Monday, October 21, 2013

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 4:20-25; Luke 12:13-21)

The Church of the early late fifteenth and early sixteenth century suffered from having too much wealth.  The popes acted more like princes than prophets.  Monks and religious hardly witnessed the poverty of Jesus.  Sometimes, indeed, they had personal servants in their convents.  Saints like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross understood the incongruity of such comfort with religious profession and set out to reform their Carmelite Order.  Of course, Teresa and John took their cues from Jesus in the gospel.

In today’s passage Jesus refuses to get involved in a family dispute over inheritance.  It is not that he wants to ignore real-life tensions.  Rather, he wants to testify to the need of trusting in God for salvation and not in material resources at human disposal.  He calls the farmer in the parable who wants to build silos to provide for his future a “fool” because he does not recognize the obvious: his future is more in the hands of God than in his own.

Certainly we are challenged to live our faith in Jesus.  We have material needs that must be cared for.  But we cannot allow ourselves to accrue things that will take our attention from God as our final hope.  It may take the majority of our lifetime, but we must learn to see material needs best cared from a perspective that emphasizes dependence on God.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Feast of Saint Luke, evangelist

(II Timothy 4:10-17b; Luke 10:1-9)

The Hebrew song “Dayenu” has been sung at Jewish Passover suppers for over a thousand years.  The words mean it would have been enough and refer to the many marvelous deeds that God had performed for the children of Israel. “Dayenu,” the people sing, “that He had brought us out of Egypt”; “dayenu…that He “had fed us manna”; “dayenu…that he “had given us the Torah”; and so on.  In considering the Gospel of St. Luke we may also want to sing “Dayenu.”

Luke’s gospel by far tells us more of the Virgin Mary than the other three – dayenu, that alone would have been enough for us to read it.  It also contains Jesus’ most beautiful parables – “The Prodigal Son,” “The Good Samaritan,” and “Lazarus and the Rich Man” – dayenu, that fact alone would have been enough to satisfy us.  And only Luke relates Jesus in a manger as he is born and begging forgiveness for his persecutors as he dies on a cross – dayenu, how could anyone ask for more.

We know nothing for certain about St. Luke.  The report that he was a physician and a disciple of Paul does not have great historical credibility.  But there is a sense in which we know him intimately.  Like us he loved Jesus for showing God’s mercy.  Like us he had a special regard for Jesus’ Virgin Mother.  And like us he longed to see the Church grow so that the entire world might live together in peace.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr

(Romans 3:21-30; Luke 11:47-54)

St. Ignatius of Antioch contributed significantly to the historical knowledge of early Christianity.  His seven letters while traveling to Rome for martyrdom give an unparalleled picture of Church order at the turn of the second century.  Yet the zealousness, for which he is also famous, may make him more repulsive than interesting.  In one letter he asks his readers not to interfere on his behalf when he is called to enter the lion’s den.  Was he crazy?

Not likely.  He was holy, that is given to God in an untypical way that made him desire to be with God more than linger with other human beings.  Widows sometimes express a similar death wish as they long to be reunited with their husbands in eternal life.  Ignatius evidently believed what St. Paul teaches in the passage from his letter to the Romans (one of Ignatius’ letters is also entitled so) read today.  Because God has deemed him righteous on account of his faith, upon death he will experience eternal life.

We need not question our faith if we find ourselves wanting to live a long life.  After all, we can enjoy a fruitful relationship with God among family and friends.  Nevertheless, when God calls us, we will hopefully not rage against death but accept it as an invitation to see God, as St. Paul touchingly describes it in another letter, “face-to-face.”

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 2:1-11; Luke 11:42-46)

No doubt the media highlights clerical sexual abuse because priests regularly preach the virtue of chastity.  Statistics show that they as a group are not more inclined to abuse than other males, but most men do not tell others to abstain from sexual activity outside marriage.  In today’s first reading Paul points out a similar two-facedness.

Paul has just finished excoriating non-Jews for their sexual licentiousness.  His condemnation included an often cited denunciation of homosexual activity.  Now he turns his critical eyes on Jews who think that they are better than pagans although in fact they are guilty of the same sins.  Shortly he will offer the solution to the iron band of evil that entraps all peoples – faith in Christ.

We live in a society of many fewer sexual inhibitions that found in previous generations.  Masturbation and fornication are considered normal, not corrupt, activities.  Hankering after the pleasure from these undertakings, youth will not be able to form permanent, caring relationships.  Jesus, who modeled implicitly the chastity he preached, still serves as our best guide to sexual integrity.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, virgin and doctor of the Church

(Romans 1:16-25; Luke 11:37-41)

May we call comfort and convenience contemporary gods?  People certainly pay them much tribute.  Drive-through services proliferate:  bank deposits, fast food purchases, even prescription pick-ups may be done without getting out of the car.  The downside of this convenience is that partakers deprive themselves of exercise and fossil fuel is being burnt.  Certainly such partakers should ask themselves if they are doing God’s will.  Paul in the selection from his letter to the Romans today states that some indeed choose to worship created things rather than the Creator.

For Paul the universe gives ample testimony to a Creator and to the Creator’s will.  For millennia the latter was called natural law and well accepted in civilized societies.  Paul also believes that God punishes those who do not abide by that law.  Venereal disease is a typical example.  Paul’s purpose is not to give a philosophical treatise on law, of course, but to introduce God’s plan of universal salvation through Jesus Christ.  Humans, he will show, would not be able to break away from their tendency to infringe natural law except for the grace of Jesus.

St. Theresa of Jesus probably wondered if religious in her day were not ignoring God the Creator in favor of creaturely comforts.  She reformed the Carmelite Order so that a purer worship might be given to God.  So we might adjust our lifestyles to improve our worship of God.