ADVENT I B

We begin Year B, considering the Gospel of Mark

1st Sunday of Advent B

Readings: Isaiah 63:16-64:7   1 Corinthians 1:3-9     Mark 13:33-37

We all know what it’s like to await the return of a loved one.  During Advent the whole Christian community waits in partial darkness, but also in hope and trust, for the Second Coming of our light: Jesus the Messiah.  The liturgy for the First Sunday of Advent in the B Cycle confronts us with our sin and need for God but also challenges us to await Christ’s return in hope.  We pray in the words of the Entrance Antiphon: “No one who waits for you is ever put to shame.”
The Isaiah reading is a lament pleading that God save the Jewish community which has just returned from exile in Babylon.  Haunted by guilt over their sin, the returning exiles, through the voice of the prophet, beg in desperation that the Lord come in a mighty theophany as on Mount Sinai: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,/ with mountains quaking before you. . .”  They pray that the Lord will find them living justly.  “Would that you might meet us doing right/ that we were mindful of you in our ways!”   Although tortured by guilt over sin, the exiles must have a deep confidence in the Lord who has saved them in the past.  The prophet both confesses the nation’s sins and places absolute trust in God’s care: “We have all withered like leaves,/ our guilt carries us away like the wind./ . . . O Lord, you are our father;/ we are the clay and you are the potter;/ We are all the work of your hands.”
The second reading from the thanksgiving section in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians captures the mood of the Church during Advent.  We Christians live in hope because of the gift of salvation brought by Jesus’ death and resurrection, but we also confidently await his future return in power.  We, like the Corinthians, have been “richly endowed with every gift of speech and knowledge,” and therefore we can trust that we will “lack no spiritual gift” as we “wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus.”  But our challenge is to be found “blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent always dove tails with the readings at the end of the previous Church year because they are about Jesus’ second coming to complete the Kingdom of God.  During this year’s B cycle of readings, we will read Mark’s Gospel, and so this Sunday gives us part Mark’s version of Jesus’ apocalyptic sermon to his disciples at the end of his public ministry.
The setting is ominous.  Jesus has just cleansed the temple and been engaged in violent controversy with the temple leaders over his authority for this prophetic action (see Mark 11-12). Now he and his disciples have left the temple, and when they express admiration for its building, Jesus announces, “Do you see these great buildings?  There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”  When Mark is writing his gospel, these events have probably already happened, as the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D. during the Jewish-Roman war.
In the first part of his sermon Jesus warns his disciples about wars and persecutions that will threaten them from without and the false prophets and messiahs from within the community who will attempt to lead them astray.  Despite the apparent signs of the end time, Jesus insists that the day or the hour is known only to God.   Therefore he urges the disciples to be alert and watchful like servants put in charge by a master who travels abroad or like a doorkeeper who is to open to the master of a house upon his return at some unknown hour of the night.  Although these images emphasize the need for being watchful, they do not provoke anxiety.  The completion of the kingdom will be the work of the returning Son.  Each disciple is only expected to be doing the assigned task.  There may be no better way to keep Advent than to be attentive to our assigned duties as we long for the return of our Master.

Christ The King A

 

Christ the King A

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11‑12,15‑17  1 Corinthians 15:20‑26,28  Matthew 25:31‑46

            The Feast of Christ the King marks the end of the liturgical year with readings that speak of Christ's triumph over sin and death and the final judgment in which he as shepherd will separate the nations, like sheep and goats, on the basis of their kindness to his suffering brothers. With confident faith, let us pray for the completion of Christ's kingdom of peace and justice in the words of the responsorial psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want" (Ps 23).
            Ezekiel's shepherd allegory speaks of the Lord God coming to rescue the strayed and lost sheep and to destroy "the sleek and the strong" who have abused them.  The prophet was living with the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and in the first part of his allegory he denounces Judah's latest kings and leaders as "shepherds . . .  who have been pasturing themselves" and fleecing the flock entrusted to them.  Because of their selfish rule, the nation has gone into exile; its people have been "scattered for lack of a shepherd and become food for the wild beasts."  But now, through Ezekiel, God announces, "I myself will look after and tend my sheep."  God will restore the nation from exile; the lost and strayed sheep will be sought out and brought back; the injured and sick will be bandaged and healed.  "The sleek and the strong," who have taken advantage of their weaker brethren, will be destroyed, as the Lord God judges "between one sheep and another, between rams and goats."
     In the 1 Corinthians reading, Paul is responding to those who claim that Christians already live in a resurrected state and that there will be no resurrection of the body at the end time.   Paul argues that Christ's bodily resurrection is the heart of the Christian good news, and, in this section, he insists that the resurrected Christ is like the first fruits of a harvest which will affect all humanity.  Paul understands Christ as the new Adam: as "death came through a man (Adam)," so resurrected life has come through the new man, Christ.  In the interim between Christ's resurrection and the final resurrection, "Christ must reign until God has put all enemies under his feet . . ."   The greatest and "last enemy to be destroyed is death" which has already been defeated in the resurrection of Christ.                                                                                     
            Jesus concludes his final discourse in Matthew with the scene of the Last Judgment (Mt 25:31-46) in which acts mercy will be the criteria by which all will be judged. When the nations are assembled before him as the glorious Son of Man seated upon his throne, they will be separated like sheep from goats and blessed or cursed by the mercy or neglect they have shown to the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and prisoners—the traditional corporal works of mercy in the Jewish and Christian traditions.    The surprising feature of the judgment is that in showing mercy for or neglecting these needy they have been encountering Jesus himself who in his public ministry has identified himself with the poor and suffering and who has come “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (20:28). “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”  Jesus is truly Emmanuel, God with us, present in the neediest of all until he returns in glory.

33rd Sunday - A

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time A

Readings: Proverbs 31:10‑13,19‑20,30‑31  1 Thessalonians 5:1‑6   Matthew 25:14‑30

As we approach the close of the liturgical year, the readings continue to remind us that we are to be "children of the light," engaged in wise and productive activity in anticipation of our Master's return.  The responsorial psalm promises that those "who fear the Lord" by walking in his ways will be happy and will enjoy the fruit of their labors (Ps 128).
The reading from Proverbs is part of an alphabetic acrostic poem (each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet) in praise of the worthy wife.   It is the conclusion of Proverbs and echoes the themes of the entire book where Wisdom is personified as a Lady who is to be courted by young men.  The "worthy wife" is the practical and concrete "incarnation" of the divine and exalted figure of Lady Wisdom (see Proverbs 1‑9).
The poem begins by praising her inestimable value to the husband who finds her: "When one finds a worthy wife,/ her value  is beyond pearls."  Her gifts come from her ceaseless activity in providing clothing, food, economic security, and wise counsel for both her own household and the needy.  Such concrete and practical care for others is what Proverbs means by "fear of the Lord."  The poem ends by contrasting the deceptive and fleeting character of charm and beauty with the enduring worth of "the woman who fears the Lord."
In the reading from 1 Thessalonians, Paul continues to address their concerns about "the day of the Lord" when Jesus will return in glory.  Paul does not want them to speculate about "specific times and moments."  They already know "that the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night."  Jesus' sudden return, however, should not cause anxiety.  Using an apocalyptic contrast between darkness/night and light/day, Paul reminds the Thessalonian Christians that they are different from the children of darkness who live with a false sense of security, like people who are asleep or drunk.  As the "children of the light and day," Christians should not be caught "off guard," because they are "awake and sober."  Paul goes on to describe this sobriety as  living a life of faith, love and hope‑‑ the very virtues he  praised the Thessalonians for at the beginning of the letter (see  1 Thess 1:2‑3).
The Gospel parable of the talents continues Matthew's theme of the need for responsible behavior by the church when the Master's return is delayed.  The disciples are challenged by a parable about servants who are entrusted with funds by a very demanding master while he goes on a long journey.  They are to see themselves in the servants, because they too have been left in charge of the Christian community after Jesus' resurrection.
The three servants are given amounts of money ‘according to each man's abilities,’ but they are judged on the basis of whether they prove to be ‘industrious and reliable’ while the master is gone.  The servants who received five thousand and two thousand talents ‘invest’ their money and thereby double the master's funds.  Upon his return, he praises and rewards them: “Well done! You are an industrious and reliable servant. Since you were dependable in a small matter I will put you in charge of larger affairs.  Come, share your master's joy.”  The third servant, however, is paralyzed by fear of failure and brings the master no return upon his gift.  He really condemns himself in his speech to the master.
“My lord, I knew you were a hard man.  You reap where
                        you did no sow and gather where you did not scatter,
                        so out of fear I went off and buried your thousand
                        silver pieces in the ground.  Here is your money back.”
He is summarily condemned by the severe master as a "worthless, lazy lout."  His money is taken away, and he is thrown "into the darkness outside."
In Matthew's earlier missionary discourse to the disciples (Matthew 10), we learn that the threat of persecution and suffering for the preaching of the gospel may cause the disciples to fear (Mt 10:16‑33), but Jesus consoles them with the following words.
“And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but
                        cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one
                         who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.  Are
                         not two sparrows sold for a small coin?  Yet not one
                        of them falls to the ground without your Father's
                         knowledge. . . . So do not be afraid; you are worth
                        more than many sparrows.” (Mt 10:28‑31).

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (November 9)

Readings: Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12   1 Corinthians 3:9-17         John 2:13-22

            Since the twelfth century on November 9th the Roman Church has honored Emperor Constantine’s building of the basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the cathedral church of the Pope, the bishop of Rome.  It is now a universal feast in the Roman Catholic Church in which we celebrate the life-giving mystery of our unity with the pope in the living temple which is the body of the risen Christ.  Let us enter the joy of this feast by singing the refrain of the responsorial psalm: “The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!” (Ps 46).
            Our first reading is taken from the prophet Ezekiel’s glorious vision (chs 40-48) of the Lord’s glory returning to abide with Israel in a restored Temple to be built by the Jewish exiles when they return from Babylon.   The vision has more than historical significance for ancient Israel.  It is an eschatological vision of the Lord’s grace, present in his church, returning his creation into the life-giving fertility of the Garden of Eden.  After describing in meticulous detail his vision of a Temple in which all the abuses of the past have been removed (40-46), Ezekiel concludes with an account of the angel of the Lord showing him the life-giving “water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east.”  Drawing upon the imagery of the rivers in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10-14), Ezekiel recounts how the angel made him wade in the waters of the river until they were so deep that they could not be crossed except by swimming (47:3-7).  Then the angel explains to the prophet the significance of the mysterious river.  Its waters flow into the Arabah, the rift from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and down to the Gulf of Aqaba, and make the salt waters of the Dead Sea fresh.  They renew both animal and vegetative life in this arid region and provide food and healing medicine.  “Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live . . . fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. . . . Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
            In the Epistle Paul applies temple language to the living community of believers as he addresses the problem of factionalism in the Corinthian church. Apparently the community has been divided into groups claiming allegiance to Paul, Apollos, Peter, and Christ (see 1 Cor 1:10-17).  For Paul such division destroys the community as God’s temple by misunderstanding the Christian gospel and the apostles’ subordinate role in spreading its message.  The gospel is not the “wisdom” of a particular preacher.  In fact, by the standards of philosophical wisdom, it is folly, because its foundation stone is the cross, i.e., the message about Jesus, a crucified and risen Messiah.  Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians, “You are God’s temple.”  His role in founding the community was by the grace of God that of a master builder who laid a foundation, but now another is building upon it.  He “must be careful how he builds upon it” for there is only one foundation and that is “Jesus Christ.”  In urgent language Paul again reminds the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are is holy.”
            In the Gospel John uses temple language to point to the life-giving power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  In the course of cleansing the temple Jesus announces that his death and resurrection will replace the temple where animal sacrifices are offered to God.  In contrast to the other Gospels which place this incident at the end of Jesus’ public ministry, John recounts the cleansing of the temple in chapter two on the first of three Passover celebrations in his gospel.  A major theme in the first part of the gospel is that Jesus replaces the various institutions of Judaism.  In this case, the temple has been corrupted into “a market place” where sacrificial animals are sold.  Moved by “zeal” for his Father’s house, Jesus makes a whip of cords and drives out the sacrificial animals and knocks over the money-changers’ tables.  When asked for a “sign” authorizing this action, Jesus replies “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  As often happens in John, Jesus’ hearers misunderstand him because they interpret his language as referring to some earthly, often Jewish, reality.  His opponents think he is speaking of the temple which “took forty-six years to build,” but John reminds us that Jesus “was talking about the temple of his body.”
            John then notes that only after the resurrection did his disciples recall and believe both Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple and the saying about his body.  For us as well, the life-giving power of the new temple, Jesus’ body, “destroyed” and “raised up,” is to be remembered as we meditate on the mystery of belonging to the Church, founded by the covenant of our salvation which has now been won by the folly of a crucified Messiah, who had the courage to reject turning his “Father’s house into a marketplace.”