rest, the Jubilee year is a year of rest. Farmers do not sow or reap grain in their fields, nor do vineyard owners tend their vines. The people eat only what grows naturally in the fields and in the vineyards.
In the year of Jubilee, all property that has been leased to tenants reverts to the original landowners. Beginning in the following year, land is to be bought and sold according to the number of years left for until the next Jubilee. If the years are many, the price is higher; if they are few, the price is lower, because what is actually being sold is the number of crops.
There are two underlying fundamental directives from the LORD: “Do not take advantage of one another”, and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land”.
+++ +++ +++ +++
In today’s gospel, (Matthew 14:1-12) Herod the tetrarch (son of Herod the Great) hears reports about Jesus, and fears that John the Baptist has been raised from the dead.
Herod had arrested John and put him in prison, because John had admonished the tetrarch for marrying the wife of his brother Philip. Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid, because the people considered John to be a prophet.
During the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, entertained the guests with a dance. Herod was so please with her dancing that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Salome consulted with her mother, who said, “Tell him that you want the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”
The king was distressed, but because he had made the oath before his dinner guests, he had to follow through with the promise. He ordered that the request be granted, and had John beheaded in the prison. The severed head was brought into the banquet hall on a platter, and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body to be buried. Then they went to tell Jesus what had happened.
According to Theodore of Heraclea (+ ca. 355), Herod was afraid of John the Baptist, and wanted him to be silenced. Even after John was beheaded, Herod obsessed about the possibility that he might return from the dead, and use even more severe threats than previously, and that his wickedness would be exposed. After his death, the Baptist had more power over Herod than he had in life.
Herod was mistaken though. The one who was coming to his attention now was not John returned from the dead, but Jesus. John’s preaching was to prepare the way for Jesus, and his death foreshadowed the passion and death of “the one who is to come after me, who was before me”. Since John was executed, Jesus was not about to escape a similar fate.
Herod’s bloody deed has appalled and fascinated people throughout the ages. It was the theme of a play by Oscar Wilde and an opera by Richard Strauss – but the title of both works is not Herod, nor John, but Salome. The Dance of the Seven Veils seems more significant in the public perception than the preaching of the Precursor. Such is the power of this truly vile deed that it seems to turn the whole world inside out.
Describing Herod’s birthday party for his niece, St. Peter Chrysologus (c.380-450) wrote: “The house changed into an arena, the table changed to a stand at the amphitheatre, the birthday guests turned into spectators, the feast turned into an uproar, the food into carnage, the wine into blood, the birthday into a funeral, sunrise into sunset, the banquet became a bloody murder, and the musical instruments began to play the tragedy of the ages.”
Is evil more powerful than good? It is certainly the intention of the Tempter to make it seem so. Whether that, or the contrary, is true has been a topic of philosophy from time immemorial until the present age. And it would remain so if we did not have the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to show us the truth. Jesus is just now coming to the attention of Herod, and Herod will play the role that has been given to him in a Passion Play that was not written by a dramatist, nor set to music by a composer, but willed from all eternity by the Creator, Sanctifier and Redeemer of humankind. It is not Herod or Salome, not the Pharisees or the Teachers of the Law, not John the Baptist, who has the starring role in this real-life drama. Don’t worry about the Baptist’s fate – or that of his kinsman from Nazareth. For that matter, don’t worry about your own. Trust God, and everything will turn out for the best – but not until the final curtain comes down.
Just as the seventh day is a Sabbath, a day dedicated to the LORD, a day of worship and of rest, the Jubilee year is a year of rest. Farmers do not sow or reap grain in their fields, nor do vineyard owners tend their vines. The people eat only what grows naturally in the fields and in the vineyards.
In the year of Jubilee, all property that has been leased to tenants reverts to the original landowners. Beginning in the following year, land is to be bought and sold according to the number of years left for until the next Jubilee. If the years are many, the price is higher; if they are few, the price is lower, because what is actually being sold is the number of crops.
There are two underlying fundamental directives from the LORD: “Do not take advantage of one another”, and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land”.
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In today’s gospel, (Matthew 14:1-12) Herod the tetrarch (son of Herod the Great) hears reports about Jesus, and fears that John the Baptist has been raised from the dead.
Herod had arrested John and put him in prison, because John had admonished the tetrarch for marrying the wife of his brother Philip. Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid, because the people considered John to be a prophet.
During the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, entertained the guests with a dance. Herod was so please with her dancing that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Salome consulted with her mother, who said, “Tell him that you want the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”
The king was distressed, but because he had made the oath before his dinner guests, he had to follow through with the promise. He ordered that the request be granted, and had John beheaded in the prison. The severed head was brought into the banquet hall on a platter, and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body to be buried. Then they went to tell Jesus what had happened.
According to Theodore of Heraclea (+ ca. 355), Herod was afraid of John the Baptist, and wanted him to be silenced. Even after John was beheaded, Herod obsessed about the possibility that he might return from the dead, and use even more severe threats than previously, and that his wickedness would be exposed. After his death, the Baptist had more power over Herod than he had in life.
Herod was mistaken though. The one who was coming to his attention now was not John returned from the dead, but Jesus. John’s preaching was to prepare the way for Jesus, and his death foreshadowed the passion and death of “the one who is to come after me, who was before me”. Since John was executed, Jesus was not about to escape a similar fate.
Herod’s bloody deed has appalled and fascinated people throughout the ages. It was the theme of a play by Oscar Wilde and an opera by Richard Strauss – but the title of both works is not Herod, nor John, but Salome. The Dance of the Seven Veils seems more significant in the public perception than the preaching of the Precursor. Such is the power of this truly vile deed that it seems to turn the whole world inside out.
Describing Herod’s birthday party for his niece, St. Peter Chrysologus (c.380-450) wrote: “The house changed into an arena, the table changed to a stand at the amphitheatre, the birthday guests turned into spectators, the feast turned into an uproar, the food into carnage, the wine into blood, the birthday into a funeral, sunrise into sunset, the banquet became a bloody murder, and the musical instruments began to play the tragedy of the ages.”
Is evil more powerful than good? It is certainly the intention of the Tempter to make it seem so. Whether that, or the contrary, is true has been a topic of philosophy from time immemorial until the present age. And it would remain so if we did not have the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to show us the truth. Jesus is just now coming to the attention of Herod, and Herod will play the role that has been given to him in a Passion Play that was not written by a dramatist, nor set to music by a composer, but willed from all eternity by the Creator, Sanctifier and Redeemer of humankind. It is not Herod or Salome, not the Pharisees or the Teachers of the Law, not John the Baptist, who has the starring role in this real-life drama. Don’t worry about the Baptist’s fate – or that of his kinsman from Nazareth. For that matter, don’t worry about your own. Trust God, and everything will turn out for the best – but not until the final curtain comes down.
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