Friday, August 18, 2017

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Joshua 24:1-13; Matthew 19:3-12)

Once crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, I came to the toll booth and was waved on.  When I stopped to inquire why I didn’t have to pay, the toll collector said that the woman in the car ahead of me paid my toll.   I do not know the reason for the woman’s generosity. She did not know me.  Indeed, she could hardly have even seen me.  I presume that she felt grateful about something in her life and just wanted to help another person. 

As the woman was probably the recipient of a favor that she had received, Joshua reminds the Israelites in today’s first reading that their fortune is not their own doing.  Indeed, God has been their benefactor at every stage of their illustrious saga.  The point is that the people should be grateful to God by heeding His commands which are in good part directed to social solidarity.

We must beware that selfishness and greed does not allow us to forget God and neighbor.  All of us, as Joshua says, are beneficiaries of land that we did not till and cities that we did not build.  Richly endowed by our forebears, we are not so much to pay them back as to pay others forward.  That is, we are to give thanks by helping others.  We are to contribute to efforts which shape a society where everyone can live, grow, and prosper.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Joshua 3:7-10a.11.13-17; Matthew 18:21-19:1)

Thanks to Cecil B. De Mille most people know that the Bible depicts the Red Sea splitting in two so that the Israelites might escape the Egyptian charioteers.  Few, however, are aware of the Jordan River parting so the God’s Chosen Ones might enter the Promised Land.  The first reading today from the Book of Joshua tells this second story.  The responsorial psalm also refers to it.  This same psalm is part of the Liturgy of the Hours for Easter Sunday evening which helps us understand the meaning of the event in Christian eyes.

The Church reads the Old Testament as foretelling the person and mission of Jesus Christ.  Theologians call such a reading typology.  The story of the Ark of the Covenant leading the Israelites through the Jordan is a type for Christ’s bringing his followers into the fullness of God’s kingdom.  Jesus is for us the Holy of Holies whose death and resurrection make it possible for us to transverse the otherwise impassible gulf between earth and heaven.

If Jesus facilitates the crossing, then what must we do?  Our role in our salvation is both nothing and everything.  All that is required of us is to believe in Jesus by following his commands.  The gospel demonstrates the paradox of this challenge.  You would think it would be nothing for the servant whose master has just written off his large debt to forgive the small debt of a fellow servant.  But no, the servant – probably thinking “this is a different case” – punishes his counterpart.  We must not do likewise; rather, we are to open our hearts to those who genuinely ask forgiveness just as Christ has opened the way to our salvation.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Ezekiel 9:1-7.10:18-22; Matthew 18:15-20)

Internet applications like Skype and Facetime give contemporary women and men the experience of talking to others face-to-face without actually being in their presence. However, marvelous such conversations may be, they are hardly as intimate as being in one another’s presence.  In fact one of the current issues in prison reform is assuring that prisoners have direct, not electronic, access to visitors. In the first reading today, Moses is exulted for having known the Lord “face to face.” But what do these words mean and how do they compare with Christian belief that Christ saw the Father?

Various interpretations of the words are given.  Some say they do not indicate a direct encounter with the Lord because in the Book of Exodus God tells Moses that “’no one shall see me and live’” (33:20).  Of course, there is also the very real question of God, a purely spiritual being, having a material face.  It is best to conclude that Moses enjoyed a spiritual intimacy with God like no one else before the writing of the Book of Deuteronomy. 

At one point in Deuteronomy Moses himself mentions another prophet who will come after him.  This prophet will have God’s own words in his mouth and bring a definitive revelation of God’s will.  We find fulfillment of this prophecy in Jesus Christ.  The Gospel of John quotes him as saying, at least indirectly, that he has seen the Father: “’Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father’” (6:46).  His seeing of the Father constitutes a knowing that goes beyond Moses’ spiritual intimacy.  It is a divine indwelling whereby as Jesus again says in John: “(He) and the Father are one’” (10:30).  An approximation of this indwelling with its accompanying knowledge of God is what is promised to followers of Jesus in the beatitudes: “’Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God’” (Matthew 5:8).

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Revelation 19a.12:1-6a.10ab; I Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56)

In its first few centuries the Church had to distinguish itself from Gnosticism.  This is the belief that the human self is primarily his or her mind that lives in a body much like an idea can be said to be contained in a book.  Adherents of Gnosticism, called Gnostics, have a love-hate relationship with their bodies. Some consider their bodies as all material reality; i.e., doomed to extinction.  They loathe their bodies as the font of sin.  Others hold that since their bodies do not matter in the long run, they may take advantage of them in any way they like.  They can enjoy the pleasures of wanton eating and sex without worrying how these actions might affect them.  What is more, they think that until the mind develops and when it deteriorates beyond awareness, no person is present so that the body may be destroyed.

Christian faith, of course, takes a very different view.  Since we believe that God took on human flesh, for us the body is more than the soul’s container.  It interacts with the soul to form a dynamic entity.  We could not be who we are without our bodies.  More than that, since we believe that Christ rose bodily from the dead and that his followers are destined to experience the same resurrection, our bodies have eternal importance.  For this reason we take care of our bodies, we know that abortion and euthanasia are wrong, and we realize that it is important to keep marriage as a monogamous relationship between a man and a woman.

Today’s celebration recognizes the importance of the human body.  We see in Mary’s being assumed body and soul into glory God’s validation of the human body as good and permanent.  Of course, this was first done with Jesus’ resurrection, but now we are even more assured that it is the destiny of all Jesus’ followers.  Mary herself recognized the importance of the body as she sings God’s praises when Elizabeth mentions that she bears the Lord in her womb.  Likewise – and this is something that all of us should imitate – Mary demonstrates the importance of the body as she goes to personally visit Elizabeth when she hears of her pregnancy.

Monday, August 14, 2017

Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, martyr

(Deuteronomy 10:12-22; Matthew 17:22-27)

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan friar working in Poland until he was arrested by the Gestapo.  Committed to Auschwitz, Kolbe saw an opportunity to show his love for God when another prisoner was being sent to death for a crime that he did not commit.  Because the man had a family, Kolbe offered himself as a substitute.  Pope St. John Paul II considered this act a genuine witness to the faith and canonized Maximillian Kolbe as a martyr.  In today’s first reading Moses exhorts the people to likewise give witness to their love of God.  But he does not ask them to die for God but to live for him.

The Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land.  They have every reason to hope that they and their children will have all the resources they will need to live in prosperity.  But Moses, conveying the will of God, wants more than that for them.  He wants them to fulfill their destiny of being a model of God’s justice.  So he exhorts them to remember God’s graciousness to them and to their ancestors.  He is especially concerned that they treat other peoples fairly for, he says, “…you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”

As mass immigration has become a reality in all parts of the world, we should highlight these words of Moses.  It is difficult to sojourn in different lands with different customs and a different language.  Immigrants need understanding, fairness and even compassion.  Such treatment would show our solidarity not just across national boundaries but among generations.