Friday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, February 5, 2021

The Feast of St. Agnes

Hebrews 13:1-8

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels. Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body. Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterers. Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never forsake you or abandon you. Thus we may say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”  Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

At the end of his Letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul urges certain actions, but just as importantly, he urges an attitude, a habitual way of thinking that informs and guides a person’s thoughts and behavior.  Paul provides a sort of heading for this section: “Let brotherly love continue.”  He uses this device in his other letters in order to talk more specifically about the duties of Christians according to their various states in life.  Here, he speaks more of the duties of the Christian towards others who may even be strangers.  He says, “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.”  He has in mind Abraham and Tobias, but also those who entertained the Apostles and the Lord himself.  These words are a gentle and clever reminder that other people, especially other Christians, may very well be messengers from God, whether they are aware of it or not.  We should receive them as though they were doing us a favor, and ponder what message God may be sending us through them.  Perhaps it is a very simple one.

“Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body.”  These to be remembered are suffering for Christ and are chained in prisons or are being shunned and have had their property confiscated.  To “be mindful” of them means more than to think about them once in a while, but to seek them out, if possible, and to assist them in practical ways.  This brings to mind the words of St. James: “And if a brother or sister be naked and want daily food: and one of you say to them: Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself” (James 2, 15-17).  And we do this not merely because we have beliefs in common with certain others but because we are fellow members in the Body of Christ.

“Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterers.”  Paul refers here to the teaching of Christ on divorce and remarriage, and on the doctrine of marriage as a state which God himself blesses.  It is a union which serves to remind us all of the union of the soul with God.  “Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have.”  Sages and philosophers from the times of the Greeks till now urge simplicity in life, but the Lord teaches that we should embrace this for the sake of preaching his Gospel and also in order to live it.  The more things we have, the more we have to worry about.  And the more we have, the more we want.  Overindulgence in possessions leads to the attitude that we can take care of ourselves, and this leads to atheism.  On the other hand, the practice of simplicity and self-denial leads us to experience the truth of, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”  

“Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you.”  Paul is thinking here of St. James, the son of Zebedee, whom Herod killed, and St. Stephen, in whose martyrdom he himself took part, as well as others of the faithful who were hunted down and killed in the first persecution of the Christians by the Jewish authorities.  “Remember them”, that is, again, not merely think of them from time to time, but keep them in mind.  “Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”  Consider how Stephen received a vision as he was being stoned and saw heaven open to him, and how so many others died for Christ, persevering heroically in their torments.  We who live in these later times have thousands of saints to emulate, among them the young virgin Agatha, who wanted only to be the spouse of Christ.  

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  His faithfulness to us never changes.  We should never vacillate in our faith in him.