Wednesday in the First Week of Lent, February 21, 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.”

No one had performed such an abundance of miracles and healings of all sorts as Jesus.  Even the greatest Prophets, Elijah and Elisha, performed a mere handful.  Nothing like Jesus was known in the worlds of the Ancient Near East or in the classical world.  Mythology had no figure comparable to Jesus.  His coming and his works was unpredicted and incomparable.  Jesus reminds the people of this when he rebukes the, for wanting a sign from heaven.  What more did he need to do?  Or were the people so overwhelmed with his miracles that they took them for granted?

“The sign of Jonah.”  The Prophet Jonah served as a figure for the Lord Jesus in a number of ways.  First and foremost, he sacrificed his life for the sailors in whose ship he traveled when a great storm arose.  Then, he spent three days in the belly of a great fish, representing death.  Spewed out onto the shore, he preached repentance to the people.  In today’s Gospel Reading, this is the way Jesus meant.  Joshua, an inhabitant of Israel, preached in the city of Nineveh a very simple message: repent or the the city would be destroyed.  His message gained favor by its simplicity and by the Prophet’s own simplicity: he wore no fancy clothes, possessed no money of his own, did not try to hide his foreign accent, and asked for nothing for himself from those who heard him.  All he had was his message, which spread quickly, even reaching the ears of the king, who called for a fast throughout the city.  Jesus likewise asked nothing from those who heard him.  He did not seek power or riches, was dressed simply, and he spoke with a Galilean accent.  But there was “something greater than Jonah here”, for Jonah made no claims about himself and performed no miracles.  Jesus declares himself the Son of Man and shows divine appropriation by miracles that could only be performed with divine power.  Jonah was the sign.  Jesus is the reality.  

In the same way he claims to be greater than Solomon.  The wisdom and proverbs associated with Solomon show how to live well in this world.  The wisdom of Jesus shows us how to live here so as to live forever in heaven.

When we think about the Lord and what the people of his time thought about him we should keep in mind that no one with such power and wisdom had ever lived on earth before, and yet he did not flaunt it but applied it quietly so that we would no terrified of him.  Let us draw near to him in Scripture and prayer so that we might profit by what we see and hear.

 Tuesday in the First Week of Lent, February 20, 2024

Matthew 6, 7-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  This is how you are to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’  If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

“Do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.”  The pagans believed that they could bargain with their gods, bribe them, or win them over by flattery.  Jesus speaks contemptuously of this attitude.  This brings to mind the words he spoke through the Prophet Amos: “I hate, and have rejected your festivities: and I will not receive the odor of your assemblies. And if you offer me holocausts, and your gifts, I will not receive them” (Amos 5, 21-22), in which he showed his indignation at prayers and sacrifices offered insincerely and mechanically.  “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”  God requires us to ask for what we need not because he does not know what it is, but in order for us to conform ourselves to his will and to confess our utter dependence on him.

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”  The Lord gives us an example of how we are to pray through this concise prayer in which we ask God for his will to be done in us and for him to forgive us our sins.  It is a prayer for the coming of the Kingdom of which the Lord had come to preach: “[May] thy Kingdom come.”  These are the essentials for which we are to pray: for his will to be done in us, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for his coming again in glory.  The concision of this prayer makes it easy to remember, and prevents us from bargaining, bribery, or flattery.  Familiarity with it can lead to the abuse of rattling it off without thinking, though, and so we must be careful to say it with attention and the devotion of our hearts.

“If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”  This is not part of the prayer, but a comment on it.  Forgiveness is necessary for salvation: our forgiveness of others, and God’s forgiveness of us.  These are tied together.  To the extent that we forgive, we will be forgiven.  In part, we need to forgive in order to build up our capacity to receive forgiveness; and, in part, forgiveness is a vital way of overcoming the world, and of severing our ties with it.  We need to recall what forgiveness means so that we can do it properly: it is the renunciation of personal revenge on someone who has harmed us though we be innocent of provoking the harm.  With this forgiveness, we overcome our instincts and all that the world would have us do in response, and for this reason it can be a hard work to accomplish.  But then we look at the crucifix and think of how Jesus died so that our sins could be forgiven.

 Monday in the First Week of Lent, February  19, 2024

Matthew 25, 31-46

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

The Lord Jesus fully reveals what the Son of Man will do when he comes “in his glory”.  The Prophet Daniel had spoken more generally of what he would do: “I beheld, therefore, in the vision of the night, and lo, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of days: and they [the angels] presented him before him.  And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7, 13–14).  Thus, the Lord, who has taught many times that he is “the Son of Man” tells how the prophesy will be fulfilled.  And he does this on the last great day of his public teaching, before his arrest.

This teach very definitely describes the judgment at the end of the world.  But it is a different kind of judgment from the individual judgment each of us will experience immediately after our deaths.  After we die the Lord will assign to a place in heaven or hell, with purgatory a place for the good to be made perfect so they may enter heaven.  At the final judgment, all the souls of those who have ever lived will be reunited with their bodies so that each human person will be made while again.  This will be the work of the angels.  Our bodies will at that time share in the immortality of our souls and go to our place in eternity.  This is a work of justice, for body and soul in this life we have performed good works or we have sinned, and so we go as a whole human person into the next world.  The judgment the Lord Jesus details in today’s Gospel Reading is more the unfolding before our eyes of the lives of all.  It is the revelation of God’s justice for everyone to see.  This is the “closure” people yearn for here on earth but which only comes at the end of time.  We will see all the good deeds done in secret as well as all the evil.  No one will be left in any doubt as to the justness of God’s verdicts.

Still, the righteous will be overwhelmed with amazement that their deeds, so pale beside the great works of God’s mercy, mean anything to him.  The wicked will cry out in despair, babbling and blaming others — even God himself — in order to evade or delay the undying fire that awaits them.  They will know why they are damned and how they could have fled  from temptation in this life even as they would seek to flee their punishment in the next.

Let us hurry to feed the Lord and give him drink, and clothe him now so that we will see him look into our eyes and hear say say directly to us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”

 The First Sunday in Lent, February 18, 2024

Mark 1, 12–15

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

St. Mark condenses the temptations Jesus underwent in the Judean wilderness, reported in detail in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, to just a couple of verses.  He does, however, add a detail not found in the other accounts: “He was among the wild beasts”.  This remark tells us that the Lord had gone far out into the wilderness where lions still roamed, and where he would have found food and water scarce.  Mark says that the Lord was “tempted”, or, better, “tested” by Satan out there in the wilderness.  The Evangelist sums up the whole of Christian life in these verses: that we who are members of the Body of Christ abide in the wilderness of this world for a certain, definite, period.  During that time we are “among” the wild beasts of the heathen, and in addition we are tempted-tested by Satan.  We are thus subject to three dangers: of being savaged by the unbelievers, or of adapting to the wilderness of this world as they have in order to prolong our stay in it, or of falling to the temptations and the testing of Satan and losing our faith altogether.  Yet, as the angels “ministered” to the Lord, they minister to us as well, interceding for us, consoling us, and inspiring us.  This ministry, while invisible, is necessary for us and we would have little hope of heaven without it.

“After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God.”  Mark tells us here that the Lord remained in Judea until John the Baptist had been arrested.  He then came to Galilee, as though an outsider, proclaiming the Gospel of God.  “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”  He proclaims this as a herald, for the Greek word translated as “the Gospel” actually means an announcement of a king or other ruler, usually of “good news”.  The “good news”, the Gospel, announced by the Lord is that the kingdom of God has drawn near.  It is customary to translate the phrase as “the kingdom of God is at hand”, but that is not what the Greek says.  The kingdom of God is represented as itself on the move, not that it has suddenly appeared or that we have unwittingly drawn near to it.  It has been coming for a very long time, and now it has approached so that we can see it, and its Herald has reached us.  He tells us that we must now repent and to believe that it has approached.  If the reward is before us, we ought to be spurred on to great efforts in order to attain it.  We strip ourselves of all encumbrances so as not to be slowed in any way from attaining it: we repent of our sins, we do penance with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we give ourselves completely over to the Herald, who will assist us with directions.

Those who desire to be saved must truly believe that the Kingdom of God has approached, that we are living in the last age, and that before we can enter, we must render an account of what we have done in our time on earth.  The sight of this Kingdom drawn near will frighten many and as a result they will oppress the faithful more fiercely, and they will deny that there is a Kingdom.  They will truly reveal themselves to be “beasts”.  But let us live as saints that we may dwell with the angels in the Kingdom the Lord has announced to us,

 Saturday after Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2024

Luke 5, 27-32

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

Israel, a territory occupied by the Roman Empire, was heavily weighed down by its master’s taxes.  Rome levied a regular tax on each household as well as the usage taxes for certain crossroads and bridges.  These taxes could reduce a person’s income by over twenty-five percent.  The Roman system of collection also made corruption easy and common.  Roman officials hired Jews as local collectors, and these Jews were looked upon by their brethren as particularly contemptible traitors and collaborators with the enemy.  They worked for pagans and often treated their fellow Jews as the pagans did.  The very sight of a tax collector (or “publican”) was a sharp reminder to the Jews that they were not a free people.  They remembered the plea of Ezra to Almighty God when the Jews were ruled over by the Persians a few hundred years before: “Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves.  And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins; they have power also over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great distress” (Nehemiah 9, 36-37).

“Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.”  For Jesus, to “see” a man meant most of all to know his heart: “You know me right well; my frame was not hidden from you when I was being formed in a hidden place” (Psalm 139, 14, 15).  Unlike the others in the marketplace, Jesus did not look upon Levi with scorn.  He loved him and he meant to die for him too.  And foreseeing all the good that this publican would in his service he called to him, “Follow me.”  Jesus used the same words with Levi as he had used to call Peter, Andrew, James, and John to his side.  The Lord set forth no preconditions for his following.  He simply said to him, Follow me.”  Levi did not hesitate but got up and left and never went back.  It may be that Levi had gone to hear John the Baptist preach and that this prepared him for Jesus.  Luke tells us that, “Tax collectors also came to be baptized” (Luke 3, 12) and that they asked John how they should act within their profession, to which John answered, “Collect no more than is appointed you” (Luke 3, 13-14).  

“Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them.”  This occurred in the town of Capernaum.  The tax collector would have lived in one of the larger houses in the town and he would have had many servants.  Supposing this feast was held at the time of the main meal of the day, at midday, the Lord’s call would have come in the morning.  The preparations would have been hurried.  The situation brings to mind that of the visit to Abraham of the three angels who came to him as human visitors.  Speaking to his wife Sarah, he said, “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.” And then, “Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.  Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them” (Genesis 18, 6-8).  Levi throws the feast for the same purpose as Abraham did, hospitality.  Abraham did not recognize the men as angels but Levi does recognize Jesus as his Savior and has this opportunity to welcome him into his house.  And salvation came into his house as surely as it did into the house of the tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19, 9).

“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”  The Pharisees do not seek the repentance of tax collectors and sinners.  This is not the goal of their sect, but rather for its initiates to follow a system of rules and laws that will help them attain salvation.  One of these rules tells them not to mix with people whom they deem not followers of their code, lest they be contaminated by them.  They believe Jesus and his Apostles are or aspire to be members of their movement and so they ask this question, quite aghast.

“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”  Jesus announces that his is a completely different way than theirs.  The Pharisees seek to preserve themselves from impurity and so be saved.  The Lord wants to convert the hearts of those who live in sin so that they might be saved: “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”  Jesus uses the term “righteous” to mean “those who consider themselves righteous”.  The very insular world of the Pharisees has no place for the words of the Prophets whom they profess to admire: “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Hosea 6, 8).  We should note that the Lord does not minimize the sins these tax collectors and sinners have committed, and that he does not abandon them but sees his duty, as Physician, to tend to them and to offer remedies.

Each day we may invite the Lord into the hospitality of our hearts.  Let us also ask him to take us into his home in heaven one day.

 Friday after Ash Wednesday, February 16, 2024

Matthew 9, 14-15

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

The practice of fasting for moral or religious reasons originates early in human history.  We find historical evidence for it throughout the ancient world, such as among the Hindus as well as in the Ancient Near East.  Fasting became a regular part of Jewish life over time, and was understood to have been commanded by God in Leviticus 23, 27, when he designates a day of atonement for the Jews, though the practice itself is not specifically commanded.  Religious leaders and even kings could decree fasts for specific occasions or purposes, such as reported in 2 Chronicles 20, 3 -4: “Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.”  Jehoshaphat was responding to a serious military threat.  Thus, fasting has the purpose of supplication in addition to its more obvious purposes in mourning and repentance.

We see in today’s Gospel Reading that various religious movements within the Jewish religion practiced fasting: the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist.  We also know from the historian Josephus that that members of the Essence sect fasted.  The words of the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face” (Matthew 6, 17), when compared with what he says in today’s Gospel Reading, seems to indicate that he meant those who believed in him would fast after his Death and Resurrection, in the time before his return to judge the living and the dead.

The question the disciples ask: “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” is as much about their identity as the Lord’s followers — and, indirectly, about that of the Lord — as about the religious  significance of fasting.  This becomes more clear when we recall that the disciples also asked Jesus to teach them to pray as John had taught his disciples to pray (cf. Luke 11, 1).  They wanted signs of distinction between themselves as followers of Jesus and the others.  They wanted to know how they were different from the others.  Was Jesus a follower of the Pharisees or of John the Baptist?  Or was he leading them on a different way than them?  Jesus answers both concerns: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  He identifies himself as the Bridegroom, whose coming John had so often preached, and his own followers as “the friends of the Bridegroom”, making an enormous distinction between them and the disciples of the Pharisees, and at the same time heartening back to the words of the Lord’s Forerunner.  They were friends of that Bridegroom of Isaiah 54, 5: “For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth.”  And as long as this Bridegroom was with them, they could not fast but were to rejoice in his company.  But he would be “taken away” they would fast.  To this point in St. Matthew’s Gospel the Lord has not taught that he will be arrested and put to death, and so this being “taken away” would not have been clear.  Certainly the Messiah had come to restore Israel and so he would not be departing.  But this does indicate the primary religious purpose of fasting: penance.  And for us, we can see that penitential practices such as fasting will enable us to follow the Lord to the place to which he has departed.

 Thursday after Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Luke 9, 22-25

Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”

“The Son of Man must suffer greatly.”  These are not the words a follower hopes to hear his leader say.  To the follower, the leader who says this is preparing for defeat, and is only trying to buy time and more desperate support.  To the more worldly, these words sound like the beginning of a pitch for money.  But Jesus is not an ordinary leader.  He chooses to live a life of poverty and of ceaseless labor.  He makes no great claims for himself but refers his words and deeds back to the Father.  His words and deeds carry so much power that they cause people in sound mind, both men and women, to give up everything to follow him, and also to heal the sick, expel the demons, and raise the dead.  He also seeks no favor from either kings or high priests.  And when people object to his teachings because they seem too hard, he lets them go rather than soften his message.  

In truth, people — especially his Apostles — know that the Son of Man already led a life of suffering.  The words he speaks now — “The Son of Man must suffer greatly” — speak of even greater suffering to come.  It is noteworthy that the Lord says that he “must suffer greatly”, as opposed to “will suffer greatly”.  He is announcing that he is submitting himself to some overriding need that will result in his greater suffering.  He “must” do this, not just that this will happen.  His words here bring to mind what he says in Luke 12:49–5: “I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled? And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?”  He came to save us, and now he must undergo that which is necessary for him to do this.  He “must” suffer greatly.  But why would anyone submit himself to this?  Because the Lord Jesus is beside himself with love for us.  In Mark 3:21, we read of how he was unable to eat because of the crowd that pressed him on all sides: “And when his brethren had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad.”  His brethren were right, but they did not understand that this is what love does.

“And be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.”  Already it was clear that he was rejected by these authorities.  He speaks of them here so that later his followers will remember that he foretold this to them, and that they should not despair on this account.  He also seems to add this to what he has said of his greater suffering as though this rejection was particularly painful to him, that the very people who should have recognized him as the Son of God would punch, slap, and spit on him, and then have him out to a terrible death.

“And on the third day be raised.”  One wonders if anyone really heard these last words after hearing the previous ones.  And what did it mean that “on the third day be raised”?  He does not lay out a description for his disciples to bolster their spirits.  In this way too the Lord differs from other leaders.  These others might see trouble ahead (in this world, trouble is always ahead), but they would emphasize or even invent a silver lining that would result.  They would build this up so that the suffering would appear minimal.  The Lord does the opposite.  He nearly buries, as it were, the good news.  He emphasizes the suffering.  He wants people to know that he loves them and would do anything for them.

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  If any leader wanted to drive away his following, a declaration of this kind would be the one to do it with.  To a modern reader an adaptation might be, Pick up the noose with which you will be hanged and follow me.  No one picks up their cross unless it is to bear it to the place of crucifixion.  And in order to do this, one must deny oneself — to know what it is, to accept it for what it means, and to willingly bear it for the sake of Christ.  For us, this means to live the life of a Christian, forsaking the world and its glittering promises of pleasure and self-indulgence, and to live humbly in service to the Lord, spreading his Gospel.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”  Those who stumble over each other to avoid their crosses will perish utterly.  Those who consider others who enter the priesthood or religious life as throwing their lives away, will die shameful deaths.  Those who look at the Lord’s teachings and respond, “This saying is hard.  Who can accept it?” (John 6, 60), will walk away into the darkness where there is wailing and the gnashing of teeth in regret.

“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”  In all of human history, no one has gained the “whole world”, though some have tried.  This begs the question, Why do people still strive to do it?  Even if their idea of gaining “the whole world” only means obtaining all the things they desire, who really accomplishes even this?  Some may boast of it, but anyone can boast of things that cannot be proven.  Some may seem to us to have done this, but it is only because our imaginations are weak.  The truth is that there is nothing in this world that can make us as happy as we wished and for as long as we wished.  It is all deficient, it all falls apart.  Only Jesus lasts.  So let us shoulder our crosses and follow him wherever he goes so that one day we may hear the angels proclaim at the sight of us in heaven: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now . . . they may rest from their labors. For their works follow them” (Revelation 14, 13).