Friday of the
Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
(Revelation 10:8-11; Luke 19:45-48)
One day in 1979 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel
Laureate, gave a talk at Harvard University.
People were prepared to hear him describe the atrocities of the Soviet
Union. They were not expecting a moral critique
of western society. But by then Solzhenitsyn
had lived in the United States a number of years and was not edified by all
that he saw. He did not equate the
American system with the dishonesty and corruption of the Soviet Union. But, he said, America for a long time had lost
a core of virtue. In place of justice
and courage the United States has given itself to materialism, consumerism, and
radical individualism. Solzhenitsyn’s message
has the sweet-bitter flavor of the scroll eaten by the seer in today’s first
reading and the actions of Jesus in the gospel.
Eating a scroll symbolizes a speaker’s assimilating a
message so that it becomes part of him.
It is sweet on the tongue as it means learning God’s will. But it is bitter when it settles in the
stomach because it demands reform that people resist. This is actually what takes place in the
gospel passage. Jesus, acting on God’s
word, cleanses the Temple of venal commercialism. Many people praise him for such courage. The religious leaders meanwhile want to kill
him for it. Jesus knows this and so
prepares himself for suffering.
We are being called to assimilate the word of God and to
live it in the world. It will both
thrill and cost us. We will find
satisfaction in knowing that we are doing God’s work. At the same time we will hear of cynics
judging us as we ask others to cooperate in our service. We must not shrink from the task. For love of God and other human beings we
have to put into practice the values that Christ has taught.
