Monday, September 7, 2015

Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

(Colossians 1:24-2:3; Luke 6:6-11)

Sabbath rest has always been a priority on the agenda of organized labor.  One hundred years ago the issue was mostly religious.  A worker should have Sundays free to go to church.  Now the question is more of limiting the number of workdays so that the worker may take advantage of a weekend.  In today’s gospel the scribes and Pharisees show a concern about the Sabbath goes beyond either of these motives.

The supposedly holy men want to attack Jesus, not to assure legitimate rest for workers.  Jesus is well aware of the Sabbath principle but appeals to its higher purpose.  The Sabbath is also for doing good works not evil ones.  In other words, on the Sabbath the people should praise God and wish one another well.  The Pharisees defy this principle by seeking to accuse Jesus of a crime.  On the other hand, Jesus is using the occasion to heal a man who is pathetically deformed.

Today, Labor Day in the United States, provides an occasion to reflect on human work.  Similar issues to the ones raised in the gospel may be examined.  We need to work in order to live, but we do not want work to dominate our lives with no time for family and worship.  We want our work to benefit others as well as ourselves and to cause no one injury. 

Friday, September 4, 2015

Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

(Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 5:33-39)

Years after the office was computerized, a typewriter was kept near the secretary’s desk.  It seemed to mostly take up space, but the secretary said she used it from time to time.  Now almost thirty years later, the old typewriter is gone.  If Jesus walked the earth today, he might use the typewriter as he used cloth and wine in today’s gospel.

With Jesus the long-anticipated Kingdom has come in its fullness.  It is fitting that his disciples eat and drink because the Kingdom is like a banquet where everyone celebrates.  Jesus illustrates the unmitigated joy of the Kingdom by showing that there is no mixing new joy and the old yearning.  It would be like putting a patch from new cloth on old trousers or putting fresh wine in old wineskins.  In both cases the new would be too much for the old.  It is like the computer that has completely replaced the typewriter.

But still for some the coming of the Kingdom is too good to be true. They are content with drinking the wine from the old wineskins.  They would prefer the straight-forwardness of the typewriter.  They are like the Jews whom Jesus is critiquing.  They may be good people, but they are missing out on all the comfort of the Father’s love found in Jesus.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, pope

(Colossians 1:9-14; Luke 5:1-11)

St. Gregory is known as “the Great” because of his many accomplishments as pope.  Of these he is particularly famous for his sending out missionaries to England and Germany.  Especially in the latter place he is credited with facilitating the acceptance of Christianity by allowing the inculturation of the faith.  The pagan people there were accustomed to worshipping outside, but Christians generally worship in churches.  Gregory promoted the adoption of blessings of fields so that the new religion would not seem so strange to the Germans.  Pagans had their host of deities which was, of course, incompatible with Christian practice.  Gregory had missionaries use the saints as heavenly patrons for the people.  Just as there was a god for silversmiths, there would be a patron saint for these workers.

In today’s gospel Jesus likewise promotes missionary activity.  His sending Peter and companions back to the waters to fish prefigures their going forth to all nations.  They will bring many to hope in eternal life once Jesus is crucified and risen from the dead. 

The Church challenges all its members to consider themselves as missionaries.  Its “new evangelization” is a call that we bring others to the faith.  It is not a sending forth to distant shores but to our own families and associates.  By lives demonstrating how love for God moves us to care for neighbor, we are to instill the longing for eternal life in Christ.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

(Colossians 1:1-8; Luke 4:38-44)

Reading today’s gospel, we get the impression that Jesus was a much busier man than he wanted to be.  He arises at daybreak to steal off and pray, but the crowds follow him.  He wants to intentionally preach God’s Kingdom in different places, but the people harass him to work exclusively among them.  Perhaps we too know well Jesus’ predicament.

Some of us, likewise inclined to retreat and pray, find this propensity compromised by urgent needs.  We have to respond to the demands and requests others make on us for the common good.  Our response, however, will be more efficacious when we do not abandon prayer.  Rather we should base our efforts on it.  In prayer we discern what is necessary for us to do and find God’s assistance in doing it.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

(I Thessalonians 5:1-6.9-11; Luke 4:31-37)

Every once in a while the work of Nostradamus, a sixteenth century French writer, is dusted off to make a prediction of the end of the world.  The supposed seer wrote a thousand verses of poetry that are interpreted, most always after the fact, to have accurately predicted the future. But little if any of his work can be read as precisely saying what or when future events will occur.  In the first reading today St. Paul tells his readers to dismiss foretelling such as Nostradamus’s of the imminent end of the world.

Paul echoes Jesus in saying that the end will come like a “thief at night.”  His readers are to stand ready at all times to greet the Lord when he arrives to claim his own.  Paul evidently believes that the end will come sooner rather than later, but this is not his point.  Rather, he wants the Thessalonians to not make special preparation for that end.  They are to stand for the end semper fidelis by living as “children of the light.”  This means that he wants the Thessalonians to be a showcase of charity and peace.

We do not know when the world will end.  There is a prediction now that a meteor is closing in on the earth and will cause its demise.  Scientists predict that in a few hundreds of millions of years the sun will run out of fuel, expand, and engulf the earth in flames.  But that is only one expert scenario.  What at times seems more likely to happen first is humans’ ending life on earth through nuclear weapons.  We are wise to stay prepared as Paul tells us.  There is no need to live in perpetual fear, but there is real reason to practice charity and peace.