Friday, October 16, 2020

 Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Ephesians 1:11-14; Luke 12:1-7)

 The Letter to the Ephesians has been significantly reevaluated over the last two centuries.  Traditionally, it has been considered as written by St. Paul, to the church which he administered, while he was a prisoner in Rome in the years 61-63.  Modern scholarship, however, favors other starting points.  It sees the author as a disciple of Paul who penned a general instruction to many churches around the year 80.  The likelihood that Paul was not the author should not worry us.  In ancient days, like speeches today, disciples wrote letters in the name of their teachers.

The letter proclaims the mission of the universal church. It sees the Church as the announcer of God’s plan of salvation for the world in Christ.  It further claims that in the Church, the body of Christ, all people are brought together in peace. Today’s passage shows how Jews, with whom the author identifies, and Greeks find common ground in Christ.  Later in the letter the author names Christ as both peace and source of unity between the two peoples.

We might enjoy more reading Paul’s undisputed letters like Romans and I Corinthians.  They contain wit and passion not found in Ephesians.  However, we should not dismiss this letter as uncreative or as marginal.  It not only has been authenticated by its inclusion in the Bible but also develops Paul’s theology.  Without the Letter to the Ephesians we would not have as full a sense of our participating in the choir of heaven.  We would have trouble seeing ourselves as giving praise to God in Christ.

Thursday, October15, 2020

 

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

(Ephesians 1:1-10; Luke 11:47-54)

Prophets by profession encounter opposition.  They speak on behalf of God judgments that many do not want to hear.  In St. Teresa’s world a prophetic issue concerned religious lifestyle.  Women would enter convents with their servants in tow.  They often lived more comfortably than ascetically and thus betrayed their evangelical vocation.  Not liking it, Teresa founded monasteries of a strict rule.  Carmelite superiors opposed her, but she was working with the Holy Spirit.  Her reform won acceptance and has been the source of blessing for the order and the Church.

In today’s gospel Jesus prophetically chastises religious leaders.  He finds them betraying the very people they pretend to emulate.  He claims that the Pharisees do not heed the prophets to whose memories they pay tribute. Likewise, Jesus castigates the scribes for both not learning the meaning of the Law and not enabling others to know it.  Like the martyred prophets, Jesus can expect a violent death because of these charges.

Few want to suffer the fate of the prophets.  Yet sometimes we must speak up against flagrant injustices in church and society.  Perhaps there is racial slander among the people with whom we work.  That needs to be addressed.  Perhaps donations for charity are being squandered.  That too must be challenged.  We should not expect praise for speaking out in these matters.  But we might expect the promise of the beatitudes: “’Blessed are they who are persecuted for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.’”

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

 Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week

(Galatians 5:18-25; Luke 11: 42-46)

Throughout Christianity there have been cynics who see the body as evil.  In the first centuries after Christ Docetists claimed that the body was so bad that Christ could not possibly have had one.  In more recent times puritan sects have propounded that the body has had to be kept under tight wraps.  But the New Testament is unanimous, Christ became incarnate.  He had a body which is good.

But the good of the body can be taken over by its own evil inclinations.  St. Paul alludes to these inclinations in today’s reading from Galatians.  He identifies them as the works of “the flesh.”  They are sexual impurity, hatred, selfishness and the like.  The flesh’s relationship to the body may be considered as breath inflating a balloon.  The balloon moves but is sluggish and heavy.  Paul contrasts “the works of the flesh” with “the fruit of the Spirit.”  The “Spirit,” of course, is the Holy Spirit.  It fills the body with buoyancy.  It is like a balloon inflated with helium.  The body becomes alive and life -giving.  It acts with patience, kindness, generosity, etc.

The Holy Spirit has been imparted to us in Baptism and fortified by the Eucharist.  It enables us to be more than loving children and good neighbors.  It prepares us for self-sacrifice like Christ’s for those whom we have never met or seen.

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Galatians 5:1-6; Luke 11:37-41)

Most of the Pharisees presented in the gospels are myopic.  They scrutinize a person’s behavior for small items in the Law but fail to see the more important matters.  Jesus levels this criticism against them in today’s gospel.  One Pharisee is ready to criticize him for not performing a purification ritual which the Law does not even mandate.  The Pharisee is oblivious, however, to the fact that such criticism goes against the Law’s requirement to love one’s neighbor.

An incident in the life of St. John XXIII indicates how pharisaic behavior can affect the Church.  When he was a young priest, Angelo Roncalli, the future pope, taught Church history in a local seminary.  At the time, some Roman officials were so supercilious about maintaining orthodoxy that they suppressed faithful scholarship.  Roncalli was reported to Rome for assigning a book that the pharisaic officials thought objectionable.  It turned out that the book became recognized as an important study of the early Church, and Roncalli, of course, recognized as a saint.

We frequent churchgoers must beware of pharisaic tendencies contaminating our spiritual lives.  We can wonder why everyone does not do all that we do.  We think that because we give up alcohol for Lent, everyone should.  We must withhold judgment on these small items if we are to live up to St. Paul’s standard in the first reading: in Christ Jesus the only thing that counts is “faith working through love.” 

Monday, October 12, 2020

 Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

 (Galatians 4:22-24.26-27.31-5:1; Luke 11:29-32)

 A young drug addict entered a rehabilitation program.  After a time of retreat, he was sent to work in a rectory.  In a month or two the priests were missing things in the rectory.  They confronted their worker.  He said that he might be an addict, but he was not a thief.  Eventually, the young man was let go, and no more things were missing from the rectory.

The young man could not control himself.  He needed restraints.  He was not truly free but under the spell of drugs.  Even if it meant stealing to acquire them, he would do it.  In the first reading, St. Paul is pleading with the Galatians not to have something similar happen to them.  They have been given true freedom with Baptism in Christ.  They should not trade this for subjection to the Jewish Law, no matter how right the Law makes them feel.  They should trust that acceptance of the Holy Spirit will allow them to live justly.  For this freedom Christ had set them free.

Few of us would want to take on the Jewish Law with its many knit-picking practices.  But some of us still do not care to live in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.  They may not be under the influence of drugs but of other interior impulses.  They insist on holding grudges and seeing the dismal side of things.  The Spirit’s freedom gives joy and peace to the soul.  Yes, it calls us to sacrifice our will in certain matters, but it also promises happiness, both short-term and eternal.