Thursday, October 26, 2023

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

Dorothy Day lived a radical life.  In her twenties she supported socialism as a remedy to poverty while having various love affairs.  After having a child with a live-in lover, she felt a need for God.  She became a strict, observant Catholic with a heartful love of the poor.  She saw Christ in them and treated them accordingly.  Day’s live illustrates the teaching of St. Paul in today’s first reading.

Paul addresses himself to the former pagans of the church community in Rome.  He reminds them of the licentious living they left behind to follow Christ.  He assures them that the reversal in their lifestyle will be more than release from shame.  “The wages of sin is death,” he famously writes, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

In many places people have returned to heathenism.  Children at tender ages are following Internet porn.  It is plague more widespread and in ways crueler than poverty.  As Dorothy Day did, we should speak up for disciplined lives given to the Lord, not carnal desire.  We must convey to all the joy of knowing Christ and the hope of eternal life as our destiny.

Wedneday, October 25, 2023

Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:12-18; Luke 12:39-48)

Especially in Luke’s gospel, Jesus enjoys teaching in parables.  Today’s passage contains two rather surprising ones.  The first compares Jesus, the Son of Man, to a crook who comes in the middle of the night!  The house breaking is a metaphor for Jesus’ return at the end of time.  Christians must be prepared to let him take them away to Paradise.

Jesus’ second parable obliquely answers Peter’s question about for whom the first parable was intended.  He says that although it was intended for all, it has a particularly urgent message for his closest disciples comprising leadership in the Church.  If they faithfully attend to the Eucharist, the “food allowance” that extends to all Church duties, they will be surprised to have the Lord himself serve them in heaven.  But if they neglect their responsibilities as Church leaders, they will be severely punished.

Preparation for the Lord goes beyond daily prayers.  We must keep his commandments and imitate his virtue.  Doing thus, we can live in joyful expectation of meeting the Lord face to face.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 5:12.15b.17-19.20b-21; Luke 12:35-38)

The will to violence and destruction is one of the dismal legacies left by humanity’s original partakers.  The carnage is now being played out in Israel and Palestine.  Ironically, this is the land where lived Christ, whom St. Paul claims has ended enmity between peoples. How can it be so?

Of course, neither Israel nor Palestine, for the most part, are followers of Christ.  But the cruel war continues between Russia and the Ukraine, two nations with Christian majorities.  Nevertheless, Christ has left the gospel of peace and sent the Holy Spirit to overcome the legacy of war.  Unfortunately, humankind continues to ignore Christ’s heritage to its peril. 

Another part of the heritage of Christ is prayer to the Father that His Kingdom come.  As much as ever, we should ask for this to become a universal reality in our time.  We should also practice humility, understanding, and compassion so that His Kingdom is established in our very midst.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

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

On graduation day college graduates are declared fit to face the world.  They have completed a course of studies and have successfully passed tests to prove their competence.  Faith as St. Paul describes it in today’s first reading puts the believer in a similar position.

One does not have to do much more than to believe in Christ to receive the Holy Spirit.  Along with Baptism the believer is ready to live in the world as a saint.  However, it should not be thought that faith alone brings salvation.  Love, manifested in deeds of service, is necessary if one is to enter eternal life.  One should not undervalue faith as it makes humans friends of Jesus.  But only with loving care will that relationship last for eternity.

Of course, this reflection on faith and love takes us to the controversy that divided Europe in the sixteenth century.  Since then theologians on both sides have worked out a fuller, richer sense of faith like the one attempted here.  Catholics must recognize the transcendent value of faith while Protestants must concede the necessity of love, the greatest of the virtues.

Sunday, October 22, 2023

TWENTY-NINTH ORDINARY SUNDAY

(Isaiah 45:1.4-6; Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21)

Because it has to do with government and, therefore, politics, the gospel today has attracted a lot of attention. Also interesting but little noticed is the situation in which Jesus finds himself. A few days ago he entered Jerusalem to give his life for the salvation of the world. After driving the merchants out of the Temple, the Jewish elders came questioning his authority. Instead of giving them a direct answer, Jesus asked them if John the Baptist was God’s prophet. It was a trick question. If the elders answered “yes,” Jesus would ask them why they did not follow him. And if they answered “no”, they would have lost the trust of the people.

In the gospel today the Pharisees and Herodians approach Jesus with all the sincerity of the wolf greeting Little Red Riding Hood. They have a trick question like the one Jesus used with the Jewish elders. If Jesus answers that one must pay the tax to Caesar, he will lose the favor of the people. And if he answers “no,” the authorities will come looking for him.

Jesus does not fall into the Pharisees’ trap. Rather, he has perceived their wicked intentions from the false compliment with which they greeted him. He does not answer the question but outwits his adversaries by asking them for the coin to pay the tax. The fact that they have the coin on hand indicates their participation in Caesar's monetary system. They show that they should pay the tax because they take advantage of the system. They don't really want to learn from Jesus. As Jesus says, they are “hypocrites.”

Jesus leaves us a proverb without any explanation. We are to give “to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.” But what is our duty to Caesar? And what is our duty to God? “Caesar” means the government, and it is not difficult to enumerate our duties to government. We are to obey its laws, vote for its officials, pay its taxes, and defend the country when it calls us. But our duty to God is more complicated.

Some think that our debt to God is limited to attending Sunday mass and contributing to charity from time to time. However, because God created us, saved us from the snares of the devil, and sustains us, we owe him much more. In fact, we owe God our entire lives. We fulfill this duty by living each day, indeed each moment of each day like Christ.

Let me use a story as an example of what I mean.  Maybe the chaos that accompanied getting on buses in Honduras hasn't changed much in thirty years. In the nineteen nineties there was a priest there who used to say that he acted like a Christian all the time except when he got on the bus. He was joking, of course, but don't all of us propose such limits on our loyalty to Christ?

There is a document from the second century that describes the ways of Christians. It claims that Christians do not live like other people, albeit they live among them. It goes on to say that Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body. In other words, they act as the conscience of the world always showing the good, just, and correct way to conduct our lives. This is what Jesus means when he commands us to “render to God the things that are God's.”

We resist giving ourselves completely to God. It seems too much to demand from us. But we should not consider it as a payment on our part. Rather it is just fulfilling our role as members of God’s family.  It is just living as children of God.