Wednesday of the
Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
(Sirach 36:1.4-5a.10-17; Mark 10:32-45)
Israel is the ninety-seventh largest country in the world
with a population of over eight million people.
Switzerland is a slightly larger country, and Tajikistan a slightly
smaller one. Of the three, which capital
is best known? Probably only Israel’s
capital, Jerusalem, is known.
Switzerland does not have a declared capital and Tajikistan’s capital,
Dushanbe, is more obscure than the country.
Why has Jerusalem become as renown as Sirach’s prayer in the first
reading today requests?
Surely, it is not because the world stands in dread of Israel
as it did in a sense during David’s and Solomon’s reigns. No, the prayer has been answered in Jesus
Christ who established a reign of virtue not of arms. Although atrocities have been committed by
Christians through the centuries, those events were deviations from Jesus’ way,
not in conformity to it.
