2007 - 11th to 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sunday, 1 July 2007

13th Sunday of Ordinary Time - You are my inheritance, O Lord

God’s chosen people hadn’t often prospered after Solomon’s death. The reputation and contribution of the monarchy had deteriorated disgracefully. The Promised Land itself was divided into northern and southern kingdoms, separated by Samaria. The northern kingdom was known as Israel. It was Elijah’s vocation to try to bring Israel to its senses in this 8th Century BC. He didn’t stand a chance and, eventually, gave up.
God ordered him to appoint Elisha as his successor (1 Kings 19:16, 19-21). Elijah recruited Elisha just like Moses did Joshua and Jesus his disciples.
God never forced anyone to be his special agent. A disciple is free to accept or decline.
Catholics have a special veneration for Mary, mother of Jesus, as the ‘disciple’ who sacrificed everything in accepting God’s call. While many in our Church lament the lack of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, some others rejoice in the proliferation of willing responses among lay Catholics to embrace a vocation and mission to serve God in secular society.
Responsorial Psalm 15 links the two main readings: 'You are my inheritance, O Lord'.
Today’s gospel passage (Luke 9: 51-62) recalls how Elijah, according to either history or legend, was despised by same people whom God punished with fire from heaven.
After remembering Jesus’ deeds in Galilee, Luke begins the second part of his gospel by including sayings that Jesus uttered on different occasions. The first paragraph reminds us that between the two provinces of Galilee and Judea, there lay Samaria. Its people, Samaritans, were non-Jewish and the two ethnic groups really hated each other. When Jews from Galilee went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, throughout Samaria every door was closed to them. This happened to Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus had to tell his follower to be less impulsive than Elijah when faced with hostility.
The Samaritans, who refused to welcome Jesus on this occasion, were no more guilty than Jews who closed their doors to strangers. He would press home this message in the parable of the Good Samaritan. It hurt pious Jews deeply. He put to his disciples the practical questions: 'Why destroy this little village if by doing so, they still had to look for hospitality in another village?' It was better to press on without delay.
Thank God, Jesus didn’t give all of us the power to retributive miracles! We would, no doubt, often misused this power for our own personal revenge, confusing God’s cause with our own, claiming, falsely, a divine mandate.
Instead, discipleship of Jesus would entail patience in the face of hostility, a common life shared with the Master, a deep involvement in His missionary journey and re-adjustment of all human relationships. These four characteristics would be found in the best of the early churches and, later, in monastic movements.
They must be re-discovered by lay people wanting to be genuine modern disciples within a secular environment.

Sunday 8 July 2007

14th Sunday of the Year - Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!

The section of Isaiah used for today’s first reading (Isaiah 66: 10-14) was probably written after the Babylonian exile. Everyone in Jerusalem was full of optimism after so long a period of social disintegration. (Iraq in 2004?) It may be been a bit like the end of World War 2 when so many prisoners of war on both sides returned to their homes.
Jerusalem would have to rediscover the role God had intended for her. This would be a period of national renewal. Isaiah introduced a new spiritual concept at this point.
Jerusalem would be like a mother, feeding and fondling her chilldren. She would be completely transformed when the new heavens and new earth appear. Instead of being inward looking, the city to which all Jews made pilgrimage, Jerusalem would be the launching pad for the spiritual expedition to find spiritual fellow traveller all over the world. The language used is what’s known in the 'trade' as 'apocalyptic'. It doesn’t sit easily with westerners.
Isaiah knew that the cosmic renewal wouldn’t happen in his time, or even, the near future. His inspired point was – it will happen! The Church’s mission is to keep the hope alive. The New Jerusalem won’t be a place but an environment known as the kingdom of God in the minds and hearts of true believers. It doesn’t matter who occupies Temple Mount.
Our gospel (Luke 10: 1-21, 17-20) takes up Isaiah’s theme.
The group of seventy-two disciples to whom was made the address, in Luke, concerning Christ’s mission, first confined to the twelve apostles, calls to mind all the nations of the world. It is, then the missionary work of the Church, which is foretold. God has already sown the seed of goodness in every mind and heart.
He has provided an economy of salvation to enable the seed to grow. He expects results, a harvest. He alone, will judge the outcome of individual and collective effort.
Missionaries should make haste, stopping only with those who have no 'baggage', emotional or otherwise, their only joy being growth of the Kingdom. The number seventy-two by the way, to the Jews, was the known number of non-believing nations.
Luke’s version of the sending out of missionaries is entirely practical. They must be pilgrims, not settle down. They must bring peace to family dwellings … Do no harm. Their visits should spark a time of domestic and village reconciliation. Their visits should be treasured and memorable for those who received them. Not all who welcome them will join a church but they should be 'touched' spiritually.
Modern local churches have matured as pastoral carers. Catholics are good at looking after the elderly, the sick, the primary school children and refugees. Only a few parishes advance to a missionary stage.
It is difficult to have parish real estate and also be expeditionary, but that’s what we have to do.

Sunday, 15 July 2007

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Jesus, son of God is the good Samaritan

The Jews were God’s chosen people. They were to be the conduit of God’s message of love for all peoples, everywhere, anytime, a thankless task-awaiting fulfilment. Moses had conveyed to them on Mount Sinai, in the Arabian Desert, a constitution, which was so wise it would, if obeyed, enable the Jews to live together in justice and peace.
As a document, Deuteronomy was mislaid until about 622 BC, when it was found and edited by priests and prophets. They summarized the experience of the Israelites throughout their history, just like our own social commentators try to explain Australians to themselves.
In today’s passage (Deuteronomy 30: 10-14), it’s not so much our service to God that is emphasized but the love God gives and expects in return. God will be forever a Word of love. We won’t have to go on pilgrimage to find His Word. It will be written in the hearts of all true believers. These are the kinds of Old Testament passages that preview the way Jesus of Nazareth would present his gospel. He himself would be God’s final Word. He would take the presence of God beyond scriptures and temple liturgy. He would be God incarnate, one of us.
The few who followed that spiritual way in Old Testament times were the spiritual ancestors of Jesus and his disciples, true descendant so Abraham, father of faith.
Love of God and one’s neighbour was the greatest commandment: the Israelites already knew that, in theory, but, in practice, they took 'neighbour' to mean a fellow Jew or believer.
In today’s gospel passage (Luke 10: 25-37), Jesus asks that we go beyond that and all such exclusiveness: I become the neighbour of anyone who needs me.
However, the Good Samaritan parable isn’t just a morality play. It’s deeply theological. It let’s us into the mind of God. Jesus, Son of God, is the good Samaritan. Samaritans were hated by the Jews. So, too, let’s never forget Jesus was despised by religious and civil authorities, but also by the silent majority. The theological point of the parable is that God loves all men, women and children, not just those who love Him!
We must learn to love others as God loves them – unconditionally. This the spirituality, which will save secular society form the assault and battery dished out by evil. Our redemption is in our forgiveness.
To be a genuine disciple of Jesus one has to love beyond the call of duty. This is the basis for the vows taken by religious – poverty, chastity and obedience.
Celibacy, too, was designed as a positive – to allow unconditional availability to be offered without discrimination.
Cain, in Genesis, complained to God: 'I’m not my brother’s keeper'. He was right. He was his brother’s brother!
Nothing short of a complete renewal of the idea and attitude of Christian discipleship will make the church worthy of its vocations and mission. The practical details must be worked out by faithful individuals and local churches.
But, not in isolation. The spirit of the God of Deuteronomy and the Gospel is with us still.
He guides us along the right path. He is true to him name.

Sunday, 22 July 2007

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time - 'The just will live in he presence of the Lord

About 1800 BC, Abraham had left Haran, part of modern Iraq, on a promise from God that Abraham would end up with lots of land and descendants in Palestine.
Today we pay a hefty price for a misinterpretation by Jew, Muslim and Gentile of that promise.
Abraham and his clan were nomads, poor and uneducated. They would travel with tents and flocks as far as they could within the two great civilizations of that time – Mesopotamia and Egypt. This clan was ‘finely tuned’ spiritually, though primitive, so it comes as no surprise that Abraham had personal dealings with the God of the desert, as retold in today’s first reading. These spiritual dealings mark a turning point in human history, because God called this particular clan to produce a special people, God’s own instrument to bring the history of humanity to maturity and to a happy end. (In ancient legends there were many meetings between humans and ‘The Gods’).
In today’s opening reading (Genesis 18: 1-10), the god of Abraham showed himself to be intimate and friendly – a deep and meaningful spiritual insight. We marvel at this simple story: God showing human traits comes to ask for a friend’s hospitality before he showers that friend with blessings. Commentators, including me, will not dare say whether it happened that way or it was merely a way of speaking.
The true believer knows that God’s that kind of being and acts true to his loving nature.
Responsorial Psalm 14 joins our two main readings: 'The Just will live in the presence of the Lord'.
And, so to our gospel passage (Luke 10: 38-42), the story of Martha and Mary.
Too often this anecdote has been made into an allegory where Martha stands for action and Mary for contemplation, the idea being to show the superiority of the latter!
Luke, like Paul, seems not to be preoccupied with the imminent arrival of the Kingdom!
As we now know, this was a strong, spiritual feature of the first generation of Christians. They hadn’t a moment to lose!
Luke wrote his version of the gospel for non-Jewish Christians in predominantly gentile churches. The ‘last days’ were no longer seen as imminent. Time was on their side. The disciples were settling down to a lifetime of work and prayer. A balance was needed.
So, Luke wanted to teach these disciples that it was essential to make space listening to the word of the Lord. They mustn’t become too engrossed, like Martha in mundane affairs.
Remember, however, as in our first reading, hospitality is emphasized. In modern churches, this virtue needs promotion. We live now, in a culture of conflict, not only in secular society, but also within the Churches.
Weekend liturgies are meant to be occasions when we are at home with God and with one another. Pastoral care is another example of hospitality.
Missionary outreach needs to be motivated by that same spiritual virtue.
Prayers and action are inseparable, according to this weekend’s Gospel.

Sunday, 29 July 2007

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time - We are called to show mercy and compassion

Our first reading (Genesis 18: 20-32) this week, as last, gives us a glimpse into the mind of God.
We must never forget our debt to Abraham for risking all to follow the path shown to him by God. As we read Genesis, we meet spiritual humankind engaged in a growing, intimate relationship with God. We hear Abraham engaged in a respectful, but forceful, discussion with God over the fate of two decadent cities, Sodom and Gomorrah.
We can safely conclude, at the end of the debate, that God doesn’t want to harm anyone! But that doesn’t guarantee that some people won’t go out of their way to harm other people.
A primitive view of God would be that he holds responsible a whole city, when only a few citizens had seriously offended the morality of the time. This distorted view explains, also, the Jihad’s moralism of Al Quaeda cells out to destroy ‘immoral’ western cities.
But even in Genesis, and certainly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, God is revealed as moved to compassion and mercy by individuals who intercede on behalf of sinners.
Isaiah developed this concept to the limit in the character described as ‘the suffering servant’.
Finally, Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled all the expectations of Abraham, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.
The Church is the guardian of this beautiful aspect of God’s attitude towards humanity.
But, we Catholics mustn’t keep the secret to ourselves. We are called to show mercy and compassion to outsiders, fringe-dwellers, just as God has shown us.
Today’s gospel (Luke 11: 1-13) follows and develops the theme in the first reading.
After teaching the disciples a prayer formula, a mantra of their very own, he engaged in role-play with them. What would they do if a friend, late at night, dropped in for help? Would they send him away empty-handed? “Oh, no!” the disciples answered readily. Jesus pressed on by asking if God, their best friend, could not be expected to perform at least as well when petitioned for help. The disciples couldn’t escape Jesus’ logic. However, the central figure of the parable is not the one knocking at the door, but the occupant of the house.
Luke wrote this Gospel for early Christians who were convinced that the last times were upon them. They were somewhat disturbed that they were not experiencing the blessings and prosperity foretold by the prophets.
So Luke taught them to keep on praying for spiritual gift above all others.
All prayer must be in association with the Sprit of the Risen Jesus, just as the Old Testament had insisted on the key role of the intercessor, like Abraham!
Christians pray well only when living lives faithful to the Gospel. Such people are ‘prayers’ in the flesh.
Of course, God, who is good, will answer such prayers.

Sunday, 5 August 2007

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Let go and let God

In the 3rd Century BC, Greek influences were being felt throughout Palestine, especially in Jerusalem. Alexander the Great kicked the Syrians out of their captive states. He died in 323 BC. Two Greek generals divided the empire between them. The Jews were ruled by these generals and their successors, more or less benignly, until an upheaval in about 170 BC. After that the Romans took over. We know about them. They were there when Jesus lived and died.
I mention those few historical facts to provide a context for our first reading (Ecclesiastes 1: 1, 2: 21-23).
The dynamism of Greek civilisation came from its confidence in the unlimited resources of human thinking. Greek philosophers strove to explain all the mysteries of human destiny. Western humanism does the same today.
'Ecclesiastes', a pen name meaning 'he who gathers the people tother’, assumed the persona of King Solomon to teach 3rd Century BC Jews the wisdom necessary to combat Greek humanism. For example, he opposed Greek optimism, He taught Jews to face the human dilemma, especially mortality. Another example – live the present moment to the full by solving problems, within reach, day by day. Enjoy the happiness that God has in store for you today: leave the rest up to Him!
As charismatic Catholics have taught us: 'Let go and let God!'
Again, our Gospel passage (Luke 12: 13-21) easily follows the core theme of the first reading from Ecclesiastes.
The parable of the foolish rich man certainly belongs to an ancient tradition of wisdom literature. There's nothing new under the sun, is there?
Two modern examples of wisdom film craft came to mind – 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings'.
Back to our parable. Jesus seems to have refused, by the way, to arbitrate between two brothers contesting an estate.
He had a bigger fish to fry! He sent the two contenders to the proper authority but profited from the incident to raise the debate to a higher level: Are riches worth so much worry and strain! Alain de Bottom has alerted us to status anxiety. It’s foolish to forget that death will deprive us of all wealth.
It is genuine wisdom to make oneself rich in God’s sight by sharing our wealth while we live.
The rich fool in the parable discovered too late that material wealth is not a permanent possession. Because he had devoted all his energy to amassing wealth through property, he had nothing special he could call his own, and death disclosed his essential poverty. The only possessions worthy of human striving are those death can’t take away.
Jesus would have our Catholic Church of the 21st Century be prophetic about wealth! We need to help create a more authentic human community, which cannot exist when only a few control wealth, culture and decision-making.

Sunday, 12 August 2007

19th Sunday of the Year - Daily events, are a meeting place between true believers and their Master

The book of Wisdom was written in Egypt between 80 and 50 years before Christ. The author was one of the many Jews living in Greek-dominated parts of the world.
Contemporary Jews put as much hope in this book, that it would strengthen the faith of Jewish young people, as worried Catholics have put their faith in next year's World Youth Day.
Today's passage (Wisdom 18:6-9) tells us how the children of the Egyptians died in the sea because their parents had formed a plan to throw the Hebrew children into the Nile River. We can imagine how this reading was savoured by Jews who found themselves exiled, once more among Egyptians.
The difference this time round was that both Egyptian and Jewish cultures were equally undermined by Greek secular humanist philosophy concerning the origin and nature of humanity. (Islamisists make the same complaint against the USA!)
The author of Wisdom instructed his readers in the sacred origins of the Jewish people.
Today's verses recall some features of the celebration of the Passover meal, the annual memorial of the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.
Of course, Passover has been imprinted on the Christian mind and heart because Jesus died during Passover He thereby obliterated racism as a spiritual option and advised people to understand that both Egyptians and Jews could journey together along salvation's road.
Let's pray that the people of the Middle East and Sudan, of whatever ethnic or religious background, will quickly learn the same lesson.
Luke insisted that the kingdom of God is already among us, at least in embryo, so to speak. There is a sense of urgency special to Luke's version of the Gospel.
His disciples were instructed to live as if the Lord was to return at any time. He didn't, however, subscribe to the idea, prevalent among some Christians that Our Lord would return in the resurrected flesh, to wrap up the whole of human history. But, he did insist that daily events were a meeting place between true believers and their Master.
Vatican 2 would develop that insight to give a healthy basis for lay spirituality suitable for a rapidly changing modern world, overwhelmingly secular, where lay people spend most of their time.
Today's reading (Luke 12:32-48) also lends itself to an important trend among Catholics worldwide, to become missionaries within their own secular societies. I refer you, to the Archbishops Evangelisation initiatives.
There's also, a special warning to those of us, women and men, who hold positions of responsibility (power, in other words) in local churches. We need to review regularly our performances so as not to obstruct the inspired development of enthusiastic lay people who, almost alone, can be the 'key players' in bringing Christ to the modern world.

Sunday, 19 August 2007

20th Sunday of the Year - Our church is secular society's Pilot light only

Jeremiah challenged his compatriots to trust God rather than politicians or generals.
The Jews were in a spot of bother in the late 5th century BC. The southern kingdom of Judah, including Jerusalem was inclined to militarily resist the Babylonian invader.
Jeremiah, a prophet instructed by God, advised his compatriots to surrender to Babylon or suffer destruction.
Jerusalem was divided. Opponents of surrender grabbed Jeremiah and threw him in a well to shut his mouth. Kind Zedekiah, who couldn't make up his mind which side to take, at least had the decency to rescue Jeremiah. (Lot's of contemporary Iraq in this text).
Jeremiah preached that by surrender to Babylon, the Jews would be able to preserve their true freedom, based on moral and cultural independence (Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10).
(The Poles did just that when occupied by the Soviets after World War 2).
Put in modern terms, Jeremiah's attitude was not to insist on fighting for causes or institutions that are no longer relevant to a world that has undergone irreversible changes and in which God calls us to a different mission.
Dare we Catholics apply Jeremiah's prophecy to our own outmoded causes and institutions?
Who would be game enough to nominate which causes and institutions are fatally outmoded?
As I said earlier, there's a lot of Jeremiah in Jesus of Nazareth. Today's Gospel passage (Luke 12:49-53) demonstrates this truth so clearly.
The association of fire and water was a particularly Jewish way of depicting God's judgement of human activity. His judgement is the time when God will bring the old, corrupt world to an end. He will replace it with a new world that will stay faithful to him.
Doubtless Jesus was referring to that particular traditional belief. He did stress, however, the fact that it was he himself who would be the object of the judgement. He, himself, would be consumed with fire and plunged into water to use a figure of speech familiar to all Jews.
It would be in his own person that the old order would be purified to become the Kingdom of God on earth. He yearned for that spiritually cataclysmic change. He knew it would cost him dearly, causing great personal distress known to us as passion or ordeal.
This ordeal is prefigured in some way when we receive Christian baptism, even as infants.
On a larger, social scale, often people try to use religion, even Catholicism, as 'glue' for national unity or family harmony.
Religious faith can be one factor in these affairs but it can also divide, when genuine believers fall out with less spiritually mature family or friends.
The Gospel doesn't put this world on the path of earthly paradise, but challenges it to grow.
Our church is secular society's pilot light, only.

Sunday, 26 August 2007

21st Sunday of the Year - Lest we Forget!

Our first reading (Isaiah 66:18-21) is from a person (or group) known as Third Isaiah. He had a vision of God destroying all the gentile (non-Jewish) enemies of Israel, much the same a many of us old-timers interpreted the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August '45, as divine retribution and modern westerners hope Terrorism goes the same way.
But, 3rd Isaiah also saw a remarkable divine miracle, whereby former gentile enemies would be admitted to God's chosen people and even share the privileges of the Jews. 'From among them I will take priests and Levites'.
The Jewish mission would even seek new people for God in far away (foreign) places. Tarshish could be in modern Spain, Put in Somalia, Javan in Ireland, Jubal in Turkey and Lud in Libya.
Missionary enterprise would embrace the whole known world.
Israel however, was to refuse to pull down the barriers erected against outsiders.
Jesus forfeited his life in attempting to make universahsm a primary feature of Judaism.
If multi-culturalism in Australia is the same as that Gospel universalism, we Catholics may well be in for a torrid time as missionaries to our own people.
Our Gospel text (Luke 13:22-30) according to Saint Luke continues the emphasis of our first reading. Jesus treated as a useless question the one put to him: 'Lord, will there be only a few saved?' What would have been asked instead was whether Israel had listened to God's call, and if she was following the narrow road to salvation.
Jesus repeated Isaiah's image of a final banquet. The crowd will press for entry, but the door will be too narrow to admit all. The less alert will be forced to stay outside and appeal in vain to their previous association with the Master of the house.
This is much the same as Christians, in our case Catholics, who are satisfied with low cost religion, who fail to read the 'signs of the times' and do not grasp the decisive role of Our Lord's ministry. Such church-goers think they can safely avoid the struggles and contradictions of secular society. They are content with a cut price Christianity, shared with comfortable, well-bred and well-heeled citizens who have no intention of soiling their hands with reconciliation and justice projects.
The Jewish establishment, all honourable men and women, never forgave Jesus for warnings such as the one in today's Gospel.
The illustrious convert to Catholicism, Cardinal Newman, issued the same warning to Catholics of his generation. 'It is Man's doing, not God's will that, while the visible church is large, the church invisible is small'.

Sunday, 2 September 2007

22nd Sunday of the Year - Humility a divinely revealed virtue

Today's first reading (Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29) comes from an Old Testament book, one of the longest in the Bible. Known now as the book of 'Sirach', for short, its long title is 'The Wisdom of Yeshua (Jesus) ben (son of) Eleazor ben Sira'. It was written in early 2nd Century by someone who dearly wanted to promote the revealed Jewish way of life as superior to the Greek dominant culture of the time. For Sirach, true wisdom was to be found in Jerusalem, not in Athens! Hence, the good Jew should not give into the temptation to follow the Greek philosophies with their permissive way of life and idolatrous Olympic Games!
I'm reminded of a book I'm browsing through: 'The Book of Virtues', a treasury of great moral stories, edited with commentary, by William J Bennett, from the USA. Bennett culls the great books of literature and exemplary stories from history for examples of good and bad, right and wrong. He seeks a reliable moral reference point that will help 'anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history and our traditions - the source of the ideals by which we want to live our lives'.
Whereas Sirach, in today's reading, praises humility as a divinely revealed virtue, Bennett doesn't include it in his long list, for whatever reason.
Sirach warned that humility's opposite, pride or arrogance, eats away at a person until he harms those around him.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, would espouse Sirach's wisdom, as we shall learn in today's Gospel.
Of course, our Gospel parable (Luke 14:1, 7-14) indicated a new way of life for disciples of Jesus.
We must not be social climbers because we shall have to trample on others as we become 'upwardly socially mobile'.
To quote the 'Christian Community Bible': 'It would be a strange sight to see public officials pay more attention to the poorly dressed, or to see the poorest areas supplied with water and power before the affluent residential areas (a reference to Latin American towns and villages - RJM), or to see doctors go to rural areas to practise.'
But, above and beyond this moral teaching about humility Luke was thinking and writing mainly about the difficulties encountered by early Christians in the first 100 years of Christianity. These people, excommunicated from Temple and Synagogue, ran the risk of being swamped by pagan influences.
It was imperative for Luke to provide his disciples with a viable code of conduct based on the Gospel. That's the reason for this chapter from Luke. He had to provide a moral theology for the Christian Sunday assemblies. Jesus had removed all barriers of legal uncleanliness with which the Jews surrounded thek assemblies. His would be different - open to all! It can only be an assembly of salvation, if all members feel at home.
Luke's imperative now drives our contemporary parish assemblies to live and worship together.
Liturgical experts can help, but parishes must be humble to ensure that they are open to all.

Sunday, 9 September 2007

23rd Sunday of the Year - Prayer is the answer and remedy - Prayer Spiritual Breathing

The Jews, like the Irish, have been often forced to live away from home!
In about 80 BC, one such expatriate Jew complied the book called 'Wisdom of Solomon'. He was living in Alexandria, Egypt. At that time, Greece was the dominant power in the Middle East!
Philosophy, dear to the Greeks, challenged Jews to review their own opinions on everything. Such an exploration of the 'human predicament' was foreign to them. They had been brought up on God's own revealed thoughts, contained in the Scriptures.
So, today's first reading (Wisdom 9:13-18) is a short example of this attempt to adapt revealed Wisdom to contemporary sensibilities. Of course, this process is well known to conscientious catechists and preachers. Effective missionaries become experts at adapting eternal values to modern situations. But, beware, says 50 years social philosopher John Carroll in 'The Wreck of Western Culture', you could throw out the baby with the bath water.
May I put a 'plug' for my own colleagues around the nation who follows this style when preaching at especially poignant 'rituals of passage' - baptisms, weddings, and funerals? Wisdom is ready to inspire them on those occasions.
Today's text warns that true Wisdom is to discover the limits of one's intelligence and to learn how the physical and emotional can weigh one down.
Prayer is the answer and remedy - prayer, not prayers. Prayers have a place, of course, but prayer has precedence. It is after all, spiritual breathing.
The prayerful individual or environment, as in local churches, will always attract the Spirit of God.
The Gospel for today (Luke 14:25-33) puts 'teeth' into the Wisdom teaching. One who has decided to follow Christ must be ready to renounce his possessions, his dearest relationships, even his life. This is true Wisdom: to ignore it is to fail to recognise that Our Lord, and His way, must be preferred to everyone and everything.
It would like a hard ask, but you lose nothing and gain everything of real value. The language used is dramatic and provocative. (Be careful of the word in today's verses!). To see things in perspective is preferable, I think, to 'hate'.
Jesus asks all disciples of all generations, to 'see in perspective' their loved ones and family affairs. He shows everyone that they will never be free to respond to God's many invitations to change, if they refuse to rethink, in an entirely new, Gospel way, about family relationships, the use of time and resources.
Don't forget that Luke published these sayings of Jesus at a time, very clearly in Christian history, when disciples were edgy about the coming of the Lord at Judgement Day. Luke needed to refocus his own faith community's attention on the day-to-day contact with the Lord through Sacraments, Scripture readings, preaching and discerning the 'signs of the time'.
Jewish families had been split apart as some members converted to Jesus and the Gospel way. Some converts were tempted to return, to former, normal relationships. Luke challenged them to reconsider their priorities in the light of the Gospel.

Sunday, 16 September 2007

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time - I will rise and go to my Father

Even if God opened all Australian detention centres so all refugees could go free, into mainstream Australian society, human nature would soon take its course. Sooner or later, squabbles would break out. 'Conditions in camp were better than here in Melbourne', or 'the camp administrators were more hospitable then the local council and neighbours'.
Just so, no sooner had the Hebrews been freed from Egyptian slavery than people forgot God's part in their rescue, the great escape.
They complained that Moses had spent too long on Mount Sinai in dialogue with God: They were impatient. They wanted to get going from the deserted place. They even persuaded weak Aaron to provide comforting images of lesser Gods to carry on the trek.
Bulls sometimes depicted 'Gods' in that part of the world. At other times, statues were made of 'God' figures standing on bull's backs.
The only God, known as Yahweh, had done enough for Israel to feel bound to him, but he seemed to have deserted them and to have even taken Moses from them.
In today's first reading (Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14), we have God's reaction to Israel's petulance. He didn't like it all! The point for us, however, is that Moses loved God, but he also loved his people.
Later, Joshua, Isaiah and Jesus would become Moses - like figures in their own time and places. These three, and several others besides, would 'go-between' God and His people to win forgiveness for collective sin.
Responsorial Psalm 50 joins our two main readings: 'I will rise and go to my father'.
Our Gospel passage (Luke 15:1-32) follows easily the theme struck in Exodus. Once again, Luke takes full advantage of a meal setting. This time, the main players are Jesus and some Pharisees, guardians of the national identity, who thought of themselves as exclusive, righteous brethren. These men had no time at all for sinners, those who broke or ignored religious laws. They certainly had no time for non-Jews, gentiles. So, Our Lord presented them with an open-ended parable, recorded for us in today's Gospel.
The Pharisees would be left to decide whether they would enter the Father's house to rejoice with the family or stay outside to criticise the erratic behaviour of the elderly head of the family.
This is a parable as much about the forgiving father as about a prodigal son. There's no doubt the younger son had 'sinned' by becoming, almost a gentile by eating with pigs. (The elder son always came out on top in similar educative stories of that era.)
Jesus lived dangerously, reversing so many customary outcomes of contemporary religious cautionary tales. Pharisees were in no doubt as to Jesus' implied criticism of them.
Conversion on the part of the younger son is, of course, an important part of the story. Equally striking is God's lavish response portrayed in the person of the father of both sons.
We now know that God's grace opened the Kingdom to all comers. So, too, must our Church be Catholic, open to all, especially the marginalised.

Sunday, 23 September 2007

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time - The best investment is in the poor

Money is such a tyrant, and the use of it such a test of sincerity of heart, that prophets, like Amos, always saw it as one of the chief areas for the practice of true religion.
A person, who exploits the poor, cannot serve God. Amos wrote in the 8th Century BC, when the gap between rich and poor was widening alarmingly throughout Palestine.
I recall a quote from ‘The Revolt of the Elites', by Christopher Lasch, which puts Amos’ concerns in a contemporary setting. ' George Bush’s (Snr) wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed, as in a flash of lightning, the chasm that divides, the privileged classes from the rest of the nation’.
Amos records, in our first reading (Amos 8:4-7), shock at some of the shady practices employed by the wealthy against the poor – ' lowering the bushel, raising the shekel'.
Religious non-trading days, like the Sabbath, were a hindrance to the already rich merchants.
They resented not being able to dupe the poor 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We moderns have given this practice a name – ‘economic rationalism’.
Credit unions, co-operatives and bartering systems sprang up earlier last century as creative attempts by modern prophets to fight unfair commercial profit making. Australians designed ' trade unions' 100 years ago to keep a watch on profiteers.
The Catholic Church has a fine tradition to uphold in the face of ruthless secular plundering of the poor.
In today’s Gospel (Luke 16:1-13), the argument is continued. When salvation is offered by God, every effort must be made to grasp it, with as much understanding and shrewdness as the steward showed for business and his own future.
A modern parable could be designed around the unscrupulous activities of some well-known Australian entrepreneurs, of recent memory.
As for money, Catholics have surely by now, learned the moral lesson that the best investment is in the poor. I was impressed, just the other day to hear a young and successful businessman say: ' I’m taking a sabbatical. I’m spending a year with my wife and children. Money-making is killing my soul'.
So, apart from a salutary warning about money, today’s parable, from Luke also encourages a proper use of money.
Luke’s early Christian communities were confused about money. Conversion to Jesus and Gospel values had disrupted many Jewish families. Family stability then, as now, was necessary for economic health. Early Christians, many separated from families, had developed communitarianism as the cure for economic poverty.
They were not owners but administrators of pooled wealth for the good of all members of local churches and dependent poor.
Catholic parishes must be smart, ‘best practice’, and compassionate administrators of parish resources.

Sunday, 30 September 2007

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Greed is not good

As I reported last week, there was, in the 8th Century BC, an enormous gap developing between the rich and the poor of Palestine, Gods own country. Amos came from ‘the bush’ where people controlled their own lives. They had access to natural resources. They lived off the land. Not so in the towns and cities. Consumerism even then was, the prevailing socio-economic condition.
A few people became ‘filthy’ rich, making exorbitant profits from goods and services.
There were no immediate military threats to Jewish security, at that time. The real enemy, greed, was within, God’s own country. And, that enemy would destroy God’s people, if left unchecked. Sounds like one of Bin Laden’s denunciations, doesn’t it?
It was Amos’ job to ‘blow the whistle’ on the corrupt upper classes of the Jews (Amos 6:1, 4-7). ‘The sprawlers’ revelry is over!’
In our own day, many Catholic men and women are following Amos’ footsteps.
The Catholic Worker movement, founded earlier last century in the USA, by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, keeps alive the message of Amos’ Greed is not good’.
Local parishes have a providential chance to take sides, non-violently, against greed and in support of the ever increasing poor, not just ‘money’ poor but ‘access’ poor.
Our Gospel passage (Luke 16: 19-31) focuses even more starkly than Amos on the problem of a rich person seeking God’s kingdom. Luke’s parable is a graphic re-telling of the ‘sermon on the mount’.
However, the harshest view of the rich man, cast in modern terms, would go something like this: In several countries, the privileged minorities have not only taken over the table to which all citizens are entitled – political influence, law and culture – but, they have also, organized the country’s economy in a way that suits only them. Nation States seem to run the world. The market does. They have even eliminated local industries and job opportunities. Their country’s economic independence enables them to feast every day while condemning millions of Lazaruses to unemployment and, consequently, to being progressively marginalised until they die of hunger and destitution.
These sentiments come, not from Karl Marx, but from Catholic writers in Latin America, Africa and the Philippines!
In a reversal of social order, in our parable the poor man has a name, Lazarus. The rich man is faceless. In another reversal, Lazarus is surrounded in heaven by angels and friends. The rich man, who hadn’t even noticed Lazarus at the secure gate of his estate, is all alone in Hell!
Catholic dioceses and parishes are called to ensure that they do not commit the sin of ignoring Lazarus. We could do so at our own eternal peril.

Sunday, 7 October 2007

27th Sunday of Ordinary Time - We can’t accomplish our projects alone

Our first reading, from Temple prophet Habukkuk (Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4), was written while the Chaldeans were marching on Jerusalem. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Jewish King Joachim, was ruling God’s people with an iron fist. Locals asked Habakkuk’s help. Habukkuk carried out his responsibility, and we have today his question and one of God’s answers.
‘Read the signs of the times,’ God told Habakkuk. The local political chaos would be solved, once and for all, when the Chaldeans entered Jerusalem and overthrew Joachim.
It’s probably not what the locals wanted to hear but they had, after all, asked for a divine answer. (What would God’s answer be to all the prayers offered up, all over the world, on the anniversary of 9/11? George Bush’s answer was to launch military campaign 'Operation Infinite Justice').
Jeremiah would continue Habakkuk’s style in a later period of terror emanating from Babylon. Paul would have the same task in the face of hostility from fellow Jews and foreign Romans.
Australian secular democracy, of its nature, encourages conformism, an impossible situation for those citizens who espouse Gospel values towards indigenous people and Muslims, for example.
In today’s Gospel (Luke 17:5-10), faith in God is again presented as paramount for true disciples. Luke was giving a short treatise on faith and good works.
Faith doesn’t give us power to plant a mulberry tree in the ocean, nor does it, on the other hand tell us to regard our efforts as useless. The general lesson is clear. We can’t accomplish our projects alone: we need communion with God and other people.
The other parable of the ‘worthless’ servant may well have been aimed at the Pharisee sect. These men measured their rights and their value to God in such a way as to make them appear to be God’s servants. In fact, they were incapable of giving good service to God or His people.
To their self-assurance and calculation of merit, Jesus referred the pure and simple faith of these poor people looked down upon by the Pharisees.
Yet it was just those ‘little ones’ who had unconditional confidence in God.
Is it stretching the parable too far to make it fit the modern relationship between catholic laity and clerical leadership?
‘It is sometimes easy to forget that by far the greater part of Catholic life is lived out in Catholic parishes, not in committees, conferences, councils and conclaves’, (The Tablet!).
As we advertise in Melbourne for lay people to assume more and more positions of responsibility in parishes, we take a giant step towards the dignity bestowed by God on those lay people, who after all, are the vast majority of members of the ‘Catholic Church’.

Sunday, 14 October 2007

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time - God wants universalism to pervade His faith community

The two books of Kings were written in a period of 400 years of Jewish history, from Solomon’s death to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, 578 BC.
These four centuries of the Kings are the most important in sacred history because, during that period, God raised up the prophets from among his people.
Maybe a better title would be ‘Books of the Prophets!’ There is great precision throughout these books. Jewish decadence of wealth and power as recorded in these writings mustn’t distract us from discovering how, through trials, persecutions and difficulties of all kinds, Jewish faith grew to the point of reaching, in the great prophets, a sublimity and clarity which only Jesus Christ would bring still further.
Today’s first reading (2 Kings 5:14-17) is such an example of this developing spiritual maturity. The context, however, is spiritually primitive.
Naaman was a Syrian general. He believed ‘Gods’ were territorial beings and that prophets could elicit divine favours by lengthy and mysterious rituals. He almost ‘blew’ his chances of a cure for a serious skin disorder by scoffing at Elisha’s lack of finesse in the healing business. Luckily, he backed down and was rewarded with a cure.
We learn from this incident that God wants universalism to pervade His faith community. Foreigners, even enemies, must be welcomed by that faith community.
Elisha took us part of the way down the road of spiritual maturity as developed by the prophets, not the priests, hundreds of years BC.
Jesus took us all of the way in his unique ride as messiah, saviour and redeemer.
The cure of the ten lepers highlights this point. By using words “Take pity on us” – usually addressed by Jews to God – the lepers recognize Jesus as someone special, even the saviour, the messiah of God.
By sending the lepers to the Temple priests, as required by the health regulations of the Book of Leviticus, as if already healed, Jesus tested their faith. They could have shown gratitude there and then, but were enslaved to ritual and rules imposed by the spirituality immature clerical system.
Only one returned to thank the true priest of the new spiritually mature covenant, Jesus of Nazareth. That sole returnee was a Samaritan an outside as far as the clerical system was concerned, but in fact, spiritually superior by lack of coercion from ritualism and legalism.
As in our first reading (Luke 17: 11-19), universalism is revealed as close to God’s heart.
We still meet Christians who resemble the nine lepers. They practice religion keenly, but are incapable of contemplation. They take communion frequently, but cannot give thanks. Their ethic is narrow, turned inward; scruple and detail bedevil their moral performance.
Their God is a bookkeeper! (Guide for the Christian Assembly, Glenstal Bible Missal!).

Sunday, 21 October 2007

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth

In the 13th Century BC, nomads, descendants of Abraham and Jacob, were in and out of Egypt, home of one of the great contemporary civilizations and, even, known-world superpower. One of those nomadic groups was, in fact, fleeing under the leadership of Moses, from slavery. Mythic fact or historical fact, this is a pivot event in the human story. Moses was their guide and prophet who taught them about the God who had intervened in his life, as he shepherded sheep in the Sinai desert.
In the Oasis of Kadesh, Moses’ group joined others of their race, all of whom accepted the Mosaic Law. Not far from Kadesh at Rephidim, Moses adopted a pro-active, military-style operation against one of the local clans, Amelikites, followers of an animist deity (or two).
Some of the other Hebrew tribes migrated peacefully into Palestine, mingling with the local clans and even, accepting local religious practices.
Not so, Moses. Our first reading (Exodus 17:8-13) provides us with an example of his method of dealing with locals who opposed this divinely inspired march into Palestine.
The real point in this episode, for us Catholics, is the spiritual role played by Moses while Joshua led the military action.
We learn that prayer plays an equally important part in the lives of ‘true believers’ – as does action.
Of course, this is a primitive example of the power of prayer. But, we have learned these Old Testament incidents, not for the colourful details, but for the heart of the matter.
It would be Jesus of Nazareth who purified Old Testament images as, indeed, he does in today’s Gospel passage.
Our responsorial psalm joins today’s two main readings: ‘Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth’.
Our Gospel excerpt begins with Jesus giving an Old Testament example of how prayer works (Luke 18:1-8) – at least, that’s what most of his audience thought. All you have to do, according to this example, is keep on badgering God. He’s sure to give in.
But, on other occasions, Jesus would criticise roundly this popular style of prayer. He, also, denounced religious officials for teaching people to pray long, loud and in public. But, now, he revealed an all-loving God who could do nothing else but hear his people cry out day and night.
If the unjust judge would listen, eventually, how much more would our loving Father take notice!
For spiritually mature Christians prayer is basically a protest.
A protest because war triumphs over peace, because a few privileged rich people trample upon the masses of the poor and natural disasters kill the innocent, as well as the guilty.
Through this prayer, seen as protest, we enter into communion with the God of patience. But, through this special, patient relationship with God, our cries of protest-type prayer are slowly but surely, translated into action.
When we pray together at Sunday Mass that the lonely will be comforted, we protest against local loneliness over which we have some control. So, prayer must lead to action by those who pray. Otherwise we have reverted to the primitive religious attitude that God will do everything for us.

Sunday, 28 October 2007

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time - We are all sons and daughters of God

Our first reading (Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-19) is from a book called Ecclesiaticus or Sirach (after the author) written about 200 BC. The author, Ben Sira, was well heeled and well travelled. He was a sensitive, new age Jew who fossicked among the new age wisdom of the Greeks, filched whatever suited his own staunch faith, and taught young Jewish men to live as proud Jews in a modern world. (Abu Bakir Bashir would claim to be doing just that for young Muslims in Indonesia).
Today’s reading is about his recommended attitudes towards people who had a special niche in God’s heart – the oppressed, the widow and the orphan. Throughout the Old Testament, people judged prophets to be genuine or false depending on their espousal of such attitudes.
Two hundred years later, Jesus of Nazareth would preach and practice such attitudes – to perfection! Two thousand years later, Christians are judged by secular society using the same standard.
Secular societies, in the so-called western, liberal democratic style, have institutionalised love and service for the poor and oppressed in what has been called contemptuously, the ‘Nanny State’.
The prevailing, philosophy of economic rationalism shocked by the September 11th incident in the US, is taking a hard-nosed look at the affordability of state welfare programmes. Non-government agencies, feted in the US, are in Australia, left to care for those who fall, or are thrust, through the welfare net. I know. I chair two such NGO’s.
Catholics will have to tackle anew, in a prophetic, confronting way, the self-sacrificing love of the oppressed, the widow and the orphan.
While Jesus admired the Pharisee sect for the loyal way its members defended the Jewish religion against all subversives, He consistently opposed their claim to be the best and finest example of God’s own way to salvation. He once thundered: 'Listen to their preaching but, for God’s sake, don’t follow their example, because they themselves don’t practice what they preach'. Sadly, the Pharisees took upon themselves the credit for their ‘model’ lifestyles: they thought they no longer needed God’s mercy because their good deeds would force God to reward them.
Today’s Gospel passage (Luke 18: 9-14) highlights this Pharisee attitude. He came to church convinced he was OK with God. But, he wasn’t! The local tax collector, on the other hand, was a gazetted sinner. Known as ‘publican’, this man knew he wasn’t OK with the local parishioners, but he threw himself on God’s mercy. He did, however, go home OK with God.
When Catholics gather for Mass on Sunday, they are all equal in God’s sight, thanks to Jesus, not thanks to their individual rating as observant or practicing Catholics. Through our union with the Risen Lord, we are all sons and daughters of God.
Not long ago, our way of condemning a single mother, an adulterer, our paternalistic way of referring to non-practicing and non-Catholics, while forgetting that as Christians we are all equal, was another form of Pharisaism.
Such attitudes, alien to the Gospel need exorcism.

Sunday, 4 November 2007

31st Sunday of Ordinary Time - Everyone and everything is sacred or special

'Is nothing sacred anymore?' is a question asked by many, over the last thirty years. Certainly it’s a question asked by many since September 11th 2001.
That’s the puzzle before the eyes of anyone searching the Old Testament for clues to understanding Jesus of Nazareth and his gospel of ‘everyone and everything is sacred or special’.
Our first reading (Wisdom 11:22 12:2) is from the pen of a Greek-speaking Jewish intellectual living in Alexandria, Egypt, probably in the last half of the first century BC. Here were the Jews, back again in Egypt, still suffering alienation, while the unbelieving locals seemed to be blessed by God! How come, asked the ‘believing’ author?
He was beginning to grasp the spiritual insight that God may well have chosen the Jews for a specialised task, while that same God loved and was merciful to all men, women and children of whatever colour, creed or race! (The best of the Koran teaches just that).
Jews in Egypt probably lived in ghettos to support each other in an oppressive environment.
They would have found it difficult to think well of the Egyptian dominant society with its strange religious practices, like animal worship.
Their main concern was self-preservation, which opposed the universalism of the best of the Old Testament.
Modern Catholics are called to avoid the ghetto mentality in the face of the dominant philosophies within Australian secular society. We must refuse the invitation to step back into ‘sacristy’ Catholicism and choose, instead, to take our place, without fear or favour, in God’s own secular milieu.
As we have learned to expect, our gospel (Luke 19:1-10) develops further the best of the Old Testament spirituality. The context is the providential meeting between Jesus and an extreme ‘outsider’, Zacchaeus – an incident provided only by Luke.
It fits very well with Luke’s own views on wealth and about Jesus’ relationship with the ‘outsiders’ or gazetted sinners.
The Jewish leadership had already made up its mind about who the sinners were. They were the hand that signed the paper of excommunication from Jewish society. Zacchaeus was on that list. The Jericho citizens, well educated in narrowness by the Pharisees, expected Jesus, a prophetic person, to toe the party line. Our Lord, however, feared neither Pharisee nor citizen. He spotted Zacchaeus, discriminated against not only because he was a despised tax collector, but also because he was height impaired. Zacchaeus had to climb a tree to catch a glimpse of the man he admired.
Not only did Jesus do the politically incorrect thing of happily eating with Zacchaeus and associates. He even declared that Zacchaeus was a true spiritual descendant of Abraham!
He was even superior to other Jews because he, on the spot, compensated everyone he had fleeced.
Catholics need to look outside their churches for the many men and women of good will who required only a welcome to joyfully live the good lives, even if they don’t join us in church.

Sunday, 11 November 2007

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - The individual is immortal

In the middle of the second century BC, the Syrians took Palestine from the tolerant and benevolent Greeks. It was the beginning of another long, dark night of the Jewish soul.
The Maccabee family led a revolt against the Syrians and, as our first reading (2 Macc 7:1-2, 9-14) shows, were massacred. (To the Jews, the Maccabees were freedom fighters – to the Syrians, they were terrorists!)
Earlier Old Testament books taught that God continually tested Israel as a community and He would resurrect her as a community.
But, another book, Daniel, had indicted that faithful individuals would also be raised from the dead and rewarded with a place in God’s kingdom.
The book of Wisdom, much closer to Jesus’ times, would also teach resurrection for faithful individuals.
Recent media coverage of ‘Jihad’ or holy war waged by Islamic people against the satanic West and the ancient enemy Israel have stunned secular humanists. How could hordes of people, young and old, be willing to die, absolutely certain God will raise each warrior to a glorious heavenly reward?
Catholics, especially during November, observe an ancient and venerable tradition of prayer for the dead, predating Islam.
Trust in the resurrection of the individual true believer keeps many a Catholic alive and spiritually robust in the face of trial and tribulation.
We have a relevant mission to show and tell about our great expectation that good individuals will be marching on long after the apparent disaster of death.
Our Gospel passage (Luke 20:27-38) shows Luke’s unique way of expressing life after death. He was writing for Greek Christians. Their culture inclined them to believe in the immortality of the soul as something natural for humans.
Luke clarified for them that the other life wasn’t natural but a gift from God to those worthy of it. Luke used Jesus’ conflict with the Sadducee sect to teach his ‘parishioners’ that life after death was real but inexplicable.
We, like the Sadducees, want to know too many details about life and death. We must be satisfied with, we must have faith in the central revelation that the individual is immortal.
This conviction drives Catholics to expouse the causes of the unborn and the incurably ill.
USA and Australian societies are in the throes, before and after election campaigns and Christopher Reeves death, of debating both these issues. Euthanasia and abortion are not mentioned in the Australian party political campaigns. They are, however, important on the political agenda in the USA.
Jesus confronted the Sadducees with their own scriptures, which taught, clearly, that God created humans to live forever.
Catholics, however, can’t rely on scriptural texts to persuade a mainly secular society.
We need to point to the unwavering testimony of innumerable good people whose lives are driven by the absolute conviction that death is not the end but the beginning of everlasting life.
So many mobile phone calls on September 11th from people about to die, were about love as everlasting.

Sunday, 18 November 2007

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice

The Babylonian captivity was over. Persia was now in charge of the Middle East. Jewish prisoners of war were released from detention. (Iraq, Iran and Israel in 2004. Same struggle – different generation). Some stayed in Babylon to take advantage of the benign, inclusive rule of the Persian leadership. Others returned to Palestine. They expected to be welcomed with open arms.
Not so. Jews who had escaped deportation, didn’t take easily to the influx of patriots whose arrival would challenge the comfort, such as it was, of the ‘stay at home citizens’. Many such citizens had married foreign wives, thus weakening their Jewish faith. The Temple administration had slackened off leading to lack of discipline in worship and religious practices.
Malachi, not a name but a code word meaning ‘my messenger’, preached hope and eternal reward for those Jews who had kept the faith against all odds (Malachi 3:19-20). He, also, denounced non-practicing Jews and warned them of eternal damnation. Malachi opted for fire as ultimate punishment because, in the Noah legend, God had promised never again to use water to destroy humanity.
Five hundred years later, Jesus would promise fire and water as the spiritual means of renewing Jewish hearts and minds with His Gospel.
Catholics have inherited that belief in the fire of the spirit and the water of the sacraments.
Responsorial Psalm 97 links our two main readings: 'The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice'.
In our Gospel passage (Luke 21:5-19), Jesus predicted the total collapse of the Jewish system. He had delivered God’s message that the Jews must turn from nationalism and follow His universalist Gospel. They were called to conversion so they could again be God’s chosen instrument of justice and peace. This message was rejected as not politically correct – the messenger was executed!
The Romans lost patience with Jewish intransigence and destroyed the spiritual centre of Judaism, the Temple in Jerusalem. Worship ceased. The priesthood was disbanded. The Jews scattered to the four corners of the earth. The world, as they had known it for centuries since Solomon, had ended.
But, the new ‘world’, known to Christians as ‘the Kingdom’, took shape almost immediately as the apostles and disciples found themselves urged by the Spirit to leave Palestine and bring the Gospel to all cultures.
The Church, pilot light of the Kingdom, has plodded away at the task known as evangelisation. We modern Catholics may think 2000 years to be an inordinately long time. It isn’t. It is a good start.
Eighteen hundred years before