Memorial
of Saint Bernard, abbot and Doctor of the Church
(Judges 9:6-15;
Matthew 20:1-16)
The fable
in today’s first reading needs explanation.
The story from the Book of Judges relates a sample of the tragic history
of Israel in the first centuries in the Promised Land. At issue is the desire of the people of Shechem,
a prominent city of northern Israel for a king. Abimelech, one of the many sons
of the judge Gideon, is the leading candidate. He manipulated the people to kill his seventy
brothers. Jotham, the one brother who
survived the slaughter, relates the fable to decry his half-brother’s candidacy. He says that most trees have the good sense
not to be sovereign over the others.
Only the wiliest of all the trees, the buckthorn, will take the
office. By the story Jotham implies that
the reign of Abimelech is bringing terror to Shechem.
Abimelech
is hardly the first or the last seeker of kingly power. Humans crave authority so that they may lord
it over others. St. Bernard, a friend to
kings of his day, surely knew this. He
embraced an ascetical way of life and became a proponent of humble monasticism. He wrote a stern letter to a cousin who left
his Cistercian reform for the more grandiose life of the Benedictines in Cluny.
If we cannot
have kingly status in the world, we may seek it in our homes. In either arena we should be careful to take
our Lord as a model. A king by nature
and achievement he did not lord it over others. He served all --rich and poor –
to teach us how to live in humble righteousness.
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