Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
(Haggai 1:1-8; Luke 9:7-9)
We should not take satisfaction in Herod's recognizing Jesus as we might have done when Bill Clinton named Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Herod the tetrarch is an adulterer, a spy, and an assassin. The evangelist Luke mentions him here not to show how Jesus is attracting attention on high, but to indicate that storm clouds are gathering over his head. Like John the Baptist Jesus too will soon face martyrdom.
Herod also serves the evangelist’s intention by asking the critical question, “Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” Like John, Jesus is a powerful preacher calling people to righteousness. Like Elias, he works wonders that demonstrate his divine mission. But what else might he be? In a world with so many distracting allurements we need to continually keep the correct answer to Herod’s question in our consciousness. As Peter proclaims after the Pentecost event, Jesus is “Lord and Messiah.” This means for us that he is God who came to rescue us from our sinful tendencies and to lead us on the way to eternal life.
Showing posts with label Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. Show all posts
Homilette for Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
(Hebrews 2:14-18; Mark 1:29-39)
For centuries the Church believed that St. Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews. There were a few dissenters in early times, but only in the sixteenth century did the great Erasmus begin to persuade the majority of scholars that Paul could not have authored the document. As a preeminent theologian of the third century put it, “everyone who is able to discern differences in style” would know that the letter did not come directly from the pen of Paul. The identity of the author remains unknown today.
Determining authorship is only one of the difficulties in studying the Letter to the Hebrews. It is also full of obscure terms that challenge the modern mind. In today’s passage, for example, we scratch our heads trying to interpret the meaning of how humans “through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.” Is the letter trying to say, like Prince Hamlet in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy, that humans are not free to do what they want because they fear death?
No, it is not that. Such a fear would at least have us doing what is right. The fear to which the letter refers is a deeper anxiety that would paralyze us from doing any good at all. It is a fear that would so preoccupy us with the terror of death that we could not love God or neighbor. The letter tells us, however, that Christ has eliminated this kind of fear by his resurrection from the dead. Now we can, in the words of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, “befriend death” because it only unites us securely with God, the object of our living.
(Hebrews 2:14-18; Mark 1:29-39)
For centuries the Church believed that St. Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews. There were a few dissenters in early times, but only in the sixteenth century did the great Erasmus begin to persuade the majority of scholars that Paul could not have authored the document. As a preeminent theologian of the third century put it, “everyone who is able to discern differences in style” would know that the letter did not come directly from the pen of Paul. The identity of the author remains unknown today.
Determining authorship is only one of the difficulties in studying the Letter to the Hebrews. It is also full of obscure terms that challenge the modern mind. In today’s passage, for example, we scratch our heads trying to interpret the meaning of how humans “through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.” Is the letter trying to say, like Prince Hamlet in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy, that humans are not free to do what they want because they fear death?
No, it is not that. Such a fear would at least have us doing what is right. The fear to which the letter refers is a deeper anxiety that would paralyze us from doing any good at all. It is a fear that would so preoccupy us with the terror of death that we could not love God or neighbor. The letter tells us, however, that Christ has eliminated this kind of fear by his resurrection from the dead. Now we can, in the words of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, “befriend death” because it only unites us securely with God, the object of our living.
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