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Commentary on Luke 2:41-51

The Gospel reading is the story from Luke of Jesus as a young boy staying on in the Temple at Jerusalem. We are told that Jesus’ parents used to go to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover.

When Jesus was 12, the year when a Jewish boy was regarded as entering adulthood and subject to the Law, he went with Mary and Joseph as usual on their annual pilgrimage. But, on their way back to Nazareth, Jesus, unknown to his parents, stayed behind in the city. Presuming he was with other members of what was probably a large party of relatives and neighbours, Mary and Joseph continued for a day without seeing him.

But then they became worried and returned to the city to look for him. To lose a young boy in a large city at any time would be a source of great anxiety to parents but, during the Passover, when Jerusalem would be full of strangers from all over, it could be terrifying. Anything could happen to him.

It was finally on the third day that they came across him in the Temple where he was sitting among the teachers of the Law, listening to them and asking them questions. They were amazed at his intelligence and at the answers he gave to their questions. Mary and Joseph, naturally, were astonished to see him in such company.

But they were also upset. Mary asked her Son,

Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.

But Jesus made no apology for his behaviour:

Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

But Mary and Joseph did not understand the meaning of his words. They did not comprehend the two uses of the word ‘father’ – “Your father and I…” and “my Father’s house”?

Mary (and Joseph) did not yet recognize that Jesus’ life had reached a watershed. He would pass from the care of Mary and Joseph, his foster father, and move into his calling as the Son of a higher Father. Yet on this day, he would of course, go home with them and become an obedient son in the family. But a warning had been given and, later on, he will leave his home for the last time to begin his official work.

As with any mother experiencing the challenges of a child growing up, we are told that Mary:

…treasured all these things in her heart.

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Commentary on Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19

“The Book of Lamentations contains five poems of sorrow over the destroyed Jerusalem. Written probably by an eyewitness, these words express a poignant grief that the chants of Tenebrae [in Holy Week] put to music.” (Vatican II Missal)

Today’s reading is from the Book of Lamentations. We have come to the end of our readings about the history of the Kings, contained in the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings and the books of Chronicles. We began with Saul and finished with Zedekiah, a puppet king installed by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar.

Our reading today is taken from chapter 2 which speaks of the Lord’s anger against Zion, that is, Jerusalem. In this chapter the author describes the wretched fate of kings, priests, prophets, elders, children and then, addressing Zion, he reminds her how the false prophets have lied, and urges her to bewail her fate before God.

The passage reflects the bitterness and suffering of the people in Jerusalem undergoing the effects of a terrible siege. The buildings of the city have all been torn down. The king and his family have been humiliated and take into exile. The men of the city, in penitential sackcloth and ashes, sit in silent misery on the ground. The women are bowed down to the ground.

The author, perhaps an eyewitness, is overcome with bitterness as he sees children and babies die of starvation. Piteously they ask their mothers for food. But there is none. Eventually they die in their helpless mothers’ arms.

There are harsh words for false prophets, the propagandists of their day. They denied the reality with idealistic and misleading or specious visions, instead of pointing to the real cause of the people’s sufferings – their infidelity to their God, to the true and the good. Jeremiah frequently denounces false prophets. The word ‘misleading, specious’ in the Hebrew comes from the same root as that underlying the word ‘banish’ in Jeremiah 27:10,15. In other words, the lies of false prophets “mislead” the people and thus lead to “banishment” by the Lord – so they are “banishing” in their effect.

“Cry out to the Lord, O daughter of Zion”, a personification of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. The people indeed have much to weep for, both for their present miseries and the reason for them. Their only remedy is to turn to their God in prayer. “Rise up, shrill in the night, at the beginning of every watch.” There were three watches in every night so the whole night could be spent profitably in prayer.

Let them pour out their hearts like water. That is, let them pour out their hearts in prayer and petition. Let them lift up their hands in supplication especially for the lives of their little ones, the victims of their parents’ wrongdoing.

It is a sober reflection that there are still so many places and times in our contemporary and supposedly technologically ‘sophisticated’ world where people are in similar and even worse circumstances, where children walk around naked and in a daze, so long deprived of food that they do not even know they are hungry.

And the causes are still the same: the sins of people, the sins of greed and neglect and a failure to see each other as brothers and sisters and to accept responsibility for them. Cain’s question is still being cynically asked: “Am I my brother’s (and sister’s) keeper?”

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The scriptural commentaries in Living Space were written by Fr Frank Doyle SJ and are a wonderfully rich resource for us all. Sadly, we do not have a commentary for this reading today.

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Commentary on 2 Kings 22:8-13; 23:1-3

In today’s reading we have moved about 100 years on from yesterday. King Josiah is now on the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah.

Hilkiah, the high priest, tells Shaphan, an expert in the Scriptures, that he has found the “book of the law” in the Temple. The Jerusalem Bible comments:

“This ‘Book of the Law’ is certainly Deuteronomy or, to be precise, its legislative portion, the main statutes of which form the guiding principles of the subsequent reform. It was the sacred law of the Temple of Jerusalem, hidden or lost or at least completely forgotten during the reign of the impious Manasseh.”

However, other interpreters think it may refer to the entire Pentateuch (the books attributed to Moses, which are the first five books of the Old Testament).

Shaphan in turn brought the scroll to the king and read it out to him. When the king heard the contents, he tore his garments. He realised just how much the statutes of God’s law had been neglected and violated. He now understood how the misfortunes of the people were the signs of God’s anger:

…for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.

Perhaps the covenant curses of Leviticus chapter 26 and/or Deuteronomy chapter 28, climaxing with the threat of exile, were the statements that especially disturbed Josiah. We can contrast Josiah’s reaction with that of Jehoiakim to the words of the scroll written by Jeremiah (see Jer 36:24-25). On that occasion, Jehoiakim treated the text with contempt and burnt it passage by passage as it was read to him by the prophet Baruch.  Needless to say, he paid a high price for his arrogance.

Josiah then gave instructions to a number of important people to consult the Lord on what was laid down in these writings on behalf of himself, the people and all of Judah. Among them were Hilkiah, the priest already mentioned, Ahikam and Acbor. Ahikam was the father of Gedaliah and later appointed governor of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He was also the protector of Jeremiah when his life was threatened during the reign of Jehoiakam (see Jer 26:24). Acbor’s son, Elnathan, is mentioned in chapter 24 of 2 Kings.

These people, together with some others, went to consult a prophetess in Jerusalem called Huldah. She confirmed that the terrible threats towards those who had broken the law and worshipped idols would be carried out as foretold. However, King Josiah would be spared this fate because, after hearing the contents of the document, he had expressed deep repentance and grief and rent his garments. He would go to his grave in peace and would not live to see the awful punishments that would be visited on Jerusalem (these particular details are from verses omitted in our reading).

The whole population, including priests and prophets, is then gathered together to have the whole “book of the covenant” read to them. This was another name for the book of Deuteronomy, which claimed to be the code of the covenant of the people with Yahweh (Deut 5:3; 29:1). Whatever else the scroll contained, it clearly included the covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and/or Deuteronomy 28.

The king then, as the Lord’s representative, renewed the covenant of God with his people, promising to observe “with all his heart and all his soul” all its requirements. As he did so, he stood “by the pillar”, that is, one of the two bronze pillars in the portico of the Temple. Josiah fulfilled the role of one mediating a covenant between God and his people just as Moses, Joshua, Samuel and King Jehoiada had done before him.

The people then pledged themselves to obey the covenant. It is likely that some sort of ratification rite was performed, in which the people participated and pledged by oath to be loyal to their covenant obligations. Whether this was done symbolically or verbally is not said.

It is good for us, too, regularly to go through the New Testament, and especially the Gospel, and renew the promises we made in our Baptism. We might ask ourselves, too, how much real attention we give to the Word of God proclaimed to us at every Eucharist in which we participate. And we might seriously consider spending some time each day reading and studying the Scripture. A careful reading of the Gospel will often reveal to us just how far we have strayed from the call of Jesus to be his disciples.

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Commentary on Matthew 7:6,12-14

Today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount contains three apparently unrelated teachings of Jesus. Verses 7-11 about prayer, which intervene, are omitted. We need to remind ourselves that the Sermon on the Mount is not a verbatim record of a ‘sermon’ preached by Jesus. It is a highly edited collection of sayings on the general theme of the qualities to be found in a true disciple of Jesus.

First, Jesus says:

Do not give what is holy to dogs…

That is, consecrated meat from animals sacrificed in the Temple should not be given as food for dogs. We need to remember that for the Jews (as for the Muslims) dogs are unclean animals, so that is an extra reason for not giving them meat consecrated for purposes of divine worship. We may remember the remark of Jesus to the Syro-Phoenician woman about not giving the food of children to dogs, a reference to Gentiles who were also thought to be unclean. Or the humiliation of Lazarus in Luke’s parable who was so helpless that he could not prevent dogs licking his sores.

Similarly, as the passage continues, something as precious as pearls should not be given to pigs, another unclean animal. Again we remember in the parable of the Prodigal Son, how after hitting rock bottom, the only job he could find was to feed pigs and he was so hungry he would have eaten the pigs’ food.

In other words, Jesus is advising his followers not indiscriminately to expose their beliefs to all and sundry. While, in one sense, the Christian Way is for all, there are people who are not ready to hear it and will not just reject it, but subject it to ridicule. This would especially apply to certain Christian practices such as the celebration of the Eucharist or other sacraments. We do not accept people into the Catholic community except after a long period of formation and initiation. Faith in Christ is a gift and not everyone receives it at once.

The second saying in today’s Gospel is the famous ‘Golden Rule’, which is not exclusive to Christianity or the Gospel – it is known in other cultures. What might be emphasised here is its being expressed in positive terms. There is also a negative form which states, “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you”. There is a difference between the two. You can observe the negative maxim by doing nothing at all. The positive can only be observed by doing some good action to others and is therefore much more in line with the general teaching of Jesus.

In the third saying today, Jesus contrasts the narrow gate with the wide road. To follow the wide road is to do just about anything you feel like doing. It is to follow your likes and dislikes, your instincts and whims wherever they lead you. That is going to include following roads of greed and self-centredness, of lies and deceit, perhaps even of violence and hurt. It is clearly not a way of life.

The narrow gate is not to be narrow-minded. It is rather to be very clearly focused on certain very specific ways of thinking and acting, having one’s life guided by a clear set of truths, principles and values – those truths, principles and values which form the core of the Gospel’s teaching. In other words, the Way of Christ. It is a way that leads to life.

It is a hard road only in the sense that it requires discipline, and it is true that relatively few people find it. But in the long run, it is the easier way because it conforms more to the deepest needs and desires of the human person. The Way of Jesus is not an eccentric choice of lifestyle, one religion among many; rather it is in total harmony with all that human life is meant to be. But there is no doubt that the wide undisciplined road is the easier one to follow – even though in the long run it does not bring happiness.

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Commentary on 2 Kings 19:9-11, 14-21, 31-36

Having overcome the Northern Kingdom, the Assyrians now turn their attention to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. What happens is almost the exact reverse of the passage read on Monday of Week 12 of Ordinary Time.

The famous Sennacherib, the one who “came down like a wolf on the fold”, is now the Assyrian king. He sends a letter to Hezekiah, king of the Southern Kingdom, demanding surrender. There is no use, says Sennacherib, their appealing to their God. All other countries have fallen before the Assyrian juggernaut; why should Judah be the exception?

Hezekiah has only one option – to pray to his God for help. He calls on his God who alone is God over all the kingdoms of the earth and has made them all. True, says the king, the Assyrians have carried all before them. They laid nations to waste and tossed their gods into the fire. They could do this for these gods who were just human artifacts of wood and stone.

But Hezekiah’s and Judah’s God is different. The king prayed:

So now, O Lord our God, save us, I pray you, from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.

At this point Isaiah, the prophet, intervenes with a long (vv 21-31) oracular message from God (and, except for its final verse, not included in today‘s reading). Part of it is addressed to Sennacherib and the second part to Judah. It is a mocking statement directed against the Assyrians and guaranteeing that, no matter what happens:

…from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Isaiah interprets this as saying that Sennacherib will not reach Jerusalem; he will not attack it nor be able to institute a siege against its walls:

By the way that he came, by the same he shall return; he shall not come into this city, says the Lord.

And the city will remain safe from attack:

For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

And that very night 185,000 men of the Assyrian army were mysteriously struck down and Sennacherib had no option but to return to his capital at Niniveh. What seems to have happened is that the Assyrian army was struck down by some virulent infection or plague which swept through it like a forest fire. Soon after his return, we are told in the following verse that, while worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, Sennacherib was assassinated by two of his sons who then fled into Ararat. Another son took over the throne. A further example of what happens to those who attack God’s people.

Here, as in the previous passage from 2 Kings, we see that things do not happen by accident. The destruction of the Assyrian army may be attributed to purely natural causes, but the eyes of faith see there God’s protecting hand for his people, and especially for the city of David, to which he had made so many promises. Nevertheless, Jerusalem will not remain unscathed. It will be, as Isaiah foretells today, not utterly destroyed, but reduced to a remnant. From that remnant will come a descendant of David,

Let us, too, see the hand of God operating in all the details of our lives – both the joyful and painful – and discern what he is trying to tell us.

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Commentary on Matthew 7:1-5

We begin today the last chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Gospel, Jesus says:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.

This means, of course, judged by God. This is a good example of Matthew using an impersonal passive voice to avoid mentioning the name of God which is understood. Another example is where he has Jesus say:

…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven [by God], and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven [by God]. (Matt 16:19)

Jesus today touches on an issue in which very few of us can claim innocence—passing judgment on others. Sometimes we call it gossip which seems harmless enough, and very often it is relatively harmless. And yet at times we can spend a long time tearing other people apart, revealing to others information about people which they do not need to know. What Jesus says is so true. We focus on a tiny speck in someone else’s eye while there is a large plank in our own.

In fact, that is probably why we are so fond of indulging in this exercise. Our purpose is not so much to bring another person down as to bring ourselves up. Often those we judge are ‘higher placed’ than we are, or more gifted or more educated. To some extent unconsciously, we feel inferior. One way to even things up is to bring them down, to reveal their feet of clay (and this is made even worse in our time by the reach and impact of social media).

But as Jesus says, this is a kind of hypocrisy. Given our own faults, what right have we to sit in judgement on another? So often our judgements are based on the purely external or on incomplete evidence. We condemn acts while being quite ignorant of the motives behind the acts. Only God is in a position to make an accurate judgement of a person’s strengths or weaknesses.

Linked with all this is the fact that, nine times out of ten, we would never make our criticisms face to face. This, on the one hand, is a form of cowardice and, on the other, proves our hypocrisy because we make no effort to help the person make the changes we would like to see. It might be a good resolution for us to promise only to criticise people to their face and then in a non-judgmental fashion. And to give them an opportunity to express their side. Sometimes we will find that our criticisms are without real foundation or we will find the person grateful for drawing attention to something of which they were unaware.

And removing that plank from our eye is another way of saying, that before we make any evaluation of another, we need to be sure that our view is totally free from any prejudice or bias. We do have a serious responsibility to draw attention to things that people do wrong, especially if others or they themselves are hurt, but it is a responsibility we often shirk. Gossiping behind their backs is so much easier, but it helps no one.

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Commentary on Matthew 5:20-26

In today’s reading continuing the Sermon on the Mount, what Jesus means by saying that he has not come to abolish the old Law but to transcend it is made clear by six examples that he gives of how a number of Old Testament sayings are to be understood by his followers. In fact, he says that if we wish to be his followers and do his work we must move forward to the deeper level of understanding he proposes:

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

It is clear from what we see of the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospels, that for them, religious virtue consisted in the most exact external observance of every detail of Jewish Law. The more perfect the observance of the letter of the Law, the closer one was to God. Jesus challenged that understanding and it led to serious confrontations with the religious leadership.

Of course, the way of the scribes and Pharisees has its attractions. It is a much easier way to measure one’s obedience to God. And one finds the same among other religions today. Among Christians (including Catholics), one finds that there are some people who are very anxious to know whether a certain action ‘is a sin’ or not. Such an approach leads in many cases to scrupulosity and fear, finding sin even in minutiae. God becomes a menacing shadow ready to strike at the smallest wrongdoing.

When speaking of the Jewish law, the first example Jesus gives is of the commandment:

You shall not murder [kill]. (Exodus 20:13)

Jesus’ understanding of this commandment goes far beyond the actual killing of another person. He extends it even to anger and abusive language. And anger can often be totally locked inside and invisible to an outsider. Jesus says:

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

In other words, Jesus excludes any kind of violent behaviour towards a brother or sister, either in action, or word, or even thought.

He also links our interpersonal behaviour to our relationship to God. It is no good, then, piously bringing our offering to the altar in the Temple and presenting it to God while we are—through our own fault—in conflict with a brother or sister. We cannot separate our relationship with God and with that of a brother or sister. This will be spelt out in other parts of the Gospel. Before we make our offering, we must first be reconciled with our offended brother or sister and only then, after the injury has been healed, make our offering. Jesus also recommends early reconciliation if only to avoid greater troubles later on. It is not worth going to jail simply out of hatred or anger towards another.

All this is very relevant to us. Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, we should recall what Jesus says in this text and put it into practice. Before we make our offering of the bread and wine, we are invited, at the beginning of the Eucharist, to confess our sins to God and to the gathered community:

I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned…

How often do we really think about what we are saying at this time?

Again, before sharing with others in the Body and Blood of the Lord, we pray:

…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who offend us…

And we are also invited to make a sign of peace with all those around us. For how can we share in the Body and Blood of the Lord if we are at enmity with a brother or sister who is a member of that same Body? But again, so often this is just an empty gesture, with very little real meaning and, for the most part, made to someone we do not even know. Let us work to put the meaning back into what can so easily degenerate into a meaningless ritual.

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Commentary on 1 Kings 18:41-46 Read Thursday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Matthew 5:27-32

In today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes two more texts from the Old Testament to continue illustrating his attitude to the Law and its meaning.

One of the Ten Commandments says: “You shall not commit adultery”. Adultery is here understood as a sexual relationship between two people, at least one of whom is already married to someone else. But, for Jesus, for a man even to look at another woman with lust (he does not say whether either of them is married) is already to have violated the spirit of the commandment and the kind of relationship that he expects between people. We would need to distinguish here between a man finding a woman particularly beautiful or attractive and, on the other hand, looking on her as an object for sexual gratification. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with the former. We might also add that what is said here of men applies equally to women. If women are not mentioned it is because in ancient society the initiative for sexual activity seldom was available to the woman.

This commandment, in fact, is not primarily about sexual acts; it is about the inviolable dignity of each person. It is about the deep respect that people ought to have for their own bodies and the bodies of others. Other people cannot be used simply for one’s personal pleasure or to satisfy one’s sexual appetites—not even in the secret recesses of one’s mind and heart.

Jesus puts the situation rather graphically. He says it would be better to go physically maimed through life rather than allow oneself be led into a situation where another person could be so dishonoured. In human beings, our sexual powers have a double purpose: to express a deep and genuine love between two people, and for the procreation of new life.

Related to this, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy (24:1): “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ.” The original text reads as follows:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house;she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife.

The text goes on to say that if:

…the second man dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies): her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be abhorrent to the Lord… (Deut 24:14)

Two things seem clear in Jesus’ time: it was men who could initiate divorce and on the flimsiest of pretexts; it was the woman who was considered guilty of adultery by marrying another man, which is why she could not be received back by her first husband.

Jesus strongly challenges both of these traditions. The Jews accepted divorce but Jesus is ruling it out. The only exception for a marriage to be dissolved is on the basis of “sexual immorality” (Greek, porneia). There is much discussion on the meaning of this term, but it seems that it refers to a special situation in Matthew’s community. Certain types of marriage between Jews were regarded as incestuous, but were allowed in the case of a Jew marrying a Gentile. But Matthew is saying that in the case of a Gentile becoming a Christian (and marrying a Jewish convert), such exceptions would not be allowed and divorce should not take place. Jesus says further that a man who marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.

It is important to note that Jesus is first of all putting men and women morally on an absolutely equal level. He is making the marriage contract something to be taken very seriously with grave responsibilities on both sides. This issue will come up again later (in Matthew, chapter 19) and cause some dismay among Jesus’ disciples.

In our day, the whole question of marriage and the family is fraught with serious problems. Among them are divorce and adultery, although the problems here are somewhat different from that of Jesus’ time. The kind of divorce that Jesus speaks about is of a unilateral decision by a husband who wants to be rid of his wife, often for trivial reasons. In modern society, it is more often the result of the painful breakdown of a marriage relationship. While emphasising that nowadays each case must be treated with great pastoral sensitivity, we do need to remind ourselves of the fundamental values and attitudes that Jesus is underlining in this passage.