Thursday, January 16, 2025

Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 3:7-14; Mark 1:40-45)

The term “banality of evil” was coined by the philosopher Hannah Arendt after World War II.  She used it to describe how war criminals like Adolph Eichmann could have taken part in atrocities like the Holocaust.  Her thesis is that many who do evil are not bad people with evil intentions.  Rather, they just do what is necessary to live comfortable lives like most people.  Arendt wrote that to combat evil people must ask themselves how their actions affect others and desist when they cause suffering or distress.

The reading from Hebrews today warns people to likewise be wary of the “banality of evil.” The message implies that going along with the crowd can create injustice and bring forth the wrath of God.  Saying that the people have become partners of Christ, it urges them not to abandon the one who has set them free from evil.

The reading’s lesson applies equally to us.  We too may follow the majority into a swamp.  Lying to receive added compensation is just one way people today participate in the “banality of evil.”  As the author of Hebrews recommends, we should remain faithful to Christ who forbids it.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

 Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 3:7-14; Mark 1:40-45)

The background for the Letter to the Hebrews has much in common with what is happening today.  Hebrew Christians, disillusioned that the Lord had not returned, were leaving the community of faith.  Today many who were raised Catholics no longer attend mass.  They find the promises of Christian faith, especially eternal life, as unreliable. 

In today’s lesson from Hebrews, the author of the letter exhorts the community not to give up hope.  He reminds the people of what happened in the desert after the exodus from Egypt.  The people forgot how the Lord had delivered them from slavery.  When experiencing hardship in the desert, they demanded new signs of power rather than trust in the Lord’s goodness.

Certainly there is cause for today’s disillusion with the Catholic Church.  Some of its officials have proven to be corrupt.  Some of its faithful have shown themselves as unrepentant.  But all this is not to say that the Church does not create saints.  Indeed, we can expect those who express their love for God openly and regularly to show similarly impressive virtue.

Thursday, January 15, 2014

Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 3:7-14; Mark 1:40-45)

A retired preacher of boys’ retreat was asked why he gave up the practice.  He answered that the fire and brimstone that he used to scare the boys no longer had a positive effect.  He said that once boys were visibly shaken by exaggerated descriptions of eternal punishment, but they had come to dismiss the possibility.  Perhaps the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is aware of this tendency in the second reading today.

The reading quotes the Old Testament in describing the effect of sin.  It does not say that sinners will be tortured but, much more simply, that they not enter into God’s rest.  Then it encourages readers to become allergic to sin so that they do not surrender to its promptings.

Sin is allowing selfish desires to take precedence over doing God’s will.  In a sexual temptation sin is  saying that one’s desire for pleasure is more important than the personal integrity of that person’s partner or, indeed, of the person’s own integrity.  We never want to become comfortable with this kind of thought.  Indeed, we want to resist it from the beginning.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Memorial of Saint Anthony, abbot

(Hebrews 3:7-14; Mark 1:40-45)

The life of St. Anthony is as edifying as it is interesting. He was born into a wealthy Christian family in Egypt. Listening to the gospel story of the rich, young man, Anthony decided not to allow himself to lose eternal life. He sold what he had, gave his money to the poor, and went into the desert to follow Christ as a monk. There he found a monastery from which he emerged, at 105 years of age, to defend orthodox Christianity against the Arian heretics.

Anthony’s feast day gives us opportunity to consider Egypt’s Christian minority today. Descendants of a rich Christian tradition that includes Anthony, Athanasius, and a host of other saints, Egyptian Christians are being persecuted as a religious minority. The country’s recent revolution, well supported by Western powers, has not helped their lot. More than ever, their lives and well as their faith totter under Muslim prejudice.

The situation of Christians in Egypt may not differ much from that of the “Hebrews” to whom the first reading is addressed. They likewise have the difficult task of opening their hearts, as the letter asks of the Hebrews, to their neighbors, some of whom revile them. They too have to show Christ’s love for their persecutors which will win them salvation.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Memorial of St. Hilary of Poitiers, bishop and doctor of the Church

(Hebrews 3:7-14; Mark 1:40-45)

In the Western world material comfort distracts many from following Christ. Pastors should urge their congregations to keep their eyes on him whose resurrection from the dead is their hope and promise. In the East the situation is more dire, and the pastoral challenge more daunting. Christians are persecuted regularly and, all too often, with little recourse to justice. In November Muslims massacred sixty Catholics who were worshipping in church, and last month a similar atrocity was inflicted on Coptic Christians in Egypt. Pakistani Christians are also constantly harassed. Lest we think discrimination against Christians is exclusively the work of Muslims, in India the Hindu majority can show prejudice toward to both Christians and Muslims which has erupted into violence.

Throughout the whole world then the admonition of the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews today is relevant. We must hold fast to belief in Christ, as hard as it sometimes is. It is a sure road to personal peace as Jesus provides spiritual companionship that cannot be taken away. More significantly, he is the only way to eternal life. In our liturgy today we remember a model of religious endurance under persecution. St. Hilary was exiled from his native France for defending Christ’s divinity against the compromising assertions of the Arians. In exile he did not stop proclaiming the truth of Christ, and when returned to his diocese of Poitiers, he proclaimed Christ as the eternal God until his death.