Saturday, September 12, 2009
Holy Name of Mary
Our liturgists who relegate this feast to “ferial” forget the importance of the name in Jewish religion. By chance (or by all things working together for good), the readings can fit Mary. The first reading tells of sin, but especially of God’ s mercy, which Mary lauded in her Magnificat, mercy from generation to generation. The psalm too, in which God is praised for raising the poor from the dung heap, is echoed in the Magnificat. The Alleluia verse is Jesus’ promise, fulfilled in Mary, that all who keep (ponder) his words will be filled with God’ s love and presence, made flesh in Jesus. Finally, Jesus tells a parable of a house built on rock, like someone who hears his words and acts on them, like someone who digs deeply. Again, Mary. If Jesus is the cornerstone, is she not the rock, the foundation on which he was built, through whom he was taught and formed?
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Friday, September 11, 2009
A day to remember, and readings to remind us that even Paul was “a persecutor and a man of violence,” who received mercy because “the grace of our Lord [Jesus] overflowed for me.” Jesus, who just yesterday warned us not to judge but to love our enemies and forgive if we are to be forgiven, re-teaches the message with a parable. How can we with beams in our eyes dare to take out specks in others’ eyes? Or, as in John 8, who dares to cast a stone?
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Today’ s readings offer a description of the new kin-dom ushered in by Jesus. It is a kin-dom in which people love their enemies, lend without expecting return, do not judge, but are merciful, just as God is merciful. Then in this kin-dom good things will overflow. Colossians continues the description, which could become a mission statement for a community, ministry staff, family, co-workers. “Clothe yourselves with….” means accept God’ s gifts of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance and forgiveness, just as God has offered all this to us. We are exhorted to let love, union, peace and gratitude reign in our hearts. We are to absorb the Word of Christ, teaching one another, singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs in gratitude. “Whatever you do in word or in work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Then the psalm responds to this abundance with a song of praise.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
One reason this letter is thought not to be Paul’ s is the dualism inherent in today’ s opening lines. Paul is thoroughly Jewish, and Jews did not split body and soul, did not shun the things of earth. Another reason: “You have clothed yourselves with the new self…” Paul once tried to “do it himself”, and was converted to Jesus, not personal spiritual achievements, as the way of salvation. What does sound like Paul is today’ s conclusion: “Christ is all and in all”---Greeks, Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, every nationality, slave, free – all together in the new kin-dom, one in Christ (Cf Galatians 3:28). Jesus could sound dualistic today but he speaks as a true Jewish prophet, castigating the rich and powerful, encouraging the poor and hungry.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Feast of the birth of Mary
Matthew’ s genealogy traces Jesus’ ancestry from Abraham through Joseph, his legal father. It includes four women, three unfaithful in love and Ruth, so faithful. Jesus is like us in all things, born from a sinful and graced family. What this family tree has to do with Mary is puzzling. We know nothing from the gospels; Joachim and Anne are featured in an imaginative legend that circulated after our four gospels were selected.
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Monday, September 7, 2009
Today Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. He asks his accusers, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath…to save life?” Jesus’ labor is healing and saving, yesh from the Hebrew meaning to set free; salus from the Latin meaning whole. They were “filled with fury” at Jesus’ work. The author of Colossians teaches that his suffering is another way of working. “I am filling up in my body what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ.” God is lavishing riches, and the author “ toils and struggles with all the energy (dynamis; power, energy, Spirit) that Christ powerfully inspires within me.” He wants his readers to be “en-couraged and united in love... have all the riches…Christ himself in whom are…the treasures of wisdom.”
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Sunday, September 6, 2009
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
On this Labor Day weekend we hear of God’ s labor: of love, nourishment, healing, freedom, sight, welcome. Whom does God welcome? James tells us that God has chosen those who are poor in this world, and we had best not make distinctions and judgments. If we are ever tempted to disdain the Jews of Jesus’ time, they who officially disdained the disabled as sinners, today’ s gospel corrects our judgment. “They” bring the deaf man to Jesus, Jesus ordered “them,” “they proclaimed it…they were astounded.” Isaiah describes the messianic kin-dom, the psalm tells God’ s detailed job description, and Jesus puts flesh on God’ s healing work.
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