Wednesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 8, 2023

Luke 14, 25-33

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

“Great crowds were traveling with Jesus.”  The Lord is on the road again to Jerusalem where he will offer his life for us on the Cross.  These great crowds are traveling with him, that is, accompanying him and not simply traveling to Jerusalem in his proximity.  They have heard him preach and many have seen his miracles.  They think he is the Messiah who will free Israel from Roman rule beginning on Jerusalem and they want to support him in this.  They follow him, and yet they do not follow him.  In today’s Gospel Reading the Lord explains what he expects from his true followers — a great deal more than any mere human could demand and more than the casual followers would be willing to give.

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  The Greek word is very strong here: “hating”, “detesting”.  Jesus is making a demand that only God can make.  He is saying that people naturally love their family, friends, and relatives, and themselves most of all.  But he, Jesus Christ, must come first.  It is a matter of priorities.  Doing the will of Jesus goes before anything we might do for any of the mere humans in our lives.  If he tells us to leave our families and become a cloistered religious, then considerations of family and of one’s previous ambitions and plans fall by the wayside.  If he sets forth a moral commandment which is hard to follow because doing so will make is us pariahs in society, we obey the commandment anyway.  Jesus takes precedence.  We take care of family members and friends, but we do this in accord with the Lord’s will.  We do this because we know that he is God.  He knows all things and can do all things.  We trust him that all will be well when we do his will.  He himself gives us the perfect model of obedience to the divine will in being made incarnate and suffering and dying for us.  He also gives the grace so that we can follow him in this complete way.

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  As difficult as it is to hear his first words, these are starker.  It is not enough to die for him him but to die in this way.  The cross that each of us carry is the cross of obedience to the divine will in imitation of the Lord Jesus, accepting whatever death he wills for us.  This requires absolute abandonment to God’s will and abandonment of ours.  But in this way we conform ourselves to him so that when the Father looks at us he sees his Son.  

“Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?”  The Lord Jesus warns the crowds who follow him so eagerly that their faith may not be sufficient to see them through what is about to happen to him, and then to see them through the persecutions that will arise after his Resurrection.  “Sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion.”  He does not seek to frighten anyone off, but for everyone who wants to be his disciple to take very seriously what they are doing and to realize that without the help of God’s grace they cannot do this.  Seeing that there is not enough for the tower’s completion, that is, living out the Faith, we pray for grace.

“But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.”  This fight is with the devil.  We cannot defeat him on our own but only with the help of God.  If we are not going to pray for this help then we surrender to the devil and he makes us his slaves.

“In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”  Prayer is essential, and the renunciation of possessions fuels prayer, as it were.  This is because, having nothing, we belong to God alone, and he will act as though he belonged to us alone.  We should note here that the Lord does not insist on the selling of possessions, placing ourselves in a destitute position.  St, Paul elaborates on this for us: “It remains that they also who have wives be as if they had none; and they who weep, as though they wept not; and those who rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; and those who buy as if they possessed not; and those who use this world, as if they used it not” (1 Corinthians 7:29–31).

The demands that the Lord makes on those who would follow him sound harsh, as if calculated to evoke the protest, “This saying is hard; and who can hear it?” (John 6, 61).  In truth, his demands liberate us from the enslaving demands of this world, which also require absolute obedience but which promise nothing that lasts.  For those who give up their lives to follow Jesus build a tower that will never crumble and win a victory that will end all war forever.

 Tuesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 6, 2023

Luke 14, 15-24

One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”

The Lord Jesus is in the house of a prominent Pharisee who invited him for dinner on the Sabbath.  The Lord accepted as it presented him the opportunity to teach the Pharisees the truth about their movement and about their own need to convert, giving themselves entirely to the service of God.  They stood very much in need of this conversion because, whether they realized it or not, they had set themselves at the service only of one another while the people went without the true teaching of the Law and the Prophets.

“Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”  One of the Pharisees offered these words after hearing and perhaps in response to the Lord’s teachings that instead of serving each other they should serve the poor — proposing to them that they invite the poor to their feasts instead of their wealthy family and friends.  The Pharisee meant here to extol the happiness of the Jew who would feast in the times when the Kingdom of David has been restored by the Messiah.  There would be plenty of everything in those happy days, for the poor as well as for the rich.  If we read his remark in this way, he is saying: The poor will have to wait until the Messiah comes and then they will eat.  We recall here that the Jews expected their Messiah to appear at any time. 

“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.”  The Lord’s response corrects the man as to his understanding of the Kingdom of God and who would enter it.  This also acts as a counter to the man’s dismissal of helping the poor.  “When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant.”  We should understand the man giving the feast as God the Father and his servant (the Greek word means “slave”) is his Son.  The Father sends out his Son to summon those previously invited to the feast.  The invitation went out in plenty of time for those invited to prepare themselves for it and so they should be standing by awaiting the official summons: “Come, everything is now ready.”  All the invited guests needed to do was to come.  They would not have to wait to be served with food and wine for it had been painstakingly readied for them.  We should compare the servant’s message in the parable with the Lord’s primary message in his preaching: “The time is accomplished and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1, 15).  Repent and believe: Come.  

“But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”  They say, in effect: What I am doing now, which I could have done earlier or which I do not need to do, is more important than the great favor and honor you have done me by inviting me to your feast.  There refusal to come indicated no mere breach of etiquette but enormous and irreparable disrespect to the host whose feast they had they previously signaled they would attend.  “I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.”  The invitation had been issued long beforehand so that the land could have been examined another time.  This excuse signifies attachment to the world, ambition, and wealth.  “I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them.”  Likewise, this man had plenty of time to make this purchase and could just as easily evaluate them in a week as on the day of the feast.  This signifies attachment to carnal sin, that is, living like an animal.  “I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.”  This signifies fear of the opinions of family, friends, and society at large.

“Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant.”  God does not rage but out of respect for us, which is an aspect of his love for us, he allows us to make our own decisions and to experience the consequences of our actions, whether for good or for ill.  Many times he mitigates the bad consequences of our actions but he is under no obligation to do so, and the day will arrive when we might reject him and determine to live without him, as the high priests and many Pharisees did in handing our Lord over to be crucified.  The consequences of rejecting God and blaspheming him are too horrible to contemplate.  The wicked experience them as God’s “rage”.

“Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.”  Now, we should note here that the people the master of the house ordered to be brought in to to his feast are precisely the same people that the Lord urged the Pharisees to invite to their feasts instead of their families and friends: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (cf. Luke 14, 13), whom the Pharisee who provoked this parable had essentially washed his hands of aiding.  These represent the Gentiles, who were “poor in their lack of knowledge of God; “crippled” through their sins; “lame” in their inability to help themselves; and “blind” in their worship of idols and pursuit of worldly goods as though they would deliver some permanent benefit.  The Jews, having rejected the Kingdom of God although long invited to it and for whom it was prepared, are replaced by these Gentiles.  The Father now sends the Son to preach to the Gentiles, which he does through the Apostles and their successors.  “Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.”  There is always room for those who repent and believe in the Gospel, no matter what their past: “The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.”  This second summons to the feast signifies the great desire of the Father for our salvation.  He is more desirous of it for us than we are.

“For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.”  They will not even taste it, let alone be filled with it.  Jesus meant to show the Pharisees themselves as in a mirror.  They would have understood the various signs in the parable, and the reference to the poor shows clearly the true and desperate state of the Gentiles in terms they also would have understood.  Indeed, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God”, who gladly enter it when summoned that it is ready and receive the grace to dine with God at his eternal feast.

 Monday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 6, 2023

Luke 14, 12-14

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

“When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors.”  The Lord Jesus is reclining at the home of an unnamed, leading Pharisee.  It is a large house with servants and able to accommodate a feast.  This meal is taking place on the Sabbath, probably after the meeting in the synagogue.  The Lord has already healed a man with dropsy who was brought in to test him and spoken to the company of Pharisees about their contention for the seats of honor at the feast.  In both of these actions he has revealed to them their illegitimacy as teachers of the Law.  Here he continues to use the subject of dinners and feasts to reinforce his teaching about the need for humility and to point out that if they are going to teach they should understand what they do is to provide a service to the people rather than to garner praise and prestige for themselves.  When the Lord Jesus tells them not to invite their friends, family, or relatives, he means to teach them to look for the reason they can feast at all: the largess that God has granted them.  But they are not to horde this among themselves: “And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required” (Luke 12, 48).  

All we have comes from God and it is to be used not for self-indulgence but in service to God: “Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”  In this the Lord recalls the Pharisees to the words spoken through Isaiah the Prophet: “Isaiah 58:7 (D-R): Serve your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into your house: when you shall see one naked, cover him” “Isaiah 58, 7).  The Lord tells them, “Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”  And how blessed? “Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall speedily arise, and your justice shall go before your face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather you up. Then shall you call, and the Lord shall hear: you shall cry, and he shall say, Here I am” (Isaiah 58, 8-9).  And for merely following the words of the Law and the Prophets which they made such presence about strictly following, “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”  

The bringing of the local widows, the crippled, the lame, and the blind into their houses would have seemed to the overly social conscious Pharisees madness.  Their neighbors would certainly hold them in lower regard.  But it would have raised up in the eyes of God, the One whose Law they purported to obey and teach.

Hearing the Lord’s counsel to the Pharisees we might wonder how we can invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind to our feasts, for in our times it is not as easy to do as in ancient times.  We can do this through contributing to funds for the poor as well as through volunteering in soup kitchens or homeless shelters.  We might also offer fast-food restaurant coupons to the poor we encounter on the street who are looking for handouts.  A variety of ways exist to do this which one can choose according to one’s abilities, health, and other personal circumstances.  Most of all, we can pray for those suffering from mental illness, those in the grip of addiction, and those all over the world who endure hunger because of famine and war. 

 The 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 5, 2023

Matthew 23, 1–12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.”   We note here the way the Lord has phrased this statement: They have “taken” their seat on the throne of Moses.  He does not say that they were appointed by anyone to the chair of Moses — his teaching authority.  In the absence of anyone else in his seat, they set themselves in it.  A prime weakness from which the Judaic religion suffered came from the lack of officially appointed teachers who would explain the Law and the Prophets to the people.  In the beginnings of the people of Israel, after they had settled in the Promised Land, God had sent men and women as judges to protect their independence and also to explain the Law to them.  Samuel was the last of these.  After the Temple was built in Jerusalem and the worship of God conducted there, the high priest and the priests from the tribe of Levi centered their lives around their service in that place.  They did not teach the Law to the people.  The Prophets urged the people to embrace the Law and especially to reject the worship of idols but they did not “take their seat” on the chair of Moses.  It was up to the high priest to appoint teachers of the Law, but this never happened.  The people were easy prey for the Pharisees, who simply moved in and taught their interpretation of the Law as the Law, though it varied from it, sometimes quite considerably.

“Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.”  We might question why the Lord admonishes the people of the crowd to do this, especially in light of what the Apostles would say following his Ascension into heaven, when the Pharisees ordered them not to preach about Jesus: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5, 29).  And later, they would teach that all animals were clean and could be eaten, in contradiction to the Pharisees: “That which God has cleansed, do not call unclean” (Acts 10, 15).  But the time for this had not yet come.  The Law would hold force until the Death and Resurrection of the Lord, and then the New Law of the New Covenant made in his Precious Blood, had force.  The Pharisees then lost the chair in which they had presumptuously seated themselves.  “They do not practice.”  This is an implied warning for his followers that they must practice what they believed and what they would one day teach.

“They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.”  The Mosaic Law did not lay heavy burdens on the people.  It provided both a civil and a religious code that was probably less onerous than the codes of the people around them, who worshipped many gods, including some which demanded human sacrifices.  It was the Pharisees who “tied up” the Law with their convoluted interpretations that made burdens that were hard to carry.  

“All their works are performed to be seen.”  Some interpret this verse to mean that we should perform all of our good deeds secretly so no one knows who performed them, but this seems going to far, as a rule.  As people who live public lives it can be very difficult to follow this, and st the same time we ought to be giving good example to others.  The question, rather, is one of motivation.  Am I performing this good act in order to be congratulated for it, or am I doing this in order to render assistance to someone in need, and it doesn’t concern me whether others sees this or not.  The Lord’s injunction to not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing in performing acts of charity refers to the state in which we should be that we do not even realize we are performing good deeds because doing so is so normal for us.

“As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ.”  That is, do not seek out of pride to be called Rabbi, Father, or Master, and do not get it into your heads that you are your own authority.  For us, to be a Teacher, Father, or Master is to share in the Lord’s identity and authority as such, not to have it for ourselves, and certainly not to appoint ourselves to sit in his “seat”. 

“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  The Lord sums up his teaching in these two simple lines.  The Pharisees did not see themselves as servants but as rulers.  They took the seat of Moses for themselves but did not act as Moses had — as the servant of God who led Israel as their servant.  When the Lord says “the greatest”, he means the wisest, the most capable, perhaps even the most wealthy.  These “greatest” among the followers of the Lord have a special obligation to be particularly dedicated servants.  We see this in the case of St. Paul, who, of all the early preachers of the Gospel, had the best education, was the most gifted theologian, and had the most endurance.  He himself declares, “I made myself the servant of all” (1 Corinthians 9, 19).

Let us strive also to serve by our speech and our good example so that we might receive the rewards promised in the Gospel to those who love God and follow his Law of Love.

 Saturday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, November 4, 2023

Luke 14, 1; 7-11

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

After the Lord has healed the man with the dropsy who was brought into the house in order to test him as to whether he would heal on the Sabbath, the Lord tells a parable.  We should note that the atmosphere was cold due to the silence of the Pharisees in response to the Lord’s counter-challenge regarding healing on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees did not answer the Lord Jesus posed to them, then silently watched Jesus heal the dropsical man, and finally did not answer his challenge.  With the healing, Jesus confronted their claim of authority to interpret and teach the Law.  The parable will confront their false sense of importance: a person’s importance is not defined or assumed by that person but is acknowledged by others.  This gets at the idea that no one has appointed them as teachers of Israel — they are self-appointed and are therefore not legitimate.

“He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.”  The Lord Jesus seizes on a quite ordinary situation unfolding before him and uses it to explain a spiritual truth.  Now, we should imagine here a dozen or more Pharisees, each claiming social distinction and perhaps acuity in interpreting or teaching, or perhaps pointing to the honor due their age, contending with forced civility for the higher places at the table.  This is significant because an admission of another’s primacy puts a man further back in the pack in terms of respect.  None of them ask their host where they should sit.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor.”  The Lord speaks of a wedding banquet particularly to avoid embarrassing the Pharisees seeking to recline at places of honor at this feast.  This deferral that the Lord advocates does not make much sense to them.  For them, the purpose of a feast was to jockey for and take the seat of honor.  “A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, etc.”  When many guests are invited, the chance of any particular guest being the most distinguished is small, but pride and the need for recognition often trample over prudence.  “Give your place to this man.”  That is, the place you have usurped for yourself.  The rebuke is public and a definitive statement that you are not worthy of this higher place.  How can you claim it anywhere else after this?  “You would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.”  But the feast now turns to ashes in your mouth and your lowly neighbors, delighting in your comedown, refuse to talk to you.

“Go and take the lowest place.”  That is, the place furthest from the host and the most respected guests.  By taking this seat the guest shows himself unwilling to esteem himself greater than the others and simply glad to have been invited at all.  “My friend, move up to a higher position.”  This guest willingly receives his mark of importance from the host, whose house and feast this is, rather than making a claim that can probably not stand up.  He does not appoint himself the most distinguished but receives this appointment from the only one who can make it.  “Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.”  That is, those near him at the table who have also been appointed to sit in their places by the host.

We can see this as the Lord repudiating the Pharisees and their self-appointed position as the teachers of Israel and also as a lesson of humility for all of us.  None of us can properly judge himself or others in terms of virtue or wisdom and so we should simply be content with the place assigned to us and not strive to be known as greater in any way than another, for “who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you did not receive, and if you hast received, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4, 7).  

 Friday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, November 3, 2023

Luke 14, 1-6

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus spoke to the scholars of the Law and Pharisees in reply, asking, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?” But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him. Then he said to them “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” But they were unable to answer his question.

After reading this passage from St. Luke”s Gospel we might wonder two things: why did the Lord time and again seem to go out of his way to confront the Pharisees about curing people’s ills on the Sabbath; and, why do the Evangelists recount so many of these stories?  It is almost as though they are hammering home a point that was already made.  But by repeatedly curing the sick on the Sabbath in the presence of the Pharisees, the Lord challenged them on their belief that they had the right or even the divine mission to interpret the Scriptures and to pass their interpretation on as definitive.  There were two problems with them doing this.  The first was that the Pharisees did not possess the authority to teach.  They had not been appointed by the chief priests to do this.  Nor could they claim to possess the authority which the Prophets did possess in teaching the children of Israel.  Second, their interpretation differed markedly from those of previous generations and conflicted with the Law itself.  For example, the Pharisees insisted that rules they originally had adopted for themselves as regarding activity on the Sabbath must be followed by all Jews.  They were imposing their brand of piety on others and calling it doctrine, the Law of Moses.  The Pharisees took the Lord’s challenges not as a call to examine their beliefs and to reform but as a threat to their existence, “and they were filled with madness: and they talked one with another, what they might do to Jesus” (Luke 6, 11).

“On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.”  A particular Pharisee might invite Jesus to the midday meal at his house because he was favorably disposed to him, as Nicodemus was, and wanted to learn more from him.  Or, he might use the occasion in an attempt to trap Jesus in his words.  The latter reason seems true in this case inasmuch as “the people there were observing him carefully.”  The Greek text does not say “people”, as in non-Pharisees.  The context indicates several other Pharisees were present.  These were “observing him carefully”, that is, critically, expecting him to act in a way contrary to their estimations of what was right.  “In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.”  That is, as though deliberately placed there before him.  The seating at dinners in wealthy homes was very purposely arranged (cf. Luke 14, 7-11).  Dropsy, also called edema, results in a buildup of fluid in the arms or legs or in other locations, even including the brain.  Many conditions can cause this.  More than likely, since the man’s dropsy was apparent, it meant either swelling in his arms or legs.  This could have resulted in severe pain and difficulty in walking.  The Pharisees expose their callousness and inhumanity in using a man in such a state as bait.  

“Jesus spoke to the scholars of the Law and Pharisees in reply.”  The ploy by the Pharisees would have been transparent to anyone.  It was not even clever.  Rather, it was cynical.  The Lord sees the presence of this man, surely embarrassed by the position into which he was placed, as a challenge by the Pharisees, and he replies to it as though it were spoken aloud.  “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?”  In replying, he throws their challenge back at them, showing them that he knew their thoughts.  “But they kept silent.”  They do not present their evidence that it is not legal to do so, and their silence is a marked sign of disrespect.  The Lord will not argue with them, then.  “So he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him.”  Now, neither the dropsical man nor anyone else had asked him for a cure but the Lord heals him anyway.  It is a sign to us that the Lord is more desirous of our salvation than we even are.  No one asked him to die on the Cross for us, and yet he did it.  After healing the man, Jesus sent him away.  He was not a Pharisee and almost certainly not a willing part of their scheme and so was probably very relieved to be dismissed, even as he rejoiced, at least inwardly, at his new good health.

“Then he said to them ‘Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?’ ”  The Lord issues a counter challenge to the Pharisees.  His words also reveal something about him.  He himself is the man who sees that his child or his ox has fallen into a cistern or pit and without hesitating pulls him out.  If he does not, the child or the ox, unable to help themselves and possibly injured, will die, whether the cistern is full of water or not.  The Lord sees the man with the dropsy or us with our sins and immediately wants to help us.  He acts right away and completely effectively.  

“But they were unable to answer his question.”  Even as they had posed their challenge without words, and remained silent when the Lord questioned them, so they have nothing to offer now.  They are defeated but do not want to give a sign of this.  By their silence they show that they know the Lord is right, but to admit this means that they have to re-examine their movement and it’s contentions, and this they will not do.

The Lord challenges us, too, through his words in the Gospels and through his humble silence in the Blessed Sacrament.

 The Feast of All Souls, Thursday, November 2, 2023

Wisdom 3, 1–9

The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; they shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord shall be their King forever. Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love: because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with his elect.

We understand the state of those who have departed from this life in the grace of God and yet imperfect through venial sins as being purged until dazzling white to stay temporarily in a place or state which we call purgatory.  The saints speak of the purifying fires of purgatory.  We should understand these “fires” rightly for their effect is to eliminate any dross, to burn away any rust which mars the soul blemished by these venial sins — sins that are not of malice, yet still sins.  The fifteenth century St. Catherine of Genoa writes in her treatise on purgatory that the souls actually rejoice in their purging:  “I do not believe it would be possible to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in purgatory, except the joy of the blessed in paradise — a joy that goes on increasing day by day as God more and more flows in upon the soul.”  There are no screams and curses here as in the fires of hell, but rather the praises of God, whose embrace draws the purifying soul ever nearer.  It is, above all, a place of hope and expectation.

It should not be the goal of the lax or hesitant Christian on earth, for these do not go there.  It is a place (or, process) for those who lived their lives according to the Gospel of Jesus and died in the state of grace but whose love is not yet perfect, whose purity is not quite pure enough, who failed in small ways that can be made up for.  We might think of purgatory as a gate at an airport where people wait for their loved ones to arrive.  The waiting is an agony, and yet we know that there will come an end to it.  We can even look up at the schedule and see the time our loved one’s flight will arrive.  As we wait we think of the last time we saw this family member or friend; we think of all the enjoyment we shall share when he or she arrives.  The time may seem to drag, but it is only our anticipation building.  And then our loved one arrives and the time of waiting is immediately forgotten.  Our love and excitement have built up to a crescendo and we are ready to sweep our visitors up in our arms and not let them go.  Except that in purgatory, it is God who sweeps us up into his arms.

How much better to go straight to heaven than to pause in purgatory till we are ready!  But how blessed are we that God offers us a purgatory!  We can and should assist the souls there with our prayers and by having Masses offered for them.  We can also ask for their help, for they can help us with their prayers.  

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May they rest in peace.  Amen.