Thursday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 15, 202o

Luke 11:47-54

The Lord said: “Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building. Therefore, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood! Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

“Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed.”  This may be one of the more confusing statements our Lord makes.  When he tells parables, we are able to understand at least part of what he means.  But it seems very strange that he speaks forebodingly of those who build the tombs of the dead, especially of the prophets.  The reason for our perplexity has to do with not understanding how the Jews thought, long ago.  We westerners naturally take for granted that there is only one way to think, and we have it, but that is not so.  Let us simply consider that the Hebrew language is written so that the main verb usually comes at the very head of a sentence and that the subject comes at some point after that.  Very different from our sentences, which tend to begin with the subject!  We ought to wonder how differently people must think whose native language is ancient Hebrew.  Now, the reason Jesus speaks the way he does to the builders of the tombs of the prophets is that these are for the prophets “whom your fathers killed.”  In ancient times, and very much so in the Ancient Near East, you were your ancestors.  In fact, because one’s forefathers came before, they were greater than you.  A person might live long afterwards but he was responsible for the deeds of his forebears as though he had committed them himself, for good or ill.  That was how covenants worked.  Was a person then doomed by the fact of his ancestry?  No, in that he could repent from whatever sins his ancestors had committed, and act in ways that made clear they were not the children of their sinful predecessors.  

So, what would Jesus have these people do, resolve not to build the tombs of the prophets?  We should consider that the prophets had been buried a long time before, by their families or followers.  What the Jews of the Lord’s time were doing was to rebury the bones of the prophets in new tombs, or, at the least, to erect monuments over the existing graves, as people might do to honor soldiers killed during a war after that war is over.  But these Jews do not have the right to do this — it belongs to the family members of the prophet to do so if they wish.  And who are these builders of monuments?  Not members of the family, but the descendants of the ones who killed them in the first place.  Jesus points out that by erecting monuments like this, they show themselves to be the descendants of the murderers.  They seem to take glory in their killing by the very fact that they are taking over the relics of those whom their ancestors killed.  What they should do instead is to read the words of those prophets, heed them, and then fast and pray.  Instead, they try to act as though they themselves — particularly the Pharisees — are the descendants of the prophets who alone can rightly interpret their words.  

The Lord insists, “Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!”  Now, we can think to ourselves that the Lord’s words pertained to the Jews of his time, but the Hebrew word for “generation” does not necessarily mean the traditional forty year period.  It could also mean, more generally, an “age” or “epoch” — some period of time with a marked beginning and ending.  Since we are living in the last days, as Christ and the Apostles repeatedly tell us, we can consider that the Lord Jesus is also speaking to all of us living since he came to the earth.  We “build the memorials” of the prophets when we fail to heed their message of repentance and preparation.  Furthermore, we think that if we had been living in the Lord’s day, we would have followed him faithfully.  But let us be honest.  How faithful are we to him now?  We have his words in the Gospels, the testimonies of the Apostles, the teaching of the Church, the illumination provided by the lives of the saints.  We have the Sacrifice of the Mass which perpetuates the effects of our redemption, his Real Presence on our altars and in our tabernacles.  And we do not have to look hard to see his miracles in our lives.  By our acts of faithlessness, by our sins and rebelliousness, we as good as adopt as our ancestors those who put the Lord on the Cross with their own hands.

So let us reject the ways of our “ancestors” and make our ways those of the Lord Jesus, and we will not hear his “Woe!” directed at us when he comes in his glory.