DAILY READING and REFLECTIONS For Tuesday, September 30, 2014 26th Week in Ordinary Time - Psalter 1 (White) Memorial: St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor Readings: Job 3:1-23; Ps 88:2-8; Lk 9:51-56 Response: Let my prayer come before you, O Lord. Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries Verse Highlight: He resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem. SAINT OF THE DAY: Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor Patron of Librarians Birth: 331 - Death: 420 St. Jerome, who was born Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius, was the most learned of the Fathers of the Western Church. He was born about the year 342 at Stridonius, a small town at the head of the Adriatic, near the episcopal city of Aquileia. His father, a Christian, took care that his son was well instructed at home, then sent him to Rome, where the young mans teachers were the famous pagan grammarian Donatus and Victorinus, a Christian rhetorician. Jeromes native tongue was the Illyrian dialect, but at Rome he became fluent in Latin and Greek, and read the literatures of those languages with great pleasure. His aptitude for oratory was such that he may have considered law as a career. He acquired many worldly ideas, made little effort to check his pleasure-loving instincts, and lost much of the piety that had been instilled in him at home. Yet in spite of the pagan and hedonistic influences around him, Jerome was baptized by Pope Liberius in 360. He tells us that it was my custom on Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the martyrs and Apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls on both sides preserve the relics of the dead. Here he enjoyed deciphering the inscriptions. After three years at Rome, Jeromes intellectual curiosity led him to explore other parts of the world. He visited his home and then, accompanied by his boyhood friend Bonosus, went to Aquileia, where he made friends among the monks of the monastery there, notably Rufinus. Then, still accompanied by Bonosus, he traveled to Treves, in Gaul. He now renounced all secular pursuits to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to God. Eager to build up a religious library, the young scholar copied out St. Hilarys books on and his Commentaries on the Psalms, and got together other literary and religious treasures. He returned to Stridonius, and later settled in Aquileia. The bishop had cleared the church there of the plague of Arianism and had drawn to it many eminent men. Among those with whom Jerome formed friendships were Chromatius (later canonized), to whom Jerome dedicated several of his works, Heliodorus (also to become a saint), and his nephew Nepotian. The famous theologian Rufinus, at first his close friend, afterward became his bitter opponent. By nature an irascible man with a sharp tongue, Jerome made enemies as well as friends. He spent some years in scholarly studies in Aquileia, then, in search of more perfect solitude, he turned towards the East. With his friends, Innocent, Heliodorus, and Hylas, a freed slave, he started overland for Syria. On the way they visited Athens, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Cilicia. The party arrived at Antioch about the year 373. There Jerome at first attended the lectures of the famous Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, who had not yet put forward his heresy1 With his companions he left the city for the desert of Chalcis, about fifty miles southeast of Antioch. Innocent and Hylas soon died there, and Heliodorus left to return to the West, but Jerome stayed for four years, which were passed in study and in the practice of austerity. He had many attacks of illness but suffered still more from temptation. In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert, he wrote years afterwards to his friend Eustochium, burnt up with the heat of the sun, so scorching that it frightens even the monks who live there, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome.... In this exile and prison to which through fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself watching the dancing of Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire. In my cold body and my parched flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with the enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, though I grieve that I am not now what I then was. Jerome added to these trials the study of Hebrew, a discipline which he hoped would help him in winning a victory over himself. When my soul was on fire with wicked thoughts, he wrote in 411, as a last resort, I became a pupil to a monk who had been a Jew, in order to learn the Hebrew alphabet. From the judicious precepts of Quintilian, the rich and fluent eloquence of Cicero, the graver style of Fronto, and the smoothness of Pliny, I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded words. What labor it cost me, what difficulties I went through, how often I despaired and abandoned it and began again to learn, both I, who felt the burden, and they who lived with me, can bear witness. I thank our Lord that I now gather such sweet fruit from the bitter sowing of those studies. He continued to read the pagan classics for pleasure until a vivid dream turned him from them, at least for a time. In a letter he describes how, during an illness, he dreamed he was standing before the tribunal of Christ. Thou a Christian? said the judge skeptically. Thou art a Ciceronian. Where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also. The church at Antioch was greatly disturbed at this time by party and doctrinal disputes. The anchorites in the desert took sides, and called on Jerome, the most learned of them, to give his opinions on the subjects at issue. He wrote for guidance to Pope Damasus at Rome. Failing to receive an answer, he wrote again. On one side, the Arian fury rages, supported by the secular power; on the other side, the Church (at Antioch) is being divided into three parts, and each would draw me to itself. No reply from Damasus is extant; but we know that Jerome acknowledged Paulinus, leader of one party, as bishop of Antioch, and that when he left the desert of Chalcis, he received from Paulinus hands his ordination as priest. Jerome consented to ordination only on condition that he should not be obliged to serve in any church, knowing that his true vocation was to be a monk and recluse. About 380 Jerome went to Constantinople to study the Scriptures under the Greek, Gregory of Nazianzus, then bishop of that city. Two years later he went back to Rome with Paulinus of Antioch to attend a council which Pope Damasus was holding to deal with the Antioch schism. Appointed secretary of the council, Jerome acquitted himself so well that, when it was over, Damasus kept him there as his own secretary. At the Popes request he prepared a revised text, based on the Greek, of the Latin New Testament, the current version of which had been disfigured by wrong copying, clumsy correction, and careless interpolations. He also revised the Latin psalter. That the prestige of Rome and its power to arbitrate between disputants, East as well as West, was recognized as never before at this time, was due in some measure at least to Jeromes diligence and ability. Along with his official duties he was fostering a new movement of Christian asceticism among a group of noble Roman ladies. Several of them were to be canonized, including Albina and her daughters Marcella and Asella, Melania the Elder, who was the first of them to go to the Holy Land, and Paula, with her daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium. The tie between Jerome and the three last-mentioned women was especially close, and to them he addressed many of his famous letters. When Pope Damasus died in 384, he was succeeded by Siricius, who was less friendly to Jerome. While serving Damasus, Jerome had impressed all by his personal holiness, learning, and integrity. But he had also managed to get himself widely disliked by pagans and evil-doers whom he had condemned, and also by people of taste and tolerance, many of them Christians, who were offended by his biting sarcasm and a certain ruthlessness in attack. An example of his style is the harsh diatribe against the artifices of worldly women, who paint their cheeks with rouge and their eyelids with antimony, whose plastered faces, too white for human beings, look like idols; and if in a moment of forgetfulness they shed a tear it makes a furrow where it rolls down the painted cheek; women to whom years do not bring the gravity of age, who load their heads with other peoples hair, enamel a lost youth upon the wrinkles of age, and affect a maidenly timidity in the midst of a troop of grand children. In a letter to Eustochium he writes with scorn of certain members of the Roman clergy. All their anxiety is about their clothes.... You would take them for bridegrooms rather than for clerics; all they think about is knowing the names and houses and doings of rich ladies. Although Jeromes indignation was usually justified, his manner of expressing it-both verbally and in letters-aroused resentment. His own reputation was attacked; his bluntness, his walk, and even his smile were criticized. And neither the virtue of the ladies under his direction nor his own scrupulous behavior towards them was any protection from scandalous gossip. Affronted at the calumnies that were circulated, Jerome decided to return to the East. Taking with him his brother Paulinian and some others, he embarked in August, 385. At Cyprus, on the way, he was received with joy by Bishop Epiphanius, and at Antioch also he conferred with leading churchmen. It was here, probably, that he was joined by the widow Paula and some other ladies who had left Rome with the aim of settling in the Holy Land. With what remained of Jeromes own patrimony and with financial help from Paula, a monastery for men was built near the basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and also houses for three communities of women. Paula became head of one of these, and after her death was succeeded by her daughter Eustochium. Jerome himself lived and worked in a large cave near the Saviours birthplace. He opened a free school there and also a hospice for pilgrims, so that, as Paula said, should Mary and Joseph visit Bethlehem again, they would have a place to stay. Now at last Jerome began to enjoy some years of peaceful activity. He gives us a wonderful description of this fruitful, harmonious, Palestinian life, and its attraction for all manner of men. Illustrious Gauls congregate here, and no sooner has the Briton, so remote from our world, arrived at religion than he leaves his early-setting sun to seek a land which he knows only by reputation and from the Scriptures. Then the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Ethiopia, of Egypt, and of Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria, and Mesopotamia!... They come in throngs and set us examples of every virtue. The languages differ but the religion is the same; as many different choirs chant the psalms as there are nations.... Here bread and herbs, planted with our own hands, and milk, all country fare, furnish us plain and healthy food. In summer the trees give us shade. In autumn the air is cool and the falling leaves restful. In spring our psalmody is sweeter for the singing of the birds. We have plenty of wood when winter snow and cold are upon us. Let Rome keep its crowds, let its arenas run with blood, its circuses go mad, its theaters wallow in sensuality.... But when the Christian faith was threatened Jerome could not be silent. While at Rome in the time of Pope Damasus, he had composed a book on the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary against one Helvidius, who had maintained that Mary had not remained always a virgin but had had other children by St. Joseph, after the birth of Christ. This and similar ideas were now again put forward by a certain Jovinian, who had been a monk. Paulas son-in-law, Pammachius, sent some of this heretical writing to Jerome, and he, in 393, wrote two books against Jovinian. In the first he described the excellence of virginity. The books were written in Jeromes vehement style and there were expressions in them which seemed lacking in respect for honorable matrimony. Pammachius informed Jerome of the offense which he and many others at Rome had taken at them. Thereupon Jerome composed his , sometimes called his third book against Jovinian, in which he showed by quoting from his own earlier works that he regarded marriage as a good and honorable state and did not condemn even a second or a third marriage. A few years later he turned his attention to one Vigilantius, a Gallic priest, who was denouncing both celibacy and the veneration of saints relics, calling those who revered them idolaters and worshipers of ashes. In defending celibacy Jerome said that a monk should purchase security by flying from temptations and dangers when he distrusted his own strength. As to the veneration of relics, he declared: We do not worship the relics of the martyrs, but honor them in our worship of Him whose martyrs they are. We honor the servants in order that the respect paid to them may be reflected back to the Lord. Honoring them, he said, was not idolatry because no Christian had ever adored the martyrs as gods; on the other hand, they pray for us. If the Apostles and martyrs, while still living on earth, could pray for other men, how much more may they do it after their victories? Have they less power now that they are with Jesus Christ? He told Paula, after the death of her daughter Blesilla, She now prays to the Lord for you, and obtains for me the pardon of my sins. Jerome was never moderate whether in virtue or against evil. Though swift to anger, he was also swift to feel remorse and was even more severe on his own failings than on those of others. From 395 to 400 Jerome was engaged in a war against Origenism2, which unhappily created a breach in his long friendship with Rufinus. Finding that some Eastern monks had been led into error by the authority of Rufinus name and learning, Jerome attacked him. Rufinus, then living in a monastery at Jerusalem, had translated many of Origens works into Latin and was an enthusiastic upholder of his scholarship, though it does not appear that he meant to defend the heresies in Origens writings. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was one of the churchmen greatly distressed by the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus, and became unwillingly involved in a controversy with Jerome. Jeromes passionate controversies were the least important part of his activities. What has made his name so famous was his critical labor on the text of the Scriptures. The Church regards him as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the Divine Word. He had the best available aids for such an undertaking, living where the remains of Biblical places, names, and customs all combined to give him a more vivid view than he could have had at a greater distance. To continue his study of Hebrew he hired a famous Jewish scholar, Bar Ananias, who came to teach him by night, lest other Jews should learn of it. As a man of prayer and purity of heart whose life had been mainly spent in study, penance, and contemplation, Jerome was prepared to be a sensitive interpreter of spiritual things. We have seen that already while at Rome he had made a revision of the current Latin New Testament, and of the Psalms. Now he undertook to translate most of the books of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The friends and scholars who urged him to this task realized the superiority of a version made directly from the original to any second-hand version, however venerable. It was needed too for argument with the Jews, who recognized no other text as authentic but their own. He began with the Books of Kings, and went on with the rest at different times. When he found that the Book of Tobias and part of Daniel had been composed in Chaldaic, he set himself to learn that difficult language also. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task, but a certain scholarly tenacity of purpose kept him at it. The only parts of the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which were not either translated or worked over by him are the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two Books of the Maccabees.3 He revised the Psalms once again, with the aid of Origens ,4 and the Hebrew text. This last is the version included now in the Vulgate and used generally in the Divine Office; his first revision, known as the Roman Psalter, is still used for the opening psalm at Matins and throughout the Missal, and for the Divine Office in the cathedrals of St. Peter at Rome and St. Mark at Venice, and in the Milanese rite. In the sixteenth century the great Council of Trent pronounced Jeromes Vulgate the authentic and authoritative Latin text of the Catholic Church, without, however, thereby implying a preference for it above the original text or above versions in other languages. In 1907 Pope Pius X entrusted to the Benedictine Order the office of restoring as far as possible the correct text of St. Jeromes Vulgate, which during fifteen centuries of use had naturally become altered in many places. The Bible now ordinarily used by English-speaking Catholics is a translation of the Vulgate, made at Rheims and Douay towards the end of the sixteenth century, and revised by Bishop Challoner in the eighteenth. The Confraternity Edition of the New Testament appearing in 1950 represents a complete revision. A heavy blow came to Jerome in 404 when his staunch friend, the saintly Paula, died. Six years later he was stunned by news of the sacking of Rome by Alaric the Goth. Of the refugees who fled from Rome to the East at this time he wrote: Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa, or that Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies, brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and am completely absorbed in the duties which charity imposes on me. I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the precepts of the Scriptures into deeds; instead of speaking saintly words, we must act them. A few years later his work was again interrupted by raids of barbarians pushing north through Egypt into Palestine, and later still by a violent onset of Pelagian heretics, who, relying on the protection of Bishop John of Jerusalem, sent a troop of ruffians to Bethlehem to disperse the monks and nuns living there under the direction of Jerome, who had been opposing Pelagianism5 with his customary truculence. Some of the monks were beaten, a deacon was killed, and monasteries were set on fire. Jerome had to go into hiding for a time. The following year Paulas daughter Eustochium died. The aged Jerome soon fell ill, and after lingering for two years succumbed. Worn with penance and excessive labor, his sight and voice almost gone, his body like a shadow, he died peacefully on September 30, 420, and was buried under the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. In the thirteenth century his body was translated and now lies somewhere in the Sistine Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome. The Church owes much to St. Jerome. While his great work was the Vulgate, his achievements in other fields are valuable; to him we owe the distinction between canonical and apocryphal writings; he was a pioneer in the field of Biblical archeology, his commentaries are important; his letters, published in three volumes, are one of our best sources of knowledge of the times. St. Jerome has been a popular subject with artists, who have pictured him in the desert, as a scholar in his study, and sometimes in the robes of a cardinal, because of his services for Pope Damasus; often too he is shown with a lion, from whose paw, according to legend, he once drew a thorn. Actually this story was transferred to him from the tradition of St. Gerasimus, but a lion is not an inappropriate symbol for so fearless a champion of the faith. READINGS FROM THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE: READING 1, Job 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23 1 In the end it was Job who broke the silence and cursed the day of his birth. 2 This is what he said: 3 Perish the day on which I was born and the night that told of a boy conceived. 11 Why was I not still-born, or why did I not perish as I left the womb? 12 Why were there knees to receive me, breasts for me to suck? 13 Now I should be lying in peace, wrapped in a restful slumber, 14 with the kings and high viziers of earth who have built their dwellings in desolate places, 15 or with princes who have quantities of gold and silver cramming their tombs; 16 or, put away like an abortive child, I should not have existed, like little ones that never see the light. 17 Down there, the wicked bustle no more, there the weary rest. 20 Why give light to a man of grief? Why give life to those bitter of heart, 21 who long for a death that never comes, and hunt for it more than for buried treasure? 22 They would be glad to see the grave-mound and shout with joy if they reached the tomb. 23 Why give light to one who does not see his way, whom God shuts in all alone? RESPONSORIAL PSALM, Psalms 88:2-3, 4-5, 6, 7-8 2 may my prayer reach your presence, hear my cry for help. 3 For I am filled with misery, my life is on the brink of Sheol; 4 already numbered among those who sink into oblivion, I am as one bereft of strength, 5 left alone among the dead, like the slaughtered lying in the grave, whom you remember no more, cut off as they are from your protection. 6 You have plunged me to the bottom of the grave, in the darkness, in the depths; 7 weighted down by your anger, kept low by your waves.Pause 8 You have deprived me of my friends, made me repulsive to them, imprisoned, with no escape; GOSPEL, Luke 9:51-56 51 Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem 52 and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, 53 but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. 54 Seeing this, the disciples James and John said, Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up? 55 But he turned and rebuked them, 56 and they went on to another village. REFLECTIONS: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God) OPENING PRAYER: Father, you show your almighty power in your mercy and forgiveness. Continue to fill us with your gifts of love. Help us to hurry towards the eternal life your promise and come to share in the joys of your kingdom. 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: Job 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23 (Jobs Lament) The central and most important part of the book is the dialogues, which are in verse form. It is a debate about the sufferings of an innocent man, which also deals with questions to do with God, man and the order of the universe. The debate sometimes seems quite academic -- a discussion about abstract ideas: at other times it is rather heated and emotional, reflecting particularly the anguish felt by one of the speakers (Job). Also, it is worth noting that, since Job is depicted in the prologue as a devout Jew, his conversation with wise men from other cultures makes him a symbol of the people of Israel under Persian domination and on the point of losing the hope built up in them by the prophets. In view of the situation of the Jews during and after the exile, the question must arise: How can God abandon his people, who have stayed true to him even when in the direst straits? Surely he cannot oppress them on a mere whim? As pointed out in the Introduction, there are three groups of speeches -- Jobs dialogue with his friends (chaps. 3-31). Elihus intervention (chaps 32-37, and the speeches of the Lord (38:1-42:6). The opening words (v. 1) spell out the theme of this long monologue by Job: he curses the day he was born. Speaking very forthrightly, dramatically and even with a certain cynicism. the protagonist bewails his life: by contrast with the Let there be light of creation (Gen 1:3), which distinguished day from night. Job asks that the day of his birth he plunged into darkness forever (vv. 3-10). The rhetorical questions and statements in vv. 11-19 express doubts as to whether life is worth living: If a person is suffering, is death not more desirable than life? The last part of this soliloquy, (vv. 20-26) asks the question about God almost without mentioning him: What sense can we make of things if God brings into being someone who is destined to suffer? Job feels so wretched that he cannot find the answer, but the fact that he asks this series of questions implies that an answer there must be. Early commentators often posed the question: By speaking as he did, did Job not sin? St Gregory the Great goes so far as to comment that what Job says is unreasonable if one looks at it superficially, but that in using these words the holy man does not mean them literally (Moralia in lob. 4,3). Most commentators, however, justify Jobs lament by arguing that there is no sin involved in someone desiring to lie no longer if he is weighed down by suffering: sin comes in if a person commits suicide or desires to do so. Jeremiah, too, cursed the day of his birth (cf. Jer 20:14-17), but he did not sin (cf. St Thomas, Expositio super lob). Although for other reasons entirely, mystics, too, have experienced a desire to die, in their eagerness to be in heaven. St Teresa of Avila, for example, goes so far as to say, And I live in hope of so high a form of life, that I die because I do not die (Poems, 2). Those who curse the day (v. 8): those who love darkness because they can do evil under cover of it: but even they should curse that night. Death is seen here in the same kind of way as in traditional wisdom -- as marking the start of a vague existence akin to non-being. Therefore, as compared with suffering it is a place of rest, like a dream, all silent (v. 13), far removed from the noise created by evildoers (v. 17) or the barks of the taskmaster (v. 18). And there is no distinction of persons there: the poorest are on a par with kings and magnates (vv. 14-15), the small with the great, servants with masters (v. 19). In the light of later Revelation, particularly the death and resurrection of Christ, death is no longer seen as mere relief from suffering: it marks the point when one begins to enjoy ones reward: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth. Blessed indeed: says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them (Rev 14:13). So, for a Christian, death is the antechamber to the resurrection of the dead. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep (1 Thess 4:14). St Bernard puts it very nicely: The death of the just man is good because it brings him peace: it is better still for the new joy it gives to him, and best of all because the peace and joy that death brings are never-ending (Epistolae, 105). ON THE GOSPEL: Luke 9:51-56 (Some Samaritans Refuse to Receive Jesus, The calling of Three Disciples) The Gospel today narrates and tells us how Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem. It also describes the first difficulties which he finds along this road. He presents us the beginning of the long and hard way of the periphery toward the capital city. Jesus leaves Galilee and goes toward Jerusalem. Not all can understand him. Many abandon him, because the demands are enormous. Today, the same thing happens. Along the way of our community there are misunderstandings and abandonment. “Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem”. This decision marks the hard and long way of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, from the periphery to the capital city. This journey occupies more than one third part of the Gospel of Luke (Lk 9, 51 to 19, 28). This is a sign that the voyage to Jerusalem was of great importance in the life of Jesus. The long walk is the symbol, at the same time, of the journey that the community is making. They seek to go through a difficult passage from the Jewish world toward the world of the Greek culture. This also symbolized the tension between the New and the Ancient which was closing more and more in itself. It also symbolizes the conversion which each one of us has to carry out, trying to follow Jesus. During the journey, the disciples try to follow Jesus, without returning back; but they do not always succeed. Jesus dedicates much time to instruct those who follow him closely. We have a concrete example of this instruction in today’s Gospel. At the beginning of the journey, Jesus leaves Galilee and takes with him the disciples to the territory of the Samaritans. He tries to form them in order that they may be ready to understand the openness to the New, toward the other, toward what is different. Luke 9, 51: Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem. The Greek text says literally: “Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem”. The expression assumption or being snatched recalls the Prophet Elijah snatched to heaven (2 K 2, 9-11). The expression turned his face recalls the Servant of Yahweh who said: “I have set my face like flint and I know I shall not be put to shame” (Is 50, 7). It also recalls an order which the Prophet Ezekiel received from God: “Turn your face toward Jerusalem!” (Ez 21, 7). In using these expressions Luke suggests that while they were walking toward Jerusalem, the most open opposition of Jesus began against the project of the official ideology of the Temple of Jerusalem. The ideology of the Temple wanted a glorious and nationalistic Messiah. Jesus wants to be a Messiah Servant. During the long journey, this opposition will increase and finally, it will end in the getting hold of Jesus. The snatching of Jesus is his death on the Cross, followed by his Resurrection. When the days drew near for Him to be received up: these words refer to the moment when Jesus will leave this world and ascend into Heaven. Our Lord will say this more explicitly during the Last Supper: I come from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father ( John 16:28 ). By making His way resolutely to Jerusalem, towards His Cross, Jesus freely complies with His Fathers plan for His passion and death to be the route to His resurrection and ascension. Luke 9, 52-53: The mission in Samaria failed. During the journey, the horizon of the mission is extended. After the beginning, Jesus goes beyond the frontiers of the territory and of the race. He sends his disciples to go and prepare his arrival in a town of Samaria. But the mission together with the Samaritans fails. Luke says that the Samaritans did not receive Jesus because he was going to Jerusalem. But if the disciples would have said to the Samaritans: “Jesus is going to Jerusalem to criticize the project of the Temple and to demand a greater openness”, Jesus would have been accepted, because the Samaritans were of the same opinion. The failure of the mission is, probably, due to the disciples. They did not understand why Jesus “turned the face toward Jerusalem”. The official propaganda of the glorious and nationalistic Messiah prevented them from perceiving... The disciples did not understand the openness of Jesus and the mission failed! The Samaritans were hostile towards the Jews. This enmity derived from the fact that the Samaritans were descendants of marriages of Jews with Gentiles who repopulated the region of Samaria at the time of the Assyrian captivity (in the eighth century before Christ). There were also religious differences: the Samaritans had mixed the religion of Moses with various superstitious practices, and did not accept the temple of Jerusalem as the only place where sacrifices could properly be offered. They built their own temple on Mount Gerizim, in opposition to Jerusalem (cf. John 4:20); this was why, when they realized Jesus was headed for the Holy City, they refused Him hospitality. Luke 9, 54-55: Jesus does not accept the request of vengeance. James and John do not want to take home the defeat. They do not accept that some one is not in agreement with their ideas. They want to imitate Elijah and use fire to revenge (2 K 1, 10). Jesus rejects the proposal. He does not want the fire. Some Bibles add: “You do not know what spirit is moving you!” This means that the reaction of the disciples was not according to the Spirit of Jesus. When Peter suggests to Jesus not to follow the path of the Messiah Servant, Jesus turns to Peter calling him Satan (Mk 8, 33). Satan is the evil spirit who wants to change the course or route of the mission of Jesus. The Message of Luke for the communities: those who want to hinder the mission among the pagans are moved by the evil spirit! Jesus corrects His disciples desire for revenge, because it is out of keeping with the mission of the Messiah, who has come to save men, not destroy them (cf. Luke 19:10; John 12:47). The Apostles are gradually learning that zeal for the things of God should not be bitter or violent. The Lord does everything in an admirable way. He acts in this way to teach us that perfect virtue retains no desire for vengeance, and that where there is true charity there is no room for anger--in other words, that weakness should not be treated with harshness but should be helped. Indignation should be very far from holy souls, and desire for vengeance very far from great souls (St. Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii Sec. Lucam, in loc.). An RSV footnote after the word rebuked in verse 55 points out that other ancient authorities add and He said You do not know what manner of Spirit you are of; for the Son of Man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them. These words appear in a considerable number of early Greek MSS and other versions and were included in the Clementine Vulgate; but they do not appear in the best and oldest Greek codices and have not been included in the New Vulgate. Our Lord spells out very clearly what is involved in following Him. Being a Christian is not an easy or comfortable affair: it calls for self-denial and for putting God before everything else. See the notes on Matthew 8:18-22 and Matthew 8 : 22. In the ten chapters which describe the journey up to Jerusalem (Lk 9, 51 to 19, 28 ), Luke constantly reminds us that Jesus is on the way toward Jerusalem (Lk 9, 51.53.57; 10, 1.38; 11, 1; 13, 22.33; 14, 25; 17,11; 18, 31; 18, 37; 19, 1.11.28 ). He rarely says through where Jesus passed. Only at the beginning of the journey (Lk 9, 51), in the middle (Lk 17, 11), and at the end (Lk 18, 35; 19, 1), something is known concerning the place where Jesus was going by. This refers to the communities of Luke and also for all of us. The only thing that is sure is that we have to continue to walk. We cannot stop. But it is not always clear and definite the place where we have to pass by. What is sure, certain, is the objective: Jerusalem. From the very outset of His messianic preaching, Jesus rarely stays in the same place; He is always on the move. He has nowhere to lay His head (Matthew 8 :20). Anyone who desires to be with him has to follow Him. This phrase following Jesus has a very precise meaning: it means being His disciple (cf. Matthew 19:28 ). Sometimes the crowds follow Him; but Jesus true disciples are those who follow Him in a permanent way, that is, who keep on following Him: being a disciple of Jesus and following Him amount to the same thing. After our Lords ascension, following Him means being a Christian (cf. Acts 8 : 26). By the simple and sublime fact of Baptism, every Christian is called, by a divine vocation, to be a full disciple of our Lord, with all that that involves. The evangelist here gives two specific cases of following Jesus. In the case of the scribe our Lord explains what faith requires of a person who realizes that he has been called; in the second case--that of the man who has already said yes to Jesus--He reminds him of what His commandment entails. The soldier who does not leave his position on the battlefront to bury his father, but instead leaves that to those in the rearguard, is doing his duty. If service to ones country makes demands like that on a person, all the more reason for it to happen in the service of Jesus Christ and His Church. Following Christ, then, means we should make ourselves totally available to Him; whatever sacrifice He asks of us we should make: the call to follow Christ means staying up with Him, not falling behind; we either follow Him or lose Him. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) Jesus explained what following Him involves --a teaching which we find summarized in even the most basic catechism of Christian doctrine: a Christian is a man who believes in Jesus Christ--a faith he receives at Baptism -- and is duty bound to serve Him. Through prayer and friendship with the Lord every Christian should try to discover the demands which this service involves as far as he personally is concerned. Leave the dead to bury their own dead: although this sounds very harsh, it is a style of speaking which Jesus did sometimes use: here the dead clearly refers to those whose interest is limited to perishable things and who have no aspirations towards the things that last forever. If Jesus forbade him, St. John Chrysostom comments, it was not to have us neglect the honor due to our parents, but to make us realize that nothing is more important than the things of Heaven and that we ought to cleave to these and not to put them off even for a little while, though our engagements be ever so indispensable and pressing (Hom. on St. Matthew, 27). We see here the case of the man who wanted to follow Christ, but on one condition -- that he be allowed to say goodbye to his family. Our Lord, seeing that he is rather undecided, gives him an answer which applies to all of us, for we have all received a calling to follow Him and we have to try not to receive this grace in vain. We receive the grace of God in vain, when we receive it at the gate of our heart, and do not let it enter our heart. We receive it without receiving it, that is, we receive it without fruit, since there is no advantage in feeling the inspiration if we do not accept it. It sometimes happens that being inspired to do much we consent not to the whole inspiration but only to some part of it, as did those good people in the Gospel, who upon the inspiration which our Lord gave them to follow Him wished to make reservations, the one to go first and bury his father, the other to go to take leave of his people (St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 11). Our loyalty and fidelity to the mission God has given us should equip us to deal with every obstacle we meet: There is never reason to look back (cf. Luke 9:62). The Lord is at our side. We have to be faithful and loyal; we have to face up to our obligations and we will find in Jesus the love and the stimulus we need to understand other peoples faults and overcome our own (St. J. Escriva, Christ Is Passing By, 160). FINAL PRAYERS: All the kings of the earth give thanks to you, Yahweh, when they hear the promises you make; they sing of Yahweh’s ways, ‘Great is the glory of Yahweh!’ (Ps 138,4-5) Giver of life, Creator of all that is lovely, Teach me to sing the words of your song; I want to feel the music of living And not fear the sad songs, But from them make new songs Composed of both laughter and tears. Teach me to dance to the sounds of your world and your people, I want to move in rhythm with your plan; Help me to try to follow your leading, To risk even falling, To rise and keep trying Because you are leading the dance. -- Dancer’s Prayer, Anonymous It is by God’s mercy that we are saved. May we never tire of spreading this joyful message to the world. -- Pope Francis 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, 29 Sep 2014 23:23:04 +0000
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