Friday in the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, October 18, 2024

2 Timothy 4, 10-17

Beloved: Demas, enamored of the present world, deserted me and went to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke is the only one with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is helpful to me in the ministry. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas, the papyrus rolls, and especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. You too be on guard against him, for he has strongly resisted our preaching.  At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it.

St. Luke is thought to have been born in Roman-occupied Syria at about the same time St. Paul was born in Tarsus.  Luke must have come from a well-to-do family because he received a good education, as is evidenced by the very correct Greek of his Gospel and his interest in history.  Paul calls him “the beloved physician” in Colossians 4, 14, so his father might well have practiced medicine, leading him to follow in his footsteps.  Born and raised a Gentile, Luke became a Christian around the time that St. Peter was preaching in Antioch, his hometown.  He became associated with the Apostles after that, and especially with other early converts such as St. Barnabas and St. Mark.  When St. Paul began his missions outside Israel, Luke went with him.  He wrote his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles during this time.  After Paul was beheaded in Rome, Luke continued to preach in Greek-speaking lands.  He is believed to have died in the city of Thebes.

His Gospel is very deliberately aimed at a Gentile-Christian audience, having as its stated purpose the fortifying of the faith of these early believers.  These folks had a great interest in portents, and so Luke spends much time on the beginnings of the lives of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus.  Because the people for whom he was writing also came from a culture that appreciated Plato’s Dialogues, he included very many of the Lord’s parables, especially the longer ones.  Luke also paid great attention to getting the chronology of the Lord’s life right.  He says himself in his prologue to his Gospel that he had studied earlier accounts of the life of the Lord in preparing to write his own.  Doing so, he would have noticed how the Jewish Christians tended to write their “lives of Christ” according to topic rather than according to the preferred Greek method of correct chronology.  We find this very pronounced in St. Matthew’s Gospel, for instance.  Putting the words and deeds of the Lord Jesus in order and in good Greek would have gone far to captivate his readers and to lead them to a greater devotion to the Lord.

It is very much worthwhile sitting down and reading the Gospel of St. Luke straight through.  It would only take a couple of hours and this is a small price to pay for what we will experience in reading it.

 Thursday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 17, 2024

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.

A tomb was cut into the rock on the side of the Mount of Olives.  To enter it, a person descends a staircase also cut from the rock.  The burial chamber itself contained thirty-eight niches where the remains of the deceased were laid.  According to custom, once the bodies had sufficiently decayed, the remaining bones would then be placed in a stone jar called an ossuary, and this would be placed in another part of the tomb.  The niche could then be reused.  This particular tomb is called The Tomb of the Prophets, and was the burial place of the three last Jewish Prophets: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.  They had originally been buried elsewhere in less significant tombs, but the Jews, around the time of Jesus, constructed this new, much grander tomb just outside Jerusalem, and then moved the remains of the Prophets there.  Subsequently, other Jews and, later, Christians, were also buried there.  The site can be visited today.  Also at that time and near Jerusalem there existed the tomb of the Prophet Isaiah (now part of a mosque) and that of Jeremiah.  These tombs are the “memorials” of the Prophets which Jesus mentions in today’s Gospel Reading.

“Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed.”  The Lord does not condemn the construction of these tombs but rather the identity of those who were financing and carrying out their construction, for although they themselves had not killed the Prophets, they bore witness and gave consent to the deeds of their ancestors.  They did this through their refusal to denounce their ancestors for their crimes and to build the tombs not out of remorse and grief but out of family pride.  In fact, they wanted both to be known as belonging to the illustrious families of old, who had killed the Prophets, but also as those who honored in death these same Prophets.  The Lord Jesus shows that the killing and the building of the tombs is practically the same action: “They killed them and you do the building.”  They do not go about in torn clothing and covered with ashes, but with their heads held high.

“I will send to them Prophets and Apostles.”  Even knowing that the murderers of the Prophets and their descendants would kill all the Prophets and Apostles sent to them, God continues to send them so that either they would convert or that they could not complain on the day of judgment that they had not been accorded enough chances to convert.  The Lord Jesus shows that the Father does this in the Parable of the Wedding Feast: “Again he sent other servants, more than the former; and they did to them in like manner” (Matthew 21, 36).  Jesus shows that he does this as well in all the opportunities given to Judas at the Last Supper and even in the Garden of Gethsemane to repent.

“Yes, I tell you.”  The Lord Jesus makes a solemn declaration with these words: this indeed will happen. “This generation will be charged with their blood!”  The Lord charges these builders of the tombs of the Prophets with the murders committed by their fathers because they did not repudiate their crimes.  To be fair, the Lord demands that they essentially cut themselves off from their heritage in doing this, but, by far, “it is better for you that one of thy bodily members should perish, rather than your whole body be cast into hell” (Matthew 5, 29).   The Lord teaches us to hate evil no matter who commits it and to have nothing to do with it, whatever we must do.  

“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.”  The scribes and Pharisees cannot endure the idea that they must repent of anything and so they attack the one who points out their sins and tells them what they already knew, that those with sin cannot be saved.  In the end, their pride would keep them out of heaven.

 Wednesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 16, 2021

Luke 11, 42-46

The Lord said: “Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others. Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honor in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces. Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”  Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”

“You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb.”  In Leviticus 27, 30-32 and Deuteronomy 14, 22-29, the Law commanded the Israelites to tithe — to give up a tenth — certain kinds of produce, but this did not include “of mint and of rue and of every garden herb”.  This is an example of how the Pharisees went beyond the Law in their zeal to obey it.  We see other examples of this in their overly restrictive interpretation of what could and could not be done on the Sabbath and on their insistence that all Jews had to follow the purification laws that the Law only applied to the priests on duty in the Temple.  The Lord concedes the tithing of these little things (“These you should have done”) in order to make his point (“without overlooking the others” — judgment and love for God).  Jesus is accusing the Pharisees of loving their interpretation of the Law while ignoring justice and of not loving God — the God who gave the Law.

“Woe to you Pharisees!”  The Lord delivers these words twice on this occasion, according to St. Luke.  The Lord is using a Hebrew literary device to employ emphasis.  The Greek word translated as “woe” can also be translated as “alas”, implying that the Lord Jesus already foresees their doom.  “You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”  Walking over a grave caused a person to become ritually unclean, to the Jewish understanding.  An unclean grave was an especial peril because a person would not realize his condition and so wind up breaking other laws.  By characterizing the Pharisees as “unseen graves”, Jesus is teaching that not only do they not help others to live according to the Law, but insidiously they cause people to break the Law.

“Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.”  This scholar of the Law was not telling Jesus something he did not know, for most of these scholars were Pharisees, but rather is offering support to the Pharisees whom Jesus had accused of godlessness.  The Lord now turns to these: “You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”  In their obsession with the Law, they had completely put out of their minds its Giver and the reason for the Law in the first place, which was to enable the people to serve their God.  

With their rulings and interpretations the Pharisees and the scholars of the Law had made the Law an obstacle to the service of God.  The Lord came in part not just to restore it but to fulfill it, revealing its full meaning, as he does in the Sermon on the Mount, for instance.  In doing so, he shows how the Law can now not only show how to serve God here on earth but also how it can lead us to virtue and to heaven.

It is so easy for us in living our lives to lose sight of the God who gives us life and to forget the purpose for which he gives it to us.  We should place reminders of him — holy pictures, statues, crucifixes all over, especially in the bedrooms, living rooms, and dining rooms of our houses.  We can also wear crucifixes, scapulars, or blessed medals around our necks and carry rosaries in our pockets and purses.  Most of all, we should cultivate our minds so that we remember God regularly throughout our day.

 Tuesday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 15, 2024

Luke 11, 37-41

After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”

“A Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.”  The Pharisee here had listened to the Lord preach and was sufficiently impressed with him that he asked him over for dinner.  He issued no casual invitation, for providing hospitality for an honored guest, as Jesus was, meant a small feast that would have entailed hard work to prepare.  The invitation may in fact have been meant for dinner on the following day, the main meal of the day coming, as it did, in the afternoon.  The Lord Jesus accepted the invitation.  He always accepted invitations.  He even made as though to go to places to which a Jew did not go, the house of the centurion who had the dying slave, for instance.  He went to houses where he knew he would be treated poorly.  He went to great feasts offered in thanksgiving, as when he dined with Simon the (former) Leper after the raising of Lazarus.  A formal dinner offered the host the opportunity to gain in social status among his peers by the dignity of the guest and by that guest’s approval of the hospitality shown.  The guest gained from the honor shown to him and by the connections and friends he was able to make at the host’s house.  In pursuit of this, the guest tended to adopt an attitude favorable to host and fellow guests alike.  The Lord Jesus, however, is not interested in pleasing anyone or in conforming to any model.  His desire is to save souls.  He does not curb his zeal for souls nor does he moderate his teachings according to the occasion.  Setting ourselves before him is risky to our complacency. 

“He entered and reclined at table to eat.”  These words might seem to describe a very ordinary action, but we must keep in mind that the One who enters this house and reclines at table as though one of us is the Living God, who created heaven and earth, who himself upholds all the universe and provided the food for this dinner.  The others may gaze at him and wonder who he is, but he looks at them and knows them down to their atoms.

“The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.”  Stone water jars held the water thought necessary for the ritual cleansing the Pharisees taught as necessary before eating.  Yet the rule they taught as normative for all Jews did not in fact apply to them.  It applied to the priests in the Temple.  The Pharisees deliberately interpreted this law and many others in order to make the Law seem to confirm their theology.  They thought they were right in doing this because of their certainty in their beliefs.  Down through the ages, humans have poked and prodded, twisted and torn at the Law of God in order to make it justify their ends, but they do this to their own eternal loss.  We are so blessed to know God’s commandments, for him to have revealed them to us, and to be given the grace to follow them.

“Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.”  The Lord compares the Pharisees with cups and dishes, implying that he himself is their potter, who can rightfully judge them.  Cleansing the “outside” means the skin of one’s hands, and, in the spiritual sense, the whole physical body of a person.  “Inside” means one’s interior life, the heart, mind, and soul.  The Lord says in general of the Pharisees that they “are filled with plunder and evil.”  He says “plunder”, that is, taking that does not belong to them — their position as teachers, primarily, but this also refers to their greed.  “Evil”, that is, an evil disposition whereby they look for ways to harm others and build themselves up.  “You fools!”  The Greek here can mean, You senseless men, foolish men, inconsiderate men.  In the context, all three meanings fit.  “Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?”  That is, God knows the whole of each vessel he makes and that when he has finished it and set it down, it is good.  If he looks at it again, so to speak, and sees filth within it, he knows where this has come from.  “But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”  The Lord closes his remonstration with this aid.  Perhaps these words brought to the Pharisee’s mind a familiar verse of the Scriptures: “He who has mercy on the poor, lends to the Lord: and he will repay him” (Proverbs 19, 17).  The Lord says, “Everything will be clean for you” — referring back to the water for the ritual cleansing.  The practice of giving alms, whether physical or spiritual, acts as a bath for the soul.  Alms makes sanctity possible for us.

 Monday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 14, 2024

Luke 11, 29-32

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

According to the Greek text of Matthew 12, 40, the Lord spoke of Jonah as being swallowed by a “huge fish” or “sea monster” for three days, and it is easy to see this as a sign of the Lord’s three days in the tomb before he rose.  Indeed, St. Matthew quotes him as making this connection himself.  St. Mark leaves this out of his account in order to focus on what Jesus says about Jonah as a sign to the people of pagan Nineveh, who had no way of knowing about his time in the fish.  The sign to the Ninevites was that of a foreigner who dared to stand in the streets of their proud city and call upon them to repent or face disaster.  And while the Israelites had a long history of prophets doing much the same thing, this was completely new to the Ninevites.  And, as learn from the Book of Jonah, the king ordered his people to do severe penance so that God might have mercy.

The Lord Jesus points to this sign as the answer to the request of the Pharisees for a sign.  He points to the past to explain the present.  A man, the Incarnate Son,  sent by God the Father from his own country, heaven, to earth in order to preach repentance for sin.  Jesus himself is no sign — he is the reality which the signs of the Old Testament pointed to: “There is something greater than Jonah here.”

Jesus says that an “evil generation” seeks a sign.  It seeks a sign because a sign means the reality has not yet arrived and so there is still more time for sin.  We are living in that “evil generation” even now, the generation that began with the coming of the Lord in the flesh and which will end only when he comes again.  

Let us ever keep before us the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, who handed himself over to death to save us, fulfilling the sign of Jonah, who allowed himself to be thrown overboard to save the sailors on the boat carrying him across the stormy sea.

 The 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 13, 2024

Mark 10, 17–30

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.” He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” Peter began to say to him, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.” 

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” St. Mark translates into Greek the the Aramaic or Hebrew words the Lord, his Apostles, and others in his Gospel used.  Here he tells us the young man who came to Jesus used a word that should be translated using the Greek agathos, which means “(intrinsically) good”.  He does not call the Lord a “skilled” or “helpful” teacher, but something more like “holy” teacher.  The Lord questions him as to his use of good, not denying that it rightfully applies to him, seeking to draw the man out and cause him to verbalize his meaning, but the young man seems to reconsider his statement.  That there is a pause during which the Lord gave the young man a chance to answer him, is clear from the change in subject in the Lord’s words: “No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments.”

The young man addressed Jesus as “good” but then refrained from explaining what he meant.  The Lord shows, in his answer, what it means for a person to be good.  He begins by quoting the Jewish Law: “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.”  Obeying the Law makes a person good.  This “goodness” is sufficient for eternal life.  But the young man feels a deeper calling: “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.”  St. Mark tells us that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”  The Lord looked upon him with evident affection, the way we would at a child trying his best to do something for a little brother or sister.  And then he said to the man, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  Obeying the commandments may make a person good, but voluntary poverty for the sake of following the Lord allows a person to become perfect, as we see Jesus saying in St. Matthew’s account of this event (cf. Matthew 19, 21).  

When the young man walked away sadly because of his attachment to his possessions, the Lord commented, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”  This seriously alarmed the Apostles who had been taught by the Pharisees that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, leading to the widespread belief in Israel that those who would be saved were wealthy.  The Apostles, to this point, had expected that in following the Messiah the temporary poverty they incurred for his sake would be rewarded, when Jesus, as Messiah, came to power.  At that time, they would wield wealth and power, and these would serve as signs of God’s favor of them.  Thus, Peter’s heartfelt cry: “We have given up everything and followed you!”

“There is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age, etc.”  The Lord reassures Peter and the others in terms they understand, yet he means inconceivably more in spiritual terms.  The poverty the Apostles have voluntarily accepted makes them capable of receiving far greater things than what they had given up.  They are called not to mere goodness, but to perfection.

We should never be satisfied with being good, but to seek perfection.  Since it is in our giving up that we are able to receive, we ought to drop what we cling to here and now in order to embrace the Lord with both arms, in the same way he embraces us.

 Saturday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 12, 2024

Luke 11, 27-28

While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

This exchange between a woman and Jesus took place while he was teaching.  On the face of it, the woman offers the Lord praise using an Ancient Middle Eastern idiom of honoring the mother in order to praise the son, and then the Lord replies offering honor back at the person who had spoken to him, in line with the custom of the time. But this honor is conditional: Blessed are you provided that you observe the word of God which you have heard.  For, it is not enough to hear the word of God.  One could happen by the place where the Lord was teaching and hear him but he is not really listening.  It is observing it, the carrying out of the word of God, that brings blessedness.  

The woman and Jesus use the same word “blessed” but they mean it in very different ways.  It was usually used to wish material prosperity upon a person.  By contrast, Jesus means it according to its supernatural meaning, the bestowal and enjoyment of grace, since those who are hearing the word of God and are keeping it are acting out of faith in the word of God.  Jesus says “who hear” and not “who read” because he himself was teaching with his voice the word of God and doing so in a way that people could understand him.

The woman in this Reading seems to praise the Blessed Mother, who bore Jesus in her womb and nursed him, and then, it seems, Jesus takes the praise from her and applies it to others instead.  This idea is fostered by the translation of the Greek menoon as “rather”: “Rather, blessed are those, etc.”  However, the word can also be translated as “indeed”, and “yea, verily”.  Thus, we can understand the Lord is confirming that his Mother is indeed blessed through her bearing and nursing him — for nurturing and raising him — and, beyond that, for hearing the word of God, delivered to her by the Angel Gabriel, and keeping it: “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  And in saying “those”, he means all who, following the example of the Blessed Virgin, nourish their faith through prayer, and then listen to the word of God in the Gospels, and carry it out in their actions.

 Friday in the 27th Week Of Ordinary Time, October 11, 2024

Luke 11, 15-26

When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said:

“By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.  When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, ‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that man is worse than the first.”

The Holy Scriptures give us a sense of the demons and their power through several vivid pictures.  “Who can strip off his outer garment? Who can penetrate his double coat of mail? Who can open the doors of his face? 

Round about his teeth is terror. His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. His sneezes flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him. The folds of his flesh cleave together, firmly cast upon him and immovable. His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the nether millstone” (Job 41, 13–24).  These words specifically describe the biblical sea monster the Leviathan, which is identified by the Fathers as signifying the devil.  Demons, in fact, possess greater power than the Leviathan is said to have here, and are far more dangerous.  When we read about the Lord exorcising demons, we should keep descriptions such as this in mind.  He engages in combat these against demons and drives them out with a command.  The visible power he exercises over demons dramatically signals for us his omnipotence.  The fact that any human can withstand the devil’s temptations and power shows us the armor that God’s grace provides us, as well as the strength of our guardian angels.  We ought to pray regularly to be delivered from temptation before we are ever tempted so that we may always be ready to fight, if we can, or run, if we cannot.  

 Thursday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 10, 2024

Luke 11, 5-13

Jesus said to his disciples: “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.  And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

It is worth noting that when the Lord teaches on the subject of prayer, he tells us to be urgent and persistent about it — and he himself seems to practically beg us urgently and persistently to pray.  It should seem quite enough that our God offers to hear our prayers and to help us, but here he is, pleading with us to pray to him.  We can see this in the parable that opens today’s Gospel Reading.  The friend receives a visitor on a long journey in the middle of the night.  The visitor is exhausted and very hungry.  The friend, who was not expecting him then, had nothing in the house, which is not hard to understand given the difficulties of food storage at that time.  But there is no salted fish, no bread, no fruit.  Desperate, he goes to his neighbor and implores him for some time before he gets up and helps him.  Now, that is how we might think God would act with our prayers, but Jesus says, This is how a human would act, but, out of love, God will “rise up” quickly and assist you.  Jesus portrays God in the friend: it is God who is banging on the door of our souls to rouse us up so that we might receive his gifts.  It is God who is urgent and persistent, far more than we are in the desperate straits we find ourselves in.  And so the Lord tells us: “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  The Greek verbs here are in the present imperative, commanding us to keep up the action.  The Lord speaks of  simple and direct actions: ask, seek, knock.  If we do so we will receive, find, and be welcomed.  

And what shall we receive from God?  The exact thing we asked for or the thing we meant to ask for?  “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?”  If a human father would take care to give his child something far better than what he asked for, how much more our Father in heaven will give to his adopted children for whom he sent his only-begotten Son to die.  He will even give us the Holy Spirit, by whose graces we may live holy lives and attain heaven.

 Wednesday in the 27th Week of Ordinaey Time, October 9, 2024

Luke 11, 1-4

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”  It is a sign of just how distinct the Lord Jesus was as a teacher with a considerable following that, up until his final journey to Jerusalem, he had not taught his disciples to pray in a particular way.  Various leaders among the Pharisees taught their disciples particular prayers to say, and we see here that John the Baptist also had done this.  Jesus seems to wait for the Apostles to ask him to teach them.  That is, they must pray to him to teach them.  That is not to say that the Apostles were not praying previously.  The Lord would have led them in the Psalms and in various other prayers and blessings.  For instance, they would have chanted the Psalms of the Ascent Psalms 120-134) on the road to Jerusalem for the great festivals.  It may be that the Lord waited for them to ask him to teach them to pray because he wanted them to grow in their understanding of their need for this.  The Lord does this with us too.  He knows what we need before we do and many times he gives it to us before we can ask, but he wants us to grow in our faith and love and our understanding of our utter dependence on him.  Our parents carry us when we are very young, but they do not walk for us forever.  They wait for us to gain the strength to walk and then start encouraging us to walk rather than listen to our demands to be carried.

“Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come.”  St. Matthew sets his account of the Lord teaching his disciples to pray into the collection of teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount, as his concern is not so much chronology as grouping teachings and miracles together.  St. Luke places his account in its proper time.  It is the same prayer, but as we have it from each of the two Evangelists, it is translated from the original Hebrew or Aramaic in which the Lord taught it into Greek.  Remarkably, the translations differ only in a few details.  The prayer Jesus teaches begins with the invocation of God the Father and a prayer for the glorification of his name.  The Greek should be translated as “Let your name be sanctified.”  The verb is in the imperative, but it is also passive, so it cannot be translated as “Sanctify your name”.  That is, we who are praying do not call upon the Lord to sanctify his name, but to let it be sanctified.  Who could or would sanctify it if not God?  That is for us to do: Let your name be sanctified by us, that is, by our holiness, which is your gift.  

“Your kingdom come.”  That is, “Let your kingdom come”.  Again, the passive imperative.  The implication is that God’s kingdom is coming and we desire it.  We ask that its coming not be delayed.  With the earliest Christians, we cry out, “Amen, Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22, 20).  Essentially, this is the main subject of the prayer, as the other petitions beseech God to make us ready for the coming of the kingdom.  

“Give us each day our daily bread.”  The Greek: “Give us this day the bread necessary for us.”  This is different from the translation we have in the Greek version, in which the bread is called “super-substantial”, or bread sufficient for today and also for tomorrow.  This Bread strengthens us for the coming of the kingdom.

“Forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.”  This too prepares us for the kingdom.  If we do not forgive others, we ourselves will not be forgiven.

“Do not subject us to the final test.”  The Greek: “Do not lead us to the testing”, “trial” or “temptation”:  as the Lord Jesus tells us of the years leading to the great judgment: “There will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if [the number of] those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved” (Matthew 24, 21-22).  A ferocious persecution will arise against the Church in those days and many Christians, including bishops and priests, will flee from Christ.  None of us can be certain that our faith will survive this trial.  Sanctifying God’s name with our personal holiness, praying earnestly, receiving the Body of Christ, frequenting Confession, and forgiving those who have sinned against us will aid us in whatever trial that comes to us.

 Tuesday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 8, 2024

Luke 10, 38-42

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

St. Luke tells us here a very touching little story about the Lord Jesus that does not involve startling miracles or engaging and thought-provoking parables.  It is a story about Jesus and two women.  Nothing like it can be found in the other Gospels.  

Much was made of this story by the Fathers and medieval writers who used it to show the two ways of religious life: the active and the contemplative.  Martha was held up as an exemplar of the active life — living out the Christian life in the world.  Mary was pointed out as the exemplar of the contemplative life, giving up worldly occupations in order to dedicate oneself entirely to listening to the Lord and to prayer.  Since in this story the Lord praises Mary as having chosen “the better part”, the contemplative life has been understood as the higher calling, and so it is.  But focusing only on this aspect of the story may cause us to miss its truly remarkable context.  

“Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.  She had a sister named Mary.”  St. John also tells us of a pair of sisters named Martha and Mary, who lived with their brother Lazarus in the town of Bethany, near Jerusalem.  It is usually assumed that Luke’s Martha and Mary are identical with John’s.  However, when John talks of Martha and Mary, he includes their brother Lazarus as well.  It seems odd that Luke does not do this, if it is the same Martha and Mary.  He might have been present throughout the occasion and Luke, wanting to tell his simple story in the simplest terms, does not mention him.  We might note also that Luke does not mention the Apostles, who certainly must have been with the Lord.  We would naturally like to know if these are the same folks, but not knowing does not hamper us from drawing out the riches Luke provides us.

Again, “Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.”  This verse does not raise eyebrows in twenty-first century America, but it would have done so in first century Israel.  If Jesus had entered a house belonging to two unmarried women in that time and place — and because Luke tells us that “Martha welcomed him” and not her husband or brother, we can come to this conclusion — scandal would certainly have erupted.  Luke does not tell us that it did, leaving us to wonder.  Also, we note the unusual circumstance that Martha and Mary (or, at least, Martha) owned the house and appear to not have been married at the time.  One or both may have been widows.  If Martha was a widow, Mary might have lived with her as yet not old enough to marry.  This is assuming their parents were dead.  Still, the arrangement is odd in that time and place.  Had they no other living relatives with whom they could live?  We do not know.

“She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him.”  This is more literally translated as: “Mary sat down beside the Lord at his feet, listening to his word.  Martha, greatly troubled with much serving at table, being urgent, said.”  This helps us better understand the situation Martha was facing.  Knowing that “Martha welcomed him”, we are assured that she had invited the Lord, and that she was in some way already prepared to offer him and his Apostles hospitality.  All the same, even with servants, anyone would struggle to oversee the cooking, roasting, baking, providing of wine, the serving, and making comfortable of so many guests.  

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”  Martha expresses her distress emphatically in the Greek: “She has abandoned me alone to serve at table.”  If Martha herself is serving at table, this indicates she lacked servants and was overwhelmed with supervising what servants she may have had and also with physical labor.  At this point, she is distraught.  Now, Mary was sitting beside the Lord, at his feet, listening to his word.  Luke uses logos for “word”, and so we see that Mary was listening to the logos spoken by the Logos of the Father.  And she was not merely listening but hanging on the Lord’s every word, oblivious to all else as the smells of roasted calf or goat, and the noise of the bustle of her sister and perhaps a few servants filled the room.  In all her world, there was only the Lord.

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.”  The Greek word translated here as “worried” really means something stronger, as “agitated”.  All Martha can see is that she is failing in her hospitality.  Her dinner is falling apart, and the help she had counted on from her sister is a big reason for this.  The first part of the Lord’s reply to her does not seem to help.  It only states what she is painfully aware of.  It may have exasperated her that he did not speak to Mary, and that Mary, for her part, did not leave the Lord in order to fulfill her responsibility as co-hostess.  

“There is need of only one thing.”  The Greek word translated here as the unhelpful and unspecific “thing” in fact means “need”, “necessity”, or “business”.  The Lord’s words mean something more like, “There is one need” or “one necessity”.  The compactness of the Lord’s statement seizes our attention.  In Martha’s mind, many terrible necessities clamor at one time for attention.  Mary, on the other hand, sits at peace, rapt in the Lord’s presence and his teachings.  “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  The Greek text does not have this comparative.  It says, “Mary has chosen the good part” or “portion”.  That is, of life, in the sense of, “The man was satisfied with his portion in life.”  The implication is that Martha has not chosen the good portion.  She has chosen to be agitated and distracted, although there is one necessity for her: to sit with Mary and to bask in the presence and love and wisdom of God.  

Luke says no more about the dinner.  We are left hanging as we are at the end of so many parables.  What did Martha do?  It is as if Luke wanted us to wonder what should we do, for we often choose to be distracted and agitated.  And we allow whole industries which sell distraction and agitation to manipulate us.  Perhaps Martha would have done better — choosing the good portion — not to have the dinner at all, but to have been content to listen to Jesus in the marketplace or to have listened outside a bigger, better equipped house where the Lord might have eaten, or listened to him as she helped serve there.  

In serving the Lord, we should not decide for ourselves what it is he wants, but to ask him what he wants and then do it.  So much of the time we are like a server in a restaurant who tells the guests in her station what she will order for them.  What did the Lord want for Martha and Mary?  For them both to sit at his feet and listen intently to him.  This is also what he wants most for us.