Tuesday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

   Luke 6:12–19

Meditatio

“… he spent the night in prayer.…”

   The image of Jesus alone on the mountain, praying through the night, has filled the consciousness of the Church from apostolic times. In imitation of Jesus, many have spent the night or some part of it in sincere and fervent prayer. What is it about prayer at night that seems so special and intense? Perhaps just the fact that this time is usually spent in a very different way—sleeping—makes keeping vigil in prayer at night seem more serious and determined.

   In some communities of contemplative religious, members get up during the night for prayer. And in churches that have perpetual adoration, some people prefer the nighttime hours. When you have to make an important decision or have a special prayer need, you may find it beneficial to pray at night. Jesus’ prayer before his choice of the twelve apostles is also an example for us.

   But if it isn’t feasible to pray in the late hours, you can find other ways to unite with Jesus in his prayer at night. Instead of reading a novel at bedtime, or falling asleep watching TV, consider taking that time for prayer instead. You can read and reflect on Scripture, pray the rosary, or simply talk to Jesus about your day. These activities may help you fall asleep more peacefully. Or, if you suffer from chronic or occasional insomnia, perhaps you can take some of the time you lie awake to pray for yourself and for others. As the psalmist prayed, “When I think of you upon my bed, through the night watches I will recall / That you indeed are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy” (Ps 63:7–8).

Oratio

   At night, so many people need prayer. Jesus, be with all those who lie awake at night in fear, grief, worry, or hunger. Be with those who work at night. Be with those who sin at night—call them back to you. Be with mothers and fathers who get up during the night to take care of their children.

Jesus, you felt the need for prolonged prayer with your Father the night before you chose your twelve apostles. Help me remember to follow your example and to pray before making decisions—big or little—so that I open myself to your guidance. At this time, I ask in particular that you help me with.

Contemplatio

   Bless the Lord through the night.

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)

Monday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

   Luke 6:6–11

Meditatio

“But they became enraged and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.”

   This Gospel selection is a microcosm of Luke’s message in his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles. A man with a withered hand needs healing. The Pharisees are watching Jesus closely, seeking a reason to report him to the authorities. For Luke, to be full of grace, to be favored with the gracious acts of God’s kindness, requires listening, trust, and obedience.

   Mary, the first to be addressed as “full of grace,” is the fullest example of listening and trusting obedience. She bows before a mystery that she could not have completely comprehended, but to which she gives her whole life. Zechariah is punished for not trusting. Simeon and Anna are praised for their trusting prayers. The poor, the sick, the sinners who have nothing of their own in which to trust and who entirely depend on God’s mercy are called blessed. But woe is spoken to those who are popular, praised, and wealthy, those who trust in their own ideas, self-sufficiency, and righteousness.

   In these six verses of Luke we see a poor man with a withered hand simply sitting in the assembly in the synagogue. He is probably minding his own business, possibly wondering if he has the courage to ask Jesus to heal him. The Pharisees, however, have closed their minds and hearts to Jesus well before this meeting in the synagogue. They cannot hear him because his message contradicts everything they have felt to be true about how their lives should be lived. They cannot trust this dangerous young rabbi because the threat of the occupying power destroying their nation is too much for them. They cannot obey him because they have made up their minds to stop him from preaching and healing. In this passage we must face ourselves: what inspirations or invitations are we shutting out of our lives because of fear of what that change would mean? What we defend ourselves against could very well be the remedy offered to us for our salvation.

Oratio

   Father, so often I’ve discovered that precisely what I feared the most and fought against turned out to be just what I needed. Eventually I came to my senses. Every day you speak to me and invite me to change, to move from reacting, to deeply intentional ways of living and being. Help me to hear the hard word, to trust you, and to obey.

Contemplatio

   Father, I am listening.

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)

Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time—Year C

Lectio

    Luke 14:25–33

Meditatio

“… be my disciple.”

    In today’s Gospel, Saint Luke tells us that great crowds were traveling with Jesus. His teaching, demeanor, and miracles attracted them. This, however, did not make them his disciples. Jesus wants to clarify for them what it means to be his disciple. He warns that his disciples “hate” their families and even their own lives. This sounds harsh to our ears, but in Jesus’ culture, overstatement was a way to get the point across. Jesus’ disciples must love him more than they love their families and even their lives. They must renounce their possessions and carry their cross. His disciples must be ready to choose Jesus over anyone or anything.

    It is true that we are Jesus’ disciples. However, his words can challenge us to consider how committed we are to him. Following Jesus is not a matter of routine, nor is it a dry following of rules. It is not even suffering for the sake of suffering. It is loving Jesus more than we love everyone and everything else. This might seem like a tall order, almost impossible for us to fill. Yes, we love Jesus, but can we love Jesus more than we love all else? Yes we can, with God’s help … and God longs to do this! We learn to love Jesus gradually. The Holy Spirit accompanies us and bestows on us the graces we need for this journey in love. We only love someone whom we know … not just know about. It is wonderful to get to know Jesus more intimately. Simple things can help us love Jesus more: prayerful pondering of the New Testament, honest conversations with him, even just quietly being together. We grow in loving intimacy with Jesus every time we share our joys and sorrows with him, every time we make choices, even difficult ones, based on our love for him. Gradually we are transformed so that we love everyone and everything in him. Jesus has become the center of our hearts. We are truly his disciples.

Oratio

    Jesus, your description of a disciple causes me to be afraid. Will I ever be able to love you more than I love anyone or anything else? I want to! I do love you! You are so lovable! But I am sometimes weak, selfish, preoccupied with unimportant things. Please help me! I want to spend quality time with you, my dearest Friend, conversing openly and confidently—speaking and listening to you. Send the Holy Spirit to transform my heart so that gradually I will love you as you deserve and love everyone and everything in you.

Contemplatio

    I love you, Jesus; increase my love for you.

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)

Twenty-third Sunday

First reading: In Praise of Divine Wisdom (Wisdom 9:13–18)
This lovely passage is the conclusion of Solomon’s prayer for heavenly Wisdom, saying that heavenly Wisdom and the true knowledge of the things of God are beyond human grasp. If we cannot penetrate to an understanding of the visible world around us, how can we hope to reach an understanding of the divinity beyond the grasp of all our senses? The prayer is put in the mouth of King Solomon, who in the Old Testament is almost the personification of human wisdom, but artificially, for the Book of Wisdom was composed at Alexandria only shortly before the birth of Christ. The recognition at this moment that Divine Wisdom lies well beyond the reach of all human faculties is all the more impressive in view of the achievements of the great philosophical schools of Alexandria. Such occasional poems, scattered through the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament, are a valuable reminder that God is beyond all human comprehension in wisdom, strength and beauty. Perhaps the most beautiful and overwhelming of all is the experience of God conveyed in the poems of Job 38–41. These poems may also be seen as praise of the Wisdom of God which will become flesh and be manifest to us in Christ Jesus.

Question: ‘Of what we cannot speak, it is better to keep silent.’ Is this true of God?

Second reading: Paul and Philemon (Philemon 9b–10, 12–17)
Paul’s letter to Philemon—and this reading makes up about half the letter—is a friendly little note from Paul to Philemon about a slave of Philemon’s called Onesimus, who has been serving Paul in his imprisonment, and has become a Christian. There are two theories as to why Onesimus was with Paul: either Onesimus ran away from his master and took refuge with Paul, or Philemon lent Onesimus to Paul for a limited period. In either case, Paul is now sending Onesimus back, and, at the same time, pressurizing Philemon to send him Onesimus for a further period. The most important and attractive element in the Letter is Paul’s affectionate brotherhood with the slave, now a Christian. After long centuries of the toleration of slavery within Christianity, Christians will realize that the affection and brotherhood here expressed make slavery among Christians intolerable. A further step taken later will be that any enslavement of human beings is incompatible with Christianity, and that all human beings must be treated as brothers and sisters, equal before the Lord. It is a classic case of the slow deepening of the understanding of Christian morality.

Question: And what about the position of women in Christianity?

Gospel: The Cost of Discipleship (Luke 14:25–33)
Jesus does not pull his punches, and here delivers a series of devastating body blows to anyone who is looking for easy discipleship. All through this journey up to Jesus’ own death at Jerusalem the cost of discipleship has been a recurrent theme: ‘Let the dead bury their dead’ (thirteenth Sunday), the Parable of the Rich Fool (eighteenth Sunday), ‘From one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded’ (nineteentht Sunday), ‘Father against son, son against father’ (twentieth Sunday), and now ‘Hate father and mother’ and ‘Give up all your possessions’. A certain amount of the vigour of these demands may be attributed to a Semitic mode of expression, ease of superlatives and lack of comparatives, but there is no doubt about the absolute demands made on the disciple. When Jesus made these demands he knew what lay ahead of him, and was only asking his disciples to follow his own course. We must count the cost before beginning to build the tower. Most of us have, of course, already started to build the tower. There is no turning back from the plough (thirteenth Sunday), only prayer for a courage and loyalty which exceed our own powers.

Question: Does Jesus really mean we must hate father and mother?

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The Sunday Word: A Commentary on the Sunday Readings (Wansbrough, Henry

Saturday of the Twenty-Second Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

    Luke 6:1–5

Meditatio

“Have you not read …?”

    Sometimes holy people can scandalize us. When David went into the Temple and took the consecrated “bread of offering” as food for himself and his warriors, wasn’t he acting like a law unto himself? Why, then, is Jesus pointing to him as an example?

    It’s all in how you read the story. As Saint Paul said, these things were written for our instruction (see 1 Cor 10:11), but the simple ability to read is not very helpful if we are unable to interpret the text. In the matter of the temple bread, David broke more than the letter of the Law or the later, protective wall of observances around it. It is as if David was reading something between the lines that the rest of us, like the Pharisees, couldn’t even see. Jesus implies that this is why David’s example is still valid and ought to be applied.

    David was a “man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam 13:14; see Acts 13:22). Like many saints after him, he had almost an intuitive sense of God’s purpose; a kind of communion of understanding and of will. And so, faced with his own hunger and that of his band, David acted as “lord” of the Temple bread, redirecting its purpose.

    In referring to David, Jesus was beginning a Copernican revolution of his own: it is not the Sabbath that is the sun around which the Law circles. It is he himself, Jesus, who is the Lord of the Sabbath, the center of gravity around which the Sabbath turns. When the Lord of the Sabbath is present, there is no need for others to “enforce” the Sabbath.

Oratio

    Lord, this story reminds me of the experiences of some of the saints, like Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, or Saint Teresa of Avila. They responded to you in radical ways, so much more intense than what people had come to see as “normal,” that these saints were themselves thought to be suspect in their orthodoxy (if not just plain crazy). Saint Paul said “the spiritual person … is not subject to judgment by anyone” (1 Cor 2:15). Who would have the criteria by which to judge people guided by the Holy Spirit? That is the ultimate interpretive key for Scripture—and for life. I want to learn how to read according to your own heart, so I can respond to you fully and freely in life. Open my mind today to your guidance and to your transforming power, and I will begin to know the true freedom of the children of God.

Contemplatio

    “All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory forever” (from the Easter liturgy).

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)