Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time A March 6, 2011

This is the last post I will be making at this site.  New posts will be available at  http://beadsofstdominic.wordpress.com/

Gospel, Matthew 7:21-27  In most parts of the Negev, the hot southern region of Israel, annual rainfall is less than 8 inches.  You might not think of such an area as a place of floods, but the rocky sun-baked landscape can’t absorb water very quickly.  Rainwater runs off into gullies.  A half-inch of rain can send a wall of water several feet high surging down a normally dry wadi (the Jewish term for gully) with a force capable of knocking a truck or bus off a highway where the wadi opens out on a plain.  During the flooding in Australia a few months back, we saw news videos of houses being lifted from their foundations and swept downstream.  Such would have been the case for a house constructed in the wadi.  At first glance, the wadi seems like a better place for a home than up on the rockier surfaces.  The bottom of the wadi is shaded, cooler, and closer to water and vegetation.  It is easier to build on the sand that collects in the wadi than on the rocky surfaces above.  When the rains come, however, the wisdom of building on the less-appealing rocky surfaces above becomes clear. 

Jesus was familiar with flooding in desert regions of the Holy Land.  He also understood construction as carpenters of his time worked with all aspects of construction, not just with wood.  Jesus draws from his work experience to teach the importance of building one’s life on the solid foundation of hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. 

The Christian life, however, isn’t always the easiest and most attractive.  Like real estate down in the wadi, more worldly life styles can seem very tempting.  The storms of life inevitably come, however.  How will one come through times of financial setbacks, health problems, marital difficulties, or the death of a loved one?  How will one deal with the lure of drugs, alcohol, sex, and accumulation of material things?  That will depend largely on the foundation which parents began and encouraged for their child and upon which he or she continued to build by his or her own decision. 

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time A February 27, 2011

For Mass readings go to http://www.usccb.org/nab/ and click the date desired on the calendar.

note: as of March 2011 I will not be adding additional entries to this blog site.  They will be available at http://beadsofstdominic.wordpress.com/

Gospel, Matthew 6:24-34  Compromise is good when it involves dying to self-will so others may benefit, but there is nothing virtuous about compromising values or commitment to God.  We are called to love God with all our being as indicated in the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy 6:4-5…not 50% or even 80% but 100%.  Mammon is an Aramaic word meaning wealth or property.  People can get so consumed in the pursuit of wealth that they effectively treat it like a god. It is probably for that reason that the word Mammon became personified and was retained in the Gospel text (see also Luke 16:9-11).   

Jesus does not deny the reality of human needs for food and clothing and housing.  What Jesus cautions against is making such things the object of anxious concern, in effect making us slaves to them to the point that we make ourselves slaves to the quest for these things.  Anxiety over such things indicates a lack of confidence that God will provide for us what we absolutely need. 

The word translated for adding a “moment” to one’s life is “cubit”, a measure of about 18 inches in length.  The popular use of the measurement during the OT period is obvious from the fact that the word “cubit” or “cubits” appears 266 times in the bible, all of which, with exception of one reference in the book of Revelations, are found in the Old Testament giving measurements primarily for the construction of Noah’s ark and the Temple of Jerusalem.  The word was occasionally used in relation to time as in this text, the idea of advancing a cubit more along the path of life. 

Solomon had a reputation for living in splendor.  He so heavily taxed the people to realize his plans that when he died, the people of Israel told his son that they never wanted a king like Solomon again.  By comparison, God’s clothing and providing for the birds and the rest of nature is more beautiful and comes at no such price.  Nevertheless, the grass dies.  So do the birds.  So will we.  Rather than worry about that moment off in the future, however, we do best to focus on the challenges of today and entrust them all to God’s providential care.

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time A February 20, 2011

NOTE: As of the beginning of March 2011 I will be discontinuing this blog site.  Entries will be posted on my parish’s blog at http://beadsofstdominic.wordpress.com/ 

Gospel, Matthew 5:38-48  This is a continuation of last week’s Gospel.  Jesus is giving his disciples more specific guidance on how to fulfill the spirit of the law of Moses.  The phrase “an eye for an eye…” comes from Leviticus 24:19-20.  Although it may seem harsh for Jewish people of old to exact such a penalty in kind, it was actually meant to moderate vengeance rather than allowing it to escalate.  Family and personal honor is upheld with tremendous violence even today in many parts of the world, even to wiping out someone’s family for an offense against one member of another family.  We hear the language of such retaliation all too often in threats from terrorist groups today.  Jesus forbids even proportionate retaliation.

In Romans 12:21 Paul writes “do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.”  Responding in kind to personal offenses only throws more kindling on the fire.  We are to offer no resistance.  By going overboard in offering the other cheek, giving the cloak along with the tunic, or going the extra mile, you defuse anger by not returning it.  You may also cause the person to recognize how inappropriate their actions and demands were and change their behavior. 

There is no Old Testament text encouraging hatred of one’s enemy.  Love of neighbor was demanded in the Old Testament (see today’s first reading from Leviticus) but the scope of who neighbor might be was limited to fellow Jews.  With this teaching and others such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) Jesus sought to broaden that understanding to love and respect for all people as beloved by God.  The word translated “love” in all these usages is “Agape”, the highest form of love which reflects the love of God.  We are to strive for perfection, not just a passing grade in life.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time A February 13, 2011

Gospel, Matthew 5:17-37  In terms of learning to live a moral life, the Ten Commandments were the basic course…like starting out in math learning addition, subtract, multiplication and division.  Jesus’ teaching here is an advanced course…like calculus or physics.  He is not abolishing the Mosaic law but giving deeper insight and adjustments more in accord with living by the spirit, not merely the letter, of that law.  “The smallest letter” literally reads “not one iota”…the letter “I” which was the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet.  “The smallest part of a letter” is literally “not a keraia” which was the finishing part of the stroke in forming Hebrew letters.  The difference can be as slight as the two Hebrew letters זּ and דּ

The command to not kill is not only in reference to taking a person’s life.  We must not “kill” someone’s reputation or esteem among people.  Rather, we are to love and respect one another.  The Aramaic word “Raqa” was probably comparable to calling someone an “imbecile” or “blockhead”.  The Sanhedrin was the Jewish governing body in Jerusalem given authority by the Romans for local governance.  They had their own police force, court, and systems of enforcement and punishment.  They were not allowed to inflict a death sentence, however.  That was reserved to the Romans, federal trumping local government, as in the case of the Sanhedrin bringing Jesus to Pilate.  Gehenna referred to the Valley of Hinnom on the SW side of Jerusalem.  During the times of the monarchy, it was the site of an altar dedicated to the god Moloch on which children were sacrificed (2 Kings 23, Jeremiah 7:31).  In Jesus’ time the city’s garbage and human waste were dumped and burned there.  It made an ideal visual when Jesus needed an image of hell.

Jesus cautions against attempting to offer a gift to God while knowingly holding out on one of God’s children. Imagine God saying, “So you want me to accept this offering and forgive you while you refuse to forgive your neighbor?  Don’t you know your neighbor is my child?  Go first and settle up with him.  Then come back and we’ll talk.”

“Better to pluck out your eye or cut off your hand”…forgive not seven (number of perfection) but seventy times seven…descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky or grains of sand on the seashore…Jewish teaching was given to overstatement for emphasis.  The early church did not encourage self-mutilation as a guard against temptation.  Still, the point is clear: the consequences of losing an eye or a hand are nothing compared to losing your eternal soul.

The statement allowing a bill of divorce comes from Deut. 24:1 in which grounds were a man finding in his wife “something indecent  Rabbis at the time Christ differed on what was that phrase meant and what would be sufficient grounds for divorce.  Jesus is quoted here as saying no divorce should be permitted “unless the marriage is unlawful”, literally the Greek text says “except on account of porneia (fornication)”.  Here again, it is unclear exactly what justifies divorce. 

The statement on oaths comes from Numbers 30:3.  People got pretty creative swearing by this or that.  Have you ever heard people say they’d “swear on their dead mother’s grave” or some similarly odd thing?  Just let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no”…your word must come from your own heart and soul, not from anything external to you.

“You’ve hear it said…what I tell you is…”  Jesus challenges his disciples to strive to live by a high code of conduct. 

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time A February 6, 2011

Gospel, Matthew 5:13-16  Although in the middle of a Minnesota winter, we might think first of salt as an agent for melting ice on roads and sidewalks, its primary historical uses have been as a preservative and for flavoring food.  Anyone who has ever been on a salt-free diet knows how tasteless things can be without salt. Although we now have a bank of other preservatives, salt was essential in past ages to keep meat for a long period of time.  In the Old Testament God made an inviolable covenant, literally a “covenant of salt”, with Aaron and his descendants (Numbers 18:19).  In 2 Chronicles 13:5 the bestowal of lands by God as a promise to David and his descendants is referred to as a “covenant made in salt”.  It is believed that eating a bit of salt together was a sign of agreement by the parties in any covenant.  It used to be part of the Catholic baptismal ritual to place a pinch of salt on the tongue of the newly baptized to symbolize the permanency of the relationship established and prayer that God would help the newly baptized persevere in the commitment.

People in Jesus’ time did not buy granulated salt as we do today.  There were abundant natural deposits in the Jordan River Valley, especially around the Dead Sea where it was harvested by letting the salt-rich waters of the Sea into shallow pools.  The pools were then closed off.  The water evaporated under the hot sun, leaving a deposit of salt.  When the salt was removed, some sand and other particles adhered to it.  People bought salt in small blocks which kept in cloth bags and placed in the kettle as water boiled.  When the right amount of salt for the desired seasoning had dissolved in the water, the bag was removed.  Eventually the salt in the bag was depleted, leaving only the impurities which were emptied out on the street on the way to the market for another chunk of salt.

The bible is filled with the imagery of light in darkness, but the phrase “light of the world” appears only a few times.  In the Gospel of John Jesus states, “I am the light of the world” (Jn. 8:12).  Here in this text from Matthew Jesus says, “You are the light of the world”.  This interesting combination of texts calls us to let Christ be the light shining in and through our lives. 

The statement that our light must shine so others might see our good deeds would seem to be in sharp contrast Jesus’ statement to keep our almsgiving and prayer secret (Matthew 6:1-8).  The difference between the two statements is in the intention.  We must avoid doing things for show so as to make people think more highly of us.  We must do what is necessary to give good example and encouragement to others for the glory of God.  It’s a question of our motives.  I recall many years ago asking a priest who was a very dynamic charismatic figure if it bothered him that people came up and praised him for his homilies and other presentations.  He told me that at first he would respond with things such as, “No, no.  Don’t praise me.  Give God the glory.”  People went away feeling as though they had been chastised.  So he changed and replied, “Thank you, I’m just thankful God can use me and you as well for his glory.”  People went away encouraged, giving thanks to God.

As salt of the earth we are called to preserve all that is true and good as well as add flavor that brings out the good for people around us.  As the light of the world we are to let Jesus shine in and through us as we give light to others by our words and example.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time January 23, 2011

Matthew 4:12-23  Nazareth, where Jesus was raised, was in the area of Zebulun.  Capernaum, where Jesus headquartered his ministry, was in that of Naphtali.  Capernaum was a town of c. 1,500 residents on the NW coast of the Sea of Galilee.  In the Jordan valley rift area between two tectonic plates slowly moving apart for thousands of years, the Sea of Galilee was 640 ft. below sea level, 8.5 miles wide, and 11.5 miles long.  Cold waters from the melting snows of Mt. Hermon to the north flowed into the lake a couple miles NE of Capernaum.  Springs just south of Capernaum discharged hot water into the lake.  The combination of hot and cold waters was ideal for plankton, microscopic animal and plant life which formed the basic diet of the fish in the lake.  The NW section of the lake near Capernaum, therefore, was the best fishing area of the lake. 

Jesus’ first four apostles were fishermen from Capernaum.  Another apostle from Capernaum, Matthew, was a tax collector whose job may have been connected to the fishing industry since fishermen were taxed a percentage of each catch.  King Herod Antipas sold fishing rights to groups of fishermen joined together in syndicates.  As with farmers today who must run more acres and thus purchase bigger equipment to make a go of it, the cost of licensing a fishing operation required a high volume of catch possible only through the use of bigger boats and nets.  Herod also gave out loans for syndicates to purchase boats and equipment.  Some techniques of setting out and then collecting long nets required two boats.  It is very possible that Peter’s boat and that of Zebedee were from the same syndicate making them all partners.  The boats were not pulled up on the shore.  Remember, these were big enough crafts for Jesus and all the apostles to move around the lake in one boat.  Capernaum had a half-mile breakwater to protect the town from occasional storms rolling in from the lake with a number of wharfs jutting out from the breakwater to moor the boats.

Some parishes in our archdiocese are currently being merged due to shortage of priests and changing demographics.  The major challenges to these mergers arise from the strong identification of people with their particular church as compared with the broader Catholic Christian community.  Today as in Paul’s time, loyalties to individuals and groups are fine unless they become the source of competition, division, and resistance to seeing oneself as part of a fuller Christian community.   

The other fishermen in the syndicate would need the boat and nets to continue the business.  Jesus and the apostles would use the same boat for occasional trips around the lake.  Peter and Andrew didn’t just leave or “abandon” the boat to follow Jesus.  The license had to be maintained, taxes were due, they may have had payments to make on the boat and nets, there were a number of families dependent on the business (each boat needed a crew of 6-8 men to run it for fishing at night and another crew to run it for transportation of cargo and passengers during the day), and, whatever more family was involved, Peter at least had a mother-in-law and a house to take care of.  How to cover all that while freeing up their schedule to follow Jesus?  Such was their reality.  Their decision was more like that of anyone today who senses a call to follow Jesus more fully while being true to his/her responsibilities in life.

The ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus are interlaced.  Jesus was apparently down in the lower Jordan region following his baptism when he received news of John’s imprisonment.  This is the signal for him to head back north to Galilee to begin his ministry there.  Look through all that Jesus does until we get Matthew 11 where John in prison sends disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one for whom John had prepared the way, and on to the account of his death in Matthew 14.  John is hearing about all that is happening.  Imagine what solace it would have been for him to receive testimony of Jesus’ ministry. 

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time January 16, 2011

John 1:29-34  John the Baptist’s testimony to Jesus is more direct and emphatic in the Gospel of John than in the Synoptic gospels.  Why?  It seems likely that there was a significant population in the Jewish world that identified with John the Baptist who had not yet come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah (such as Apollos in Acts 18:24-28 who went on to be a major evangelist in the early Church).  How to bring them to faith in Jesus?  The gospel writers chose to express the importance of John the Baptist in God’s plan while indicating that John pointed the way to Jesus for whom his own ministry was a preparation.  Honor John’s ministry, but go on to where he pointed…to Jesus.

“The Lamb of God”(v. 29) This is the text quoted in the Mass as the priest breaks the host, symbolizing Jesus offering himself as lambs were offered in sacrifice at the temple of Jerusalem.  The phrase only appears twice in the Bible, here and in verse 36.  John does make considerable reference to Jesus as the Lamb in Revelation (34 times).  The only other reference to Jesus as the Lamb is in 1 Peter 1:19 stating that we were ransomed from our sin “with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb”.  The lamb to be slaughtered for the final meal in Egypt and whose blood marking the doorposts to protect those within, was to be an unblemished lamb (Exodus 12:5). 

Baptism of the Lord Sunday January 9, 2011

Matthew 3:13-17  All three Persons of the Trinity are present here.  Note that the Father was talking to someone other than Jesus.  It was a word of testimony to the Son for all people to hear.  Was the descending of the Spirit merely symbolic or empowering?  Referring to Philippians 2:6-7, when the Son of God became man, he set aside all the divine gifts and attributes while retaining his divine nature.  As a child Jesus had to learn to walk and to speak like any other child.  He had to study and learn to read and write.   He “grew in wisdom” (Luke 2:52) rather than possessing it in fullness as he would have if retaining all the divine attributes.  Jesus had to pray, even during the years of his public ministry, to discern the Father’s will.  There has been a lot of theological discussion among scripture scholars as to when Jesus became aware of his divine identity…perhaps as an adopted child may only discover this fact and his true identity after many years.  Regardless of when Jesus knew of his divine identity, Jesus was the Son of God from the beginning.  In the person of Jesus, the Son received from the Father only what he needed to complete his ministry…as he needed it…no more, no less.  Since the gifts of the Holy Spirit comprise the elements of discernment, it is logical that when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, it was a very empowering moment, gifting him for his upcoming ministry.

Epiphany Sunday January 2, 2011

Matthew 2:1-12  We go backward in Matthew’s gospel from last week’s account of the flight into Egypt.  The Magi were not themselves kings but, rather, people who sought knowledge from every imaginable source and the ability to apply that knowledge to predict and prepare for the future.  The word “magic” is derived from their practices.  According to the popular cosmology of the time, the earth was covered by a dome, across which God or gods caused the heavenly bodies to move in patterns thought to contain coded messages.  Such was the logic behind astrology.  One interpretation of the star is that, in 6 B.C., people such as the Magi who observed the stars for signs would have seen Jupiter (which represented royalty) pass through Aries (representative of the Jewish people, perhaps due to their history as shepherds).  The Magi could have interpreted this as a divine sign of the birth of a great Jewish king.  On reporting their findings, their own king may have sent them as his representatives bearing gifts, a common way for kings to build alliances and secure peaceful relations with other nations.

Note that the Magi found Mary and Jesus in a house.  This differs from the stable in Luke’s account.  We prefer to put the two gospel accounts together, figuring that the family had gotten established after the census was over, Joseph was off working, and they had moved from the stable into their own place.  There are a number of other differences, however, such as the circumstances of their return to Nazareth (Luke) compared to their later settling in Nazareth after a sojourn in Egypt (Matthew) and the differences in their respective genealogies.  We should remember that the evangelists were writing theological truths and felt a certain editorial license to rework some of the details to get those points across. 

Matthew draws a comparison here between the Magi who, although non-Jews, discerned the birth of the Messiah and traveled a thousand miles to find him…and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who, although possessing the scriptural word in prophecies, missed the most important birth in history just six miles away in Bethlehem.  We Christians have been blessed with the word of God and avenues of God’s grace through Jesus Christ, but we will still remain in the dark like if we don’t look into that word to seek and follow the light of Christ. 

Holy Family Sunday December 26, 2010

 Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23  As with the many ethnic neighborhoods in U.S. cities and small towns settled by people of a specific nationality, there were many Jewish communities in northern Egypt at the time of Jesus’ birth.  Many of them dated from the time of the Diaspora of the Jews resultant from the Babylonian conquest in 587 B.C. when many Jewish people escaped to nearby Egypt.  By the most direct route Joseph and Mary would have traveled c. 300 miles from Bethlehem to those settlements.  As with many immigrants coming to Northfield from Mexico, Joseph and Mary may have had friends or distant relatives with whom they could move in and get a start.  

Herod died in 4 B.C.  “How is that possible?” you might ask.  When Dionysius Exiguus, Dennis the Humble, set out in the middle of the 6^th Century to determine the year of Jesus’ birth and transfer the numbering of years from the establishment of the Roman Empire to the birth of Jesus, he was about six years off…not bad, really.  Welcome to the future as we go now from 2016 to 2017.  After Herod’s death, his territory was divided into three regions by the Romans, each given to one of Herod’s sons.  Phillip received the northeastern area.  Herod Antipas received Galilee and some adjoining sections.   Archelaus received the more heavily populated southern region of Judah which included Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  He turned out to be such so cruel and unpredictable that, after a few years, the Romans exiled him to France (which doesn’t seem like such a horrible punishment today) and replaced him with a Roman governor.  Joseph and Mary wisely decided to bypass Judah and settle to the north in Galilee.