Tuesday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 4, 2020

The Feast of St. John Vianney

Luke 12, 35–40 

Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands. And you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching. Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them. And if he shall come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye, that if the householder did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not the Son of man will come. 

Yesterday I wrote and posted a reflection on the Gospel reading for Tuesday instead of for Monday, getting mixed up on the date.  It’s just as well, though, because, due to the current system for the lectionary, Monday’s Gospel reading was exactly the same as Sunday’s.  For today’s reflection, I would like to look at Luke 12, 35-40, the Gospel reading for August 8, according to the traditional Missal.

In order to understand the first part of the reading, we ought to review how a Jewish wedding proceeded in the time of Jesus.  The actual marriage really began with the agreement between the families involved, particularly the parents of the bride and groom.  At that time, a celebration was planned, which might take place weeks or months in the future.  Jesus attended such a celebration at Cana at the beginning of his ministry.  At the end of the celebration, which was held at the house of the bride’s family, the groom would lead the bride back to his home, where the couple would set up housekeeping.  This took place in the late evening.  Often, the bride and groom lived in the same city or town before they married, but otherwise they would live in neighboring localities.  The servants in the groom’s house would light lamps and open the gates and doors for the arriving couple and a short celebration would ensue there.  Because the time of the arrival of the couple was uncertain due to various factors, especially travel times if the families lived in different cities, the servants had to stay awake late at night and keep watch for them. In this way we can understand the marriage agreement and the celebration at the bride’s house as the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, and the return to the groom’s house as the great judgment.

“Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands.”  That is, we ought to wait in a state of constant readiness at all times, properly washed, dressed, and equipped.  The oil lamp which we hold signifies our faith and good works.  “That when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.”  It is his house, though maintained by servants.  These servants exist in order to serve him.  The joys of the master are their joys, and likewise his sorrows.  In order to share in his joy, they must perform their role for him.  The vigilant servant shows this desire to share in the joy of his master by opening right away to him.  “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching.”  This can mean that it is the blessed servants who are waiting for the Lord as well as that the servants will be blessed by the Lord when he comes.  The wicked servants are not watching but indulging themselves beforehand.  The servants will be blessed by the joy of the Lord’s coming and by his reward for them.

A bizarre element always shows up in the Lord’s parables, and here it is: “Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them.”  The master of the house now acts as though this were the wedding of his servants, and he proceeds to wait on them.  He seems to forget that he is the one to whom honor and service are rightly due.  He seems, in fact, to act in an irrational manner.  All the same, it is his house, these are his servants, and he is free to act in any way he desires.  Of course, this would greatly astonish the servants, who would hardly know how to act in turn.  But the master puts them at their ease, shows them their places at the table, and brings out the feast and the wine for them to celebrate.  And all this, simply because they were doing their job.  They would say to their Lord, “We are unprofitable servants for we have only done that which we ought to do” (Luke 17, 10).  But the Lord will answer them, “Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you” (Proverbs 9, 5).  “And if he shall come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants.”  The second and third watches would have occurred between midnight and before dawn.  The Lord is saying that those who persevere late into the night of this life, through tribulation and persecution, will be doubly rewarded.  

“But this know ye, that if the householder did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch and would not suffer his house to be broken open.”  Here, it seems that St. Matthew has added a saying of Jesus from another occasion.  He does this sometimes in his Gospel.  Outside of his descriptions of the major events in the Lord’s life, Matthew tends to record our Lord’s words and actions according to theme rather than chronologically, as a historian would do.  It is also possible that the Lord paused for a moment after the parable of the master’s return from the wedding feast and then took a different approach to make his point.  Now, the passage about the thief and the householder likens the Lord to a thief.  To put it in other words, if a mortal man knew when the Lord was coming (at the time of death), he would “keep watch”, occupying himself with good works and prayer.  He would not “suffer his house to be broken open”, that is, he would not allow himself to be caught unprepared.  “Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not the Son of man will come.”  Historically, people like the Blessed Virgin Mary, her husband Joseph, Peter, James, John, Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and Nicodemus, showed themselves as ready as anyone could be for the coming of the Lord among us.  The larger number of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin did not.  In our own time we can look around and see so many folks evidently dedicated solely to secular pursuits, and even folks who declare themselves atheists, agnostics, or, vaguely, “spiritual”.  These have no readiness.  We find this true even among those nominally Christian.  Let us busy ourselves with the Lord’s work so that we may one day have him serve us at his banquet in heaven.

We celebrate the feast of St. John Vianney today and ask him to pray for the complete dedication of priests to God so that all who look upon them may see Christ the Lord, as once French folks saw the Lord in him.