All Souls - November 2nd

 

All Souls (November 2)

Readings: Wisdom 3:1-9        Romans 6:3-9              John 6:37-40

            The readings for the feast of All Souls proclaim the Christian belief in God’s victory over the powers of sin and death through the resurrection of Christ and his will to save all humans who are called to turn from sin and embrace a life of self-sacrificing love. In the Roman Catholic tradition we pray for the souls of the faithful departed who at the moment of death may still need to be purified from the power of sin.  The Church provides many options for the readings at the Masses for All Souls, but all of them affirm these Christian beliefs.
            The reading from the Book of Wisdom was originally written in Greek for Jews about a century before Christ who were living in a worldly Hellenistic culture that tempted them to give up their faith in immortality and obeying the Torah’s commands and adopt a worldly pleasure-seeking way of life.  In chapter 2, “the wicked” argue, “Brief and troublesome is our lifetime” (2:1-5) and then pursue lives of wanton pleasure, making their own strength the norm of justice (2:6-11). Finally, they decide to persecute and kill “the just one” who “reproaches us for transgressions of the law” (2:12-19).  They reason: “Let us condemn him to a shameful death/ for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”  But the author of Wisdom believes that these worldly men have erred because they did not know “the hidden counsels of God” who rewards the innocent soul of the just (2:21-22) and who formed man “to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him” (2:23-24).    
            Our reading proclaims the final fate of the just.  Contrary to the foolish thoughts of the wicked who presume that the just are dead, afflicted and destroyed, they are “in peace” with God.  Although in the sight of others they seemed punished, the just, after being chastised and tried, have been found worthy of God and shall be greatly blessed.  “As gold in the furnace, he (God) proved them/ and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.”  Their final destiny will be to “judge nations and rule over peoples” with the Lord as “their King forever.”  The just will “understand truth,” abide with God “in love: because grace and mercy are with his holy ones,/ and his care is with his elect.”
            In the second reading from Romans 6, Paul proclaims the effect of resurrection faith on the present and future life of the Christian.  Paul’s diatribe in this section (6:1-9) raises and answers a possible objection to the gospel he preaches; for both Jews and Gentiles salvation from sin’s power is through faith in the crucified and risen Christ rather than through observance of the Torah.  The question is: does Paul’s gospel, which insists that both Jews and Gentiles were under sin’s dominion when Christ died for them, encourage continuation in sin “that grace may abound” (6:1)?  Paul’s answer is a definitive no, which he substantiates by reflecting on the effect of the baptism that Christian converts received.  Paul interprets Christian baptism as an entrance into Christ’s death and resurrection, in which the old self is crucified; the Christian is to be no longer enslaved to sin but to live in a newness of life.  Christian baptism involves an ethical conversion, a “death” to sin and a “resurrection” into a life of being “alive for God in Christ Jesus.” Freed from the power of death, the baptized Christian is filled with hope.  “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.  We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.”
            In the Gospel from John’s bread-of-life discourse Jesus solemnly announces to those who have seen his miracle of the loaves and fishes that all who believe in him as “the bread of God” come down to give life to the world shall have eternal life and be raised up on the last day.  Jesus proclaims that he has come down from heaven, not to do his own will, but that of the Father who sent him.  Then in two parallel statements Jesus affirms God’s will is to save all humanity.  First, he announces that it is the will of the one who sent me “that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but raise it up on the last day.”  Secondly, he proclaims that the Father’s will is “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”  On the Feast of All Souls we celebrate this saving mystery in behalf of all our beloved departed.
            We should also never lose sight of the fact that behind John’s image of Jesus as “the bread of life” stands his passion, death and resurrection.  The Jesus who is the bread that gives life to the world is the self-sacrificing Jesus who has come to lay down his life for his friends.  He is also the Jesus who teaches his disciples at the Last Supper to imitate him.
                        I give you a new commandment: love one another;
                        just as I have loved you, you must love one another.
                        By this love you have for one another,
                        everyone will know you are my disciples.  (John 13:34-35)  

30th Sunday A

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Readings: Exodus 22:20‑26           1 Thessalonians 1:5‑10            Matthew 22:34‑40

            In today's Gospel Jesus, facing an extremely hostile situation, teaches that the whole of the Jewish Torah and the teaching of the prophets can be summarized in the twofold command to love God and neighbor.  Because the love of God cannot be separated from the command to love the neighbor, the Lord's Torah is a source of protection for the weak and needy.  Let us thank God for the gift of the Torah in the words of the responsorial psalm: "I love you, Lord, my strength" (Ps 18).

            The laws in our Exodus reading are from the Book of the Covenant which is a law code designed for Israel's settled agricultural life in the land of Canaan.  They all protect the rights of the weakest members of ancient society.  Israelites are forbidden to molest resident aliens; they are not to wrong widows and orphans, and they are not to demand interest from the poor who are forced to go into debt.  Two reasons are given for these laws.  First of all, the Israelites should remember their own experience of being oppressed aliens in Egypt.  Secondly, God is compassionate, and therefore he hears the cries of the oppressed and will act to vindicate them.
            In the reading from Thessalonians Paul continues his defense of his apostolic work in that community by recalling the great success that his preaching of the gospel had among them.  He goes on to praise them for "receiving the word despite great trials."   He notes that they have become a model for the churches in Macedonia and Achaia because of their sincere conversion from idolatry to the service of the one "living and true God" as they await the return of the resurrected Jesus.
            The Gospel continues the controversies between Jesus and the religious leaders in the Temple which have been the subject of our readings from Matthew for the last several Sundays.  In this week's Gospel the Pharisees, having heard Jesus silence the Sadducees in a debate about resurrection, "attempt to trip him up" on a matter of major concern to them: the importance of the Mosaic Torah.  A lawyer, representing the Pharisees, asks him, “Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?”   One must remember that the Torah contains 613 precepts.  Some rabbis held that all were equally important, while others offered some sort of summary or gradation of the commands.  Jesus' answer is deeply rooted in the traditions of his people.  He names as the greatest command the love of God demanded in the greatest Jewish prayer, the Shema`: "Hear, O Israel . . . You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole self, and with all your mind" (Deut 6:4‑5).  Jesus then goes on to link this to a second command taken from  the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus: "You shall love your  neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18).  For Jesus these commands are the two pegs on which hang the whole of the Torah and the prophets.  All their teachings are founded on these two commands, and all the details of the Torah legislation are reducible to them.  When we are confused by the endless controversies and hostilities that tend to swirl around religion, Jesus' simple and straightforward teaching provides a welcome guide.

29th Sunday A

 

 

 

29th Sunday of the Year A
Readings: Isaiah 45:1, 4‑6  1 Thessalonians 1:1‑5  Matthew 22:15‑  21
            Throughout much of the biblical period the Jewish people were dominated by various foreign powers: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, the Greeks, and finally Rome.  In today's readings both Second Isaiah and Jesus offer us visions of how God's power and demands are operative, even in situations where the chosen people have no political power.  As we listen to the wonders of God's power in shaping human events for his saving purposes, let us acknowledge his greatness in the words of the responsorial psalm: "Give the Lord glory and honor" (Ps 96).
            The Isaiah reading is the famous Cyrus oracle of Second Isaiah in which the prophet announces that the Persian king Cyrus is God's "anointed" agent for freeing the exiled Jews from their captivity in Babylon.  Although Cyrus does not even know the Lord's name, from the prophet's perspective, his victories over nations, including Babylon, are the Lord's actions "for the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one." 
            The prophet's vision separates God's saving plan from Israel's political ambitions.  Many exiles may have preferred a Jewish deliverer like Moses or David, but Second Isaiah daringly gives the pagan king, Cyrus, the title of "anointed" or Messiah.   If God can use an unbelieving, foreign king to further his saving purposes, then Israel's task is not to become a great political power.  Rather, she is called to be a "servant" and "witness" to the one true God (see chapters 42, 44-45, 53).

            For the next several weeks, the Epistle reading will be taken from the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, probably the earliest writing in the New Testament.  This Sunday we have Paul's greeting at the beginning of the letter.  Because of tensions within the community, Paul had to leave Thessalonica rather abruptly, and therefore in the traditional thanksgiving section, he assures the Thessalonian Christians of his continued union with them in prayer and encourages them to maintain their commitment to the Christian virtues: faith, love and hope.
We keep thanking God for all of you and we remember
                         you in our prayers, for we constantly are mindful
                        before our God and Father of the way you are proving
                        your faith, and laboring in love, and showing constancy
                        in hope in your Lord Jesus Christ.
            There has also been some criticism of Paul since his departure, and, therefore, he begins to defend the way in which he preached the gospel among them.  Paul insists that his preaching was not a matter of mere rhetoric but an authentic preaching of the gospel.
                         Our preaching of the gospel proved not a mere
                        matter of words for you but one of power; it
                        was carried on in the Holy Spirit and out of
                        complete conviction.
            This Sunday's Gospel continues the controversies between Jesus and the religious leaders who are attempting to "trap him in speech" during his last days in Jerusalem.  The question of paying taxes to the Roman emperor is raised by two groups who had very different views on the question.  The Pharisees, as devotees to the Jewish written and oral law, opposed the tax because it forced them to admit Israel's subjection to pagan Rome and to use coinage bearing the image of Caesar.  But the Herodians, who supported the descendants of Herod the Great, advocated cooperation with Rome.  In this situation, Jesus apparently cannot win, when the disciples of the Pharisees ask: “Is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not?”  Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees by asking them for a coin of tribute.  He does not carry such coins; they do.  His question goes on to intimate that to carry such coins, bearing Caesar's image, is to cooperate with the emperor’s rule.
                         "Why are you trying to trip me up, you hypocrites?
                        Show me the coin used for the tax . . . Whose head is this, and whose inscription?"
The Pharisees are forced to say the image is “Caesar's,” and they thereby concede that they recognize the claims of Rome on their lives.  This makes the meaning of Jesus' final challenge something like this.  Because you carry Caesar's coin, it is clear that you "render to Caesar what is Caesar's," but I challenge you hypocrites to "give to God what is God's." 

            Throughout Christian history many have been tempted to identify a particular political cause with God's will.  Jesus' challenge forces us to be aware that God's demands and purposes transcend any particular political project.