Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, February 5, 2025

Hebrews 12, 4-7; 11-15

Brothers and sisters: In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children: My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.  Endure your trials as discipline; God treats you as his sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God, that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, through which many may become defiled.

In the First Reading of today’s Mass, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews has written persuasively that the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem should cease to see themselves as Jews who ought to worship at the Temple and observe the Mosaic Law and to understand that they are Christians, the people of the New Covenant made by the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the true High Priest.  Now, at the end of his Letter, he addresses the people more personally.  He knows that they are suffering trials, including persecution, and he teaches them the meaning of their sufferings.

“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”  This may refer to a persecution which has not yet turned murderous.  If the Letter is indeed meant for the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, that may help set the year for its composition in the 50’s or 60’s A.D., so that the memories of the stoning of St. Stephen and the beheading of St. James are starting to fade a bit.  We can also understand this as the struggle each of us faces in overcoming daily temptations. 

“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him.”  The author quotes Proverbs 3, 11.  “For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.”  Almighty God does not send affliction upon anyone but does withhold his undeserved protection from us for various reasons.  For the believer, this ought to lead to growth in faith and the virtues — it is not punishment for sin.  This growth in virtue is not meant for its own sake, but so that we might be conformed to his Son.  The trials that come to us do not cause us to rejoice when we receive them and may indeed bring sorrow, but in the end, if we persevere through them, there shall be everlasting peace.  As we read in Psalm 126, 5–7: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  Going they went and wept, casting their seeds.  But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.”

“So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.”  The “drooping hands” of a lack of good works and the weak knees of  a lack of prayer.

“That holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”  We are to “strive” for this.  Baptism and grace make this holiness possible but we must cooperate with the grace.  We are like people who are physically sound but who must train hard if they are to complete marathons.

“See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God.”  We ought to assist one another, particularly family members, in our striving for holiness.  And we must grow in holiness for if it does not grow it will wither away through the “bitter root” of temptation and sin.