DAILY READING and REFLECTIONS For Monday, August 25, 2014 21st Week in Ordinary Time - Psalter 1 (Green/White) Optional Memorials: St. Louis of France and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest Readings: 2 Thess 1:1-5, 11-12; Ps 96:1-5; Matt 23:13-22 Response: Proclaim Gods marvelous deeds to all the nations. Rosary: Joyful Mysteries Key Verse: If anyone swears by the Temple, it has no force; but anyone who swears by the gold of the Temple is bound. SAINT OF THE DAY: Saint Louis King of France Patron of Tertiaries; Death: 1270 St. Louis, King of France, patron of Tertiaries, was the ninth of his name. He was born at Poissy, France, in 1214. His father was Louis VIII, and his mother was Blanche, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castille, surnamed the Conqueror. At the age of twelve he lost his father, and his mother became regent of the kingdom. From his tenderest infancy she had inspired him with a love for holy things. In 1234, he married Margaret, the virtuous daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, and two years later he took the reigns of government into his own hands. In 1238, he headed a crusade, in which he fell a prisoner among the Mohammedans, but a truce was concluded and he was set free and he returned to France. In 1267, he again set out for the East at the head of a crusade but he never again beheld his native land. In 1270, he was stricken by the pestilence at the siege of Tunis, and after receiving the Last Sacraments, he died. READINGS FROM THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE: READING 1, Second Thessalonians 1:1-5, 11-12 1 Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church in Thessalonica which is in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ 2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We must always thank God for you, brothers; quite rightly, because your faith is growing so wonderfully and the mutual love that each one of you has for all never stops increasing. 4 Among the churches of God we take special pride in you for your perseverance and faith under all the persecutions and hardships you have to bear. 5 It all shows that Gods judgement is just, so that you may be found worthy of the kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now. 11 In view of this we also pray continually that our God will make you worthy of his call, and by his power fulfil all your desires for goodness, and complete all that you have been doing through faith; 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him, by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. RESPONSORIAL PSALM, Psalms 96:1-2, 2-3, 4-5 1 Sing a new song to Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh, all the earth! 2 Sing to Yahweh, bless his name! Proclaim his salvation day after day, 3 declare his glory among the nations, his marvels to every people! 4 Great is Yahweh, worthy of all praise, more awesome than any of the gods. 5 All the gods of the nations are idols! It was Yahweh who made the heavens; GOSPEL, Matthew 23:13-22 13 Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut up the kingdom of Heaven in peoples faces, neither going in yourselves nor allowing others to go who want to. 14 15 Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte, and anyone who becomes one you make twice as fit for hell as you are. 16 Alas for you, blind guides! You say, If anyone swears by the Temple, it has no force; but anyone who swears by the gold of the Temple is bound. 17 Fools and blind! For which is of greater value, the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 Again, If anyone swears by the altar it has no force; but anyone who swears by the offering on the altar, is bound. 19 You blind men! For which is of greater worth, the offering or the altar that makes the offering sacred? 20 Therefore, someone who swears by the altar is swearing by that and by everything on it. 21 And someone who swears by the Temple is swearing by that and by the One who dwells in it. 22 And someone who swears by heaven is swearing by the throne of God and by the One who is seated there. REFLECTIONS: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God) OPENING PRAYER: Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us enduring joy in this changing world. In our desire for what you promise make us one in mind and heart. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ON READING 1: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 11-12 (Greeting, Thanksgiving, Prayer for Perseverance) This heading is similar to that of the first letter. Two slight differences bear comment. The first is the adjective our applied to God the Father. This underlines the divine filiation of Christians. Only the second person, the Word, is the Son of God by nature; human beings are children of God by adoption, thanks to the Sons deigning to make us sharers in the divine filiation which is his in all its fullness; in theology this is expressed in the well-known proposition that we are filii in Filio, sons in the Son. The Son of God, his only son by nature, St. Augustine says, deigned to become Son of man, so that we who are sons of man by nature might become sons of God by grace (The City of God, 21,15). And St. lrenaeus explains that if the Word became flesh, and if the Son of God became Son of man, he did this so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and receiving the privilege of adoption, might become a son of God (Against Heresies, 2,19). The Second Vatican Council gives the same teaching when it says that the followers of Christ, called by God not in virtue of their works but by his design and grace, and justified in the Lord Jesus, have been made sons of God in the baptism of faith and partakers of the divine nature, and so are truly sanctified (Lumen Gentium, 40). The full import of what Christian life means becomes clear if one keeps in mind this expressible and simple fact--that he is our Father and we are his children (St. J. Escriva, Friends of God, 144). The second difference in the heading (as compared with the first letter) is that it specifically says that grace comes from God the Father and [from] the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace is inseparable from grace, and has its source in God. That is why the Second Vatican Council emphasized that peace on earth, which flows from love of ones neighbor, symbolizes and derives from the peace of Christ which proceeds from God the Father ( Gaudium Et Spes, 78 ). As in other letters, the Apostle expresses his deep gratitude to the Lord (cf. Phil 4:6; Col 3:15-17; 1 Tim 2:1; etc.). By doing so he is imitating Jesus himself who at the start of prayer used to praise the Father and give him thanks (cf. Mt 11:25; 15:36; 26:27 and par.; Jn 11:41; etc.). In its supreme act of worship, the Mass, the Church exclaims at the start of the Preface: We do well always and everywhere to give you thanks. In addition to showing the nobility of our feelings, gratefulness also puts us in the way of further gifts, because the Lord is particularly well disposed to a humble and grateful heart. As St. Bernard teaches, someone who humbly recognizes himself as obliged for gifts and who is grateful for them, is bound to receive many more. For if he shows that he is faithful in little things, he has a right to be entrusted with many; whereas on the contrary, someone who does not appreciate the favors he has been given renders himself unworthy of being given additional favors (Sermons on Psalm 90, 4). That is why the Christian feels the need to express his gratitude to God: Thank you, my Jesus, for your choosing to become perfect Man, with a most loving and lovable heart; a heart which loves unto death; a heart which suffers; which is fitted with joy and sorrow; which delights in the things of men and shows us the way to heaven; which subjects itself heroically to duty and acts with mercy; which watches over the poor and the rich, which cares for sinners and the just.... Thank you, my Jesus. Give us hearts to measure up to Yours! (St. J. Escriva, Furrow, 813). Your faith is growing: faith needs to grow, it needs to be alive. It grows when it is joined to love. The Thessalonians were active in their practice of faith and love, and this meant that their morale was good despite persecution and affliction. Observe how the love and mutual solidarity of the believers is a great help in resisting evils and bearing affliction, St. John Chrysostom says. That deep fraternity was a great source of consolation. It is only a weak faith and an imperfect charity that afflictions cause to waver; but a solid, robust faith is in fact strengthened by affliction. A weak, languid soul derives no benefit from suffering, whereas a generous soul finds in suffering a source of new energy (Hom. on 2 Thess, ad loc.). 5. Fidelity to God, even in a situation which is adverse and difficult; is a guarantee of future reward. Our Lord sometimes allows us to experience suffering for the sake of the Gospel; he thereby tests our love and makes us worthy of the enduring Kingdom which awaits us in the life to come. In a particularly authoritative way, Paul VI taught that the Kingdom of God begun here below in the Church of Christ is not of this world whose form is passing, and its proper growth cannot be confounded with the progress of civilization, of science or of human technology, but consists in an ever more profound knowledge of the unfathomable riches of Christ, an ever stronger hope in eternal blessings, an ever more ardent response to the Love of God, and an ever more generous bestowal of grace and holiness among men (Creed of the People of God, 27). Suffering, like faith, should he accepted as a mark of Gods special love: it has been granted to you that...you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake (Phil 1:29). Making the same point Bl. John Paul II reminds us that in bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ (Salvifici Doloris, 19). St. Paul takes up the thread of the prayer he began in v. 4, asking God to keep the believers true to their calling. He himself is very good example of how teachers of Christian doctrine should approach their work; he does not confine himself to expounding the truths of faith: the first step he takes is to pray for his work to be fruitful. St. Augustine observes that anyone who wants to teach the word of God tries as far as possible to make his words understandable, pleasing and persuasive. But he should be convinced that if he is to obtain a good result it will be due more to the piety of his prayers than to his gifts of speech. And so, praying for those he is to address, he should be more a supplicant than a speaker. When the time comes for him to speak, before actually doing so he should raise his parched soul to God that he may utter only what he has himself eaten and drunk (Christian Instruction, 4, 15). The Apostle asks God to make the Thessalonians worthy of his call, that their efforts should have the support of divine grace, for no supernatural action can be planned, begun or brought to a conclusion without the grace of God (cf. Boniface II, Per Filium Nostrum, Dz-Sch, 399). Hence the liturgical prayer: Lord, be the beginning and end of all that we do and say. Prompt our actions with your grace, and complete them with your all-powerful help (Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer, Monday Week 1). The Greek formula here translated as according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ could also be interpreted as according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ--in which case we would have here a confession of Christological faith which would be of enormous value on account of its antiquity. It would be an acknowledgment of Christ being both God (Theos) and Lord (Kyrios), that is, Iesus Christus, Dominus et Deus noster. However, the expression our God often appears in Pauline writings (cf., in this very chapter, vv. 2 and 11); he also frequently uses the formula Lord Jesus Christ. This suggests that there is a distinction between our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (or even our Lord Jesus Christ); hence the preferred translation. ON THE GOSPEL: Matthew 23:13-22 (Jesus Indicts the Scribes and Pharisees) During the next three days, we will meditate on the discourse pronounced by Jesus in which he criticizes the doctors of the Law and the Pharisees, calling them hypocrites. In today’s Gospel (Mt 23, 13-22), Jesus pronounces against them four times the expression “Alas for you...” (Mt 23, 23-26), and in the Gospel of day after tomorrow, he uses this same expression two other times (Mt 23, 27-32). These are expressions against the religious heads of the times and these are very hard words. In meditating them, I should not only think of the doctors and the Pharisees of the time of Jesus, but also, and above all in the hypocrisy found in me, in us, in our family, in the community, in our Church, in today’s society. Let us look into the mirror of the text to discover the errors in ourselves. Matthew 23, 13: The first “Alas for you...” against those who close the door of the Kingdom because in this way you will not enter and, you do not even let those who want to enter. How do they close the Kingdom? They do it by presenting God as a severe judge, leaving very little space for the mercy of God; by imposing, in the name of God, laws and norms which have nothing to do with the commandments of God, by presenting a false image of the Kingdom and by killing the desire to serve God and the Kingdom. A community which organizes itself around this false god “does not enter into the Kingdom”, and it is not even an expression of the Kingdom, and prevents its members from entering into the Kingdom. Here comes our Lords invective against the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees: His woes condemn their past conduct and threaten them with punishment if they do not repent and mend their ways. Matthew 23, 14: The second ‘Alas for you...’ is against those who use religion to enrich themselves. You devour the property of widows, though you make a show of lengthy prayers. The more severe will be the sentence you receive because of this”. Jesus allows the disciples to live the Gospel, because he says that the labourer has the right to his salary (Lk 10,7; cf. 1 Co 9, 13-14), but to use prayer and religion as a means to enrich themselves, that is hypocrisy and does not reveal the Good News of God. It transforms religion into a market. Jesus drives out the merchants from the Temple (Mk 11, 15-19) quoting the prophet Jeremiah: “My house will be called a House of Prayer for all people; but you have turned it into a bandits’ den!” (Mk 11, 17; cf. Is 56, 7; Jr 7, 11). When Simon the magician wanted to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit, Peter curses him (Ac 8, 18-24). Simon received the “most severe condemnation” of which Jesus speaks about in the Gospel today. As RSV points out, other authorities add here (or after verse 12) verse 14, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Our Lord is not reproaching them for praying long prayers but for their hypocrisy and cupidity. By going in for a lot of external religious practices, the Pharisees wanted to be recognized as devout men and then trade on that reputation particularly with vulnerable people. Widows, for example, would ask them to say prayers; the Pharisees in turn would ask for alms. What Jesus means here is that prayer should always come from an upright heart and a generous spirit. Matthew 23, 15: The third expression of ‘Alas for you...’ is against those who do proselytism you travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte, and anyone who becomes one you make twice as fit for hell as you are.” There are persons who become missionaries and proclaim the Gospel not to radiate the Good News, but to attract persons for their group and their church. John once prohibited a person to use the name of Jesus because he was not part of his group. Jesus answered: “Do not prohibit him, because anyone who is not against us is for us (Mk 9, 39). The document of the Plenary Assembly of the Bishops of Latin America, which was held in March 2008 in Aparecida, Brazil, bears the title: “Disciples and Missionaries of Jesus Christ, so that our people may have life in Him”. That is, the purpose of the mission is not to do in such a way that people become Catholic, but rather that people may have life, and life in abundance. Proselyte: a pagan convert to Judaism. The root of the word means he who comes, he who--coming from idolatry--joins the chosen people in response to a calling from God. The Pharisees spared no effort to gain converts. Our Lord reproaches them not for this, but because they were concerned only about human success, their motivation being vainglory. The sad thing about these proselytes was that, after receiving the light of Old Testament revelation, they remained under the influence of scribes and Pharisees, who passed on to them their own narrow outlook. Matthew 23, 16-22: The fourth ‘Alas for you...’ is against those who swear. “You say, if anyone swears by the Temple, it has no force, but anyone who swears by the gold of the Temple is bound”. Jesus makes a long disquisition to show the incoherence of so many oaths that people made or that the official religion ordered to take: to swear for the gold of the Temple or for the offering which was on the altar. The teaching of Jesus given in the Sermon on the Mountain is the best commentary of today’s Gospel: “But I tell you do not swear at all, either by heaven since that is God’s throne, or by earth, since that is his footstool, or for Jerusalem since that is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your own head either, since you cannot turn a single hair white or black. All you need say is Yes if you mean yes, No, if you mean No; anything more than this comes from the Evil One” (Mt 5, 34-37). Our Lords teaching about taking oaths is given in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37). Jesus does away with the nitpicking casuistry of the Pharisees by focusing directly on the uprightness of the intention of the oath-taker and by stressing the respect due to Gods majesty and dignity. What Jesus wants is a pure heart, with no element of deceit. Our Lord particularly reproves any tendency to undermine the content of an oath, as the Doctors of the Law tended to do, thereby failing to respect holy things and especially the holy name of God. He therefore draws attention to the commandment of the Law which says, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus 19:12; Deuteronomy 5:11). FINAL PRAYERS: Sing a new song to Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh, all the earth! Sing to Yahweh, bless his name! Proclaim his salvation day after day. (Ps 96,1-2) Help me to remember what is really important: that I am your child and you are my Father. You love me for who I am and how I live not what I look like or what I own. Let me praise you who sees into my heart, who is always with me and who eases my suffering. -— Prayer of St. Rose Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. -- St. Jerome The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever in everlasting silence; and in silence the soul has to hear it. -- St. John of the Cross
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:02:02 +0000