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Commentary on Exodus 17:8-13; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

Quoting from today’s Gospel:

…will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?

Prayer, and specifically prayer of petition, is the theme of today’s Mass. There are many kinds of prayer: praise, thanksgiving, intercession and petition. There is mental and vocal prayer. There is meditation and contemplation. We can pray privately on our own or in the company of others. There is private prayer and the public prayer and the worship of the Church, which we call liturgy. Each one has its time and place.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about prayer of petition, asking God for what we need—as opposed to just what we want or would like to have.

The First Reading describes the prayer of Moses in time of battle. As long as he kept his arms up, the Israelites were winning; if he let them down because of tiredness, they would begin to lose. Eventually, his aides propped up his arms so that they would have the final victory. Although it could be seen that way, this is not really manipulation or superstition. Rather it is an expression of total dependence on God—without him there would be no victory. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper:

…apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

The widow and the judge
The Gospel is a parable about a judge and a poor widow who is seeking justice. The point is that if even a totally corrupt person who cares neither for God nor man can be made to yield to the pestering of a totally defenceless and resourceless (no money to bribe) widow, how much more will a loving and caring God take care of his children? The lesson, then, is to keep on asking.

Does that mean we can keep asking for just anything? Some friends asked me once to pray they would win the $50,000 jackpot at the local parish bingo. I half-jokingly replied that this was an abuse of prayer! It was not a prayer that we could seriously expect God to honour. And, if they had won, would that have been an answer to their prayer or simply good luck?

The widow, on the other hand, asked for something which God would certainly want for her—justice. Jesus elsewhere compares God to a decent, caring parent. Would such a parent give a child a stone when the youth asked for bread? Would a parent give a scorpion to a child who asked for an egg? If even worldly parents will give their children what they need, says Jesus, how much more will a loving God see to the needs of his children?

On that occasion, Jesus concluded his teaching by saying that God will always give good things to those who ask him. Luke’s version says:

…how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)

The good things
What are these ‘good things’? How do we ask for the Holy Spirit? Surely it means asking for those things which will bring us closer to God; what helps us to know, love and serve him better; what helps us reach a deeper understanding of his teaching. It means above all asking to know what is his will for us and requesting the strength to carry it out. It is asking that his will become our will so that there is a complete harmonising of the two. I want to do what God wants me to do. His will and mine are one. And I end up doing what I want! Isn’t that wonderful!

Another way of reading the parable
When we read this parable about perseverance, we usually think of it in these terms: God is the judge and we are the widow. This means we should persevere in pestering God until we are given what we want.

But what happens, asks Sister Melannie Svoboda, if we turn that around and say that we are the judge and God is the widow? In some ways, this interpretation makes more sense.

We, like the judge, are basically unjust. Sometimes we, too, have no fear of God; that is, we do not allow God to scare us into being good. Similarly, like the judge we persist in refusing to listen to the cries of the poor all around us.

But God is the persistent widow who will not go away. God keeps badgering us, refusing to accept as final our no to love. God will persist until we render a just judgement, that is, until we let the goodness out, until we learn to love. In Genesis we are told we are made in the image and likeness of God.

Perhaps our prayer could be: Dear God, Persevering One, make us more like you!

[The ideas in the last section come from Sister Melannie Svoboda SND, Review for Religious, Sept-Oct 1996]

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Commentary on Wisdom 11:22-12:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 and Luke 19:1-10

You are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook people’s sins so that they can repent. (1st Reading)

Today’s Mass is about God’s love and mercy for everyone and how we should not be surprised at how even the most unlikely people can hear God’s call to change their lives.

The Gospel opens with Jesus entering Jericho and passing through the town. Jericho is a city lying just to the north-east of Jerusalem. Luke’s gospel describes Jesus’ public life as beginning in Nazareth in the north, where he grew up and where he made his ‘mission statement’ (Luke 4:16-21) before setting out on his life of teaching and healing. His mission brought him in a relatively straight line in a southerly direction to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is the focal point and the goal of his life’s work. There he will be arrested, tried, suffer and die, and then rise in glory. And in Jerusalem, too, his disciples will be filled with his Spirit and from there begin their mission of bringing Jesus’ message of the Kingdom to the whole world.

So, Jericho is the last stage on this journey to Jerusalem and, in fact, before the end of this chapter 19 he will make his triumphant and final entry into the city on what we call Palm Sunday.

It is at this crucial moment that Zacchaeus appears. Luke says that he was one of the chief tax collectors and – he adds, rather unnecessarily – “a wealthy man”.

Tax collectors were among the most despised group of people in the time of Jesus. It was not just because they had to do an awful job. (Even nowadays people do not exactly warm to the idea of tax collectors and many people go to extraordinary measures to keep out of their clutches.) However, in Jesus’ time, bad reputation was more connected with the system under which they worked.

The Romans, like all governments, imposed taxes in order to fund public works and other expenses. But, as far as possible, they made their subject peoples rather than their own citizens pay the money required. And, they did not collect the money themselves. Instead, they farmed out the tax collecting to various individuals. These people paid upfront a large amount of money for the right to collect taxes and then it was their job to get it back – with as much interest as possible (perhaps what we would now call ‘commission’).

So, on two accounts the tax collectors were highly unpopular: 1) they extorted as much money as they could from the people assigned to them and 2) they were working for the hated colonial power. Because of their connections with the hated Romans, they were looked down on by most of their fellow-Jews as traitors and renegades and enemies of their own people.

Zacchaeus was not just one of these. He was a chief tax collector and, as in any corrupt administration, had most likely collected vast sums.

He had heard that Jesus was passing through the town. Like many people, he must have heard all the stories that were going around about this extraordinary Teacher and Healer. He was very anxious to get a look at him. He clearly had no intention of approaching Jesus. It was likely quite obvious to him that Jesus would not want to have anything to do with people like himself.

We are also told that he was a ‘short’ man. Is this also a way of saying that, in spite of all his wealth, he was not really such a big person?

Jesus was, as usual, accompanied by a large crowd of people, a few of them genuine followers but the majority just curious to see what wonders Jesus would perform next. Because of his short stature Zacchaeus could not see Jesus through the crowd. It is also likely that he would not have wanted to get too close to the crowd who would have despised and looked down on him – and not just because he was short. So he decided to climb a tree so that he could get a glimpse of Jesus passing below without being seen himself.

Imagine Zacchaeus’ surprise when suddenly Jesus looked up and spoke to him. “Zacchaeus come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” The poor man must almost have fallen out of the tree with shock. Did he hear Jesus correctly? And what wonderful words those were! Yet, they are words spoken to us every day of our lives and how often do we hear them? And how often do we respond to them?

So, Zacchaeus hurried down from the tree and welcomed Jesus joyfully into his home. The crowd, on the other hand, was utterly disgusted. “He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house.” Of all the people in Jericho, Jesus has to pick the house of the chief tax collector. It would be like the Pope opting to stop over at the house of the biggest drug dealer in town and by-passing all those good Catholic homes which would have been more appropriate for him.

The people, of course, totally missed the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ life. Earlier on, after he was criticised for calling another tax collector, Matthew, as a disciple and having a meal with Matthew’s tax collector colleagues, Jesus had said: “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. Go and find out what is meant by the scripture which says: ‘It is compassion that I want, not animal sacrifices.’ I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts” (Matt 9:12-13). And here in Zacchaeus was probably the most prominent outcast in Jericho.

Of course, there is another important point too. The people are judging Zacchaeus on his past behaviour. Jesus, on the other hand, is seeing the Zacchaeus who can change and who will change. We do not know what happened in that house that day, but we do know that when Jesus came out, Zacchaeus was a changed man. He ignores the taunts of the crowd and says to Jesus: “Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times the amount.” This amounts to the total conversion of a man who would have been notorious for his corruption and greed.

Jesus then totally endorses Zacchaeus’ change of heart. “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.” Salvation means the total rehabilitation of this formerly sinful man. He is now a true son of Abraham, that is, a true child of God who is reflecting in his life the love that God has for every one of our fellow men. And Jesus justifies his going to Zacchaeus’ house by saying that it was precisely people like Zacchaeus who needed to be sought out by Jesus.

It is worth noting that this story is strategically placed between the story of the healing of a blind beggar and the parable of the gold coins.

Zacchaeus, on the one hand, can be seen as a man who was caught up in a blind pursuit of wealth for its own sake and would stoop to any level to achieve his ends. After meeting Jesus his eyes are opened and he realises that his wealth is not for himself but to be used as a means to lift those in need.

The parable of the gold coins is about three men who were given various sums of money by “a man of high rank who was going to be made king” (a clear reference to Jesus himself) and told to trade with them. Two of the men doubled their capital but the third, the one who had received the least, was afraid to invest and hid the money. When the king returned he had nothing to offer. Again, we can see that this applies to the Zacchaeus story. Up to the time Jesus had come so unexpectedly into his life, Zacchaeus had nothing to show for all the wealth he had earned, but now he was sharing it generously with the poor and with those he had treated unjustly.

There is one more comparison to be made. In the previous chapter (Luke 18:18-29) we are told about another rich man, this time a very good man who asked Jesus for advice on leading a perfect life. When Jesus suggested that he should divest himself of his material wealth and share it with the poor, he could not. “He became very sad, because he was very rich.” In fact, he was in Jesus’ eyes now very poor. It is Zacchaeus who is rich, who has been truly liberated and who has become, like Jesus himself, a man for others.

As we read this story, it is for us to see how it applies to our own lives. It is for us to look at the deep compassion of Jesus and how he is not influenced by stereotypes or labels. We all need both of these qualities. We need, too, to be able to see the potential that can be in any person whatever their past or present record may be.

So often our Christian work is in working with the already converted. Not nearly enough of our Christian life is spent, like Jesus, mixing with those who have become alienated from society or Church, with those who are marginalised or looked down on. Let us be careful in our use of stereotyping language when we speak of people of other countries, nationalities, ethnic groups, religion or social class or occupation or life-style.

Let us work hand in hand and with Jesus our Lord “to seek out and save what was lost”. Let us hear again the words of the First Reading from the book of Wisdom: “You are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook people’s sins so that they can repent.”

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Commentary on Wisdom 11:22-12:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 and Luke 19:1-10 Read Sunday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time (C) »

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Commentary on Sirach 35:12-14,16-19, 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18 and Luke 18:9-14

The Pharisees regularly come under fire from Jesus and today is no exception. However, we should be aware that when Jesus speaks about ‘Pharisees’ he is not so much speaking about a whole class of people but about a certain kind of mentality. There is no doubt that many of the Pharisees were good people and took their religious obligations very seriously. We need to remember that Nicodemus, the man who came to Jesus by night and who was present at the burial of Jesus, was a Pharisee.

So when Jesus in the Gospel attacks ‘Pharisees’ he is not only thinking of a group of people in Jewish society in his time but his words – as far as the evangelists are concerned – are even more directed to the ‘Pharisees’ in the Christian community. And, whenever we hear a passage of the Gospel attacking the Pharisees, instead of ‘tut-tutting’ and saying to ourselves, ‘What awful people!’, we should rather be looking into our own selves and seeing how much of the Pharisee is in us.

For instance, do you ever find yourself sitting in judgement on other people? Have you ever found yourself comparing others unfavourably with yourself? How much time do you spend with friends or family gossiping about the presumed weaknesses of others? If the answer to these questions is a reluctant ‘Yes’, then we might read today’s Gospel with some fruit.

We are told that Jesus spoke a parable to some people “who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else”. Of course, none of us actually say we are proud of our virtues (especially of our humility!) and we would probably deny that we despise other people but, in fact, that is not what our words sound like at times.

In the parable, two men went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray. One was a Pharisee. The other was a tax collector. Tax collectors were among the most despised group of people in the time of Jesus. It was not just because they had to do an awful job. (Even nowadays people do not exactly warm to the idea of tax collectors and many people go to extraordinary measures to keep out of their clutches.)

Their reputation was more connected with the system under which they worked. The Romans – like all governments – imposed taxes in order to fund public works and other expenses. But, as far as possible, they made their subject peoples rather than their own citizens pay the money required. And they did not collect the money themselves. Instead, they farmed out the tax collecting to various individuals. These people paid up a large amount of money for the right to collect taxes and then it was their job to get it back – with interest (what we would now call ‘commission’). So, on two accounts the tax collectors were highly unpopular: they extorted as much money as they could from the people assigned to them and they were working for the hated colonial power. Because of their connections with the hated Romans, they were looked down on by most of their fellow-Jews as traitors and renegades and enemies of their own people.

So here we have two very different kind of people going to the Temple to pray. The prayer of the Pharisee consists partly of telling God how wonderful a Jew he is and partly of thanking God that he is not like the rest of mankind, ‘grasping, unjust and adulterous’. In addition to that, he performs religious duties above and beyond what the Law requires. In general, you are given the impression that God should be grateful that there is at least one person who gives him some attention.

On the other hand, the tax collector has no illusions about himself. He knows and admits that everything the Pharisee says about him is true. As he prays, he does not even dare to lift his eyes upwards but beats his breast in true repentance for the kind of life he has been leading. Unlike the Pharisee, he has nothing to give to God except his sinfulness so he prays: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus concludes by saying: “This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not.”

Does that seem a little harsh? After all, everything the Pharisee said about himself was true. He had kept the Law perfectly and had even done more than was expected. The tax collector, on the other hand, had done many sinful things.

The answer to this is in the final sentence of the Gospel: “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted.” In other words, the fault of the Pharisee was not in his behaviour, but in his motivations – in his claimed self-sufficiency. He saw himself as the origin of all his goodness. If he had prayed properly, he, too, would have been on his knees and thanking God for having protected him from falling into evil ways. As the great St Augustine once said: “There go I, but for the grace of God.”

It is put very nicely in one of Prefaces for weekday Mass: “You [God] have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift. Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness but makes us grow in your grace.” There is absolutely nothing we can give to God. Whatever we do for him, we are simply giving back something he has already given us. The trouble with the Pharisee in the parable is that he felt that God should be grateful to him, that he was bestowing compliments on God by being such a ‘good’ person. Quite the opposite was the case.

So we have this paradox in the Gospel that it is better to be a repentant sinner than a self-satisfied prig. So much of Jesus’ teaching and works are with sinful people. It was for this he was severely criticised by the Pharisees. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1). But, how was Jesus to bring them back to God, unless he reached out to them? In the pharisaical mind (and that sometimes includes you and me!), they are just written off and, above all, their company is to be avoided completely.

The attitude of Jesus is well expressed in the First Reading, from the Book of Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus). “God shows no respect of personages to the detriment of a poor man, he listens to the plea of the injured party. He does not ignore the orphan’s supplication, nor the widow’s as she pours out her story… The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds… And the Lord will not be slow, nor will he be dilatory on their behalf.”

God never sees the status of the person or their rank in society or their past behaviour. God – and Jesus – only sees the person who is before him here and now. That is the way he acted towards the prostitute woman who broke into the house of Simon the Pharisee and began crying at his feet. It was the way he acted with the man beside him on the cross, a man who had committed serious crime and may even have committed murder. To the Pharisee (be he a Jew, Christian, another religion or none) this attitude is inexplicable. But God’s ways are far beyond ours and in the Gospel we are constantly being invited to have the mind of God, a God who did not spare his own Son so that sinners (like you and me) might live.

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Paul, a Pharisee, in the 2nd reading seems to be – or at least justify – boasting. But, remember there is also a kind of false humility to not recognize our good points or the good things we have done for others. False humility is also prideful.

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Commentary on Sirach 35:12-14,16-19; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14

One of the lessons of today’s readings is that God listens especially to the sinner and to the poor.  The attitude of Jesus is well expressed in the First Reading, from the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus):

[God] will not show partiality to the poor,
but he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged.
He will not ignore the supplication of the orphan
or the widow when she pours out her complaint.

The writer continues:

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds….Indeed, the Lord will not delay… (Sir 35:21-22)

Perhaps we find that rather strange. Should he not be listening more to the ‘good’ people who are trying to keep his laws?  That was certainly the attitude of the Pharisee in today’s Gospel. When someone offends us, how do we feel?  Often we are likely to feel angry and hurt. Do we want to take some kind of revenge, to punish that person?  At the very least, we want to make sure that he or she does not behave towards us in that way again.

It is not surprising, then, that many feel, after doing some wrong, God has been ‘offended’.  His reaction should be like ours and with greater reason—he is the Boss.  After doing something we know is quite wrong, we might wonder how God could continue to love us. Yet, if that is the way we think, we are quite wrong.

But how can God be said to love a sinner?  It is precisely as a sinner that a person most needs the love of God, most needs his help.  God, unlike us, does not see a sin as an ‘offence’ against himself.  Rather, he sees the sinner as a person who has made a bad mistake and needs to be healed and restored.  It is the sinner who is hurt, not God.  This is the meaning of the parables of the Good Shepherd and the Prodigal Son.

Strange scene
So in today’s Gospel, we have the strange scene between a Pharisee and a tax collector.  The Pharisee—and he clearly believes he has evidence to prove it—is the ‘good’ person.  He carefully keeps the Law of the Jews and the Commandments of God.  He faithfully observes the obligations of a good Jew: he prays, he fasts and he gives alms.  And yet, God is not happy with him.  Why?  Because he is a totally self-centred person.  He says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people…like this tax collector.”

What he really is saying is: “God, you should be deeply grateful that you have someone like me (and there are not many of us!), someone who is so faithful in following your commands.”

When he prays, fasts or give alms, it is not because he loves God (or the poor) and wants to serve God.  It is because he loves himself; he is the centre of his whole existence.  Even God is on the fringe.  God should be so happy to have such a rare example like him.  Especially when so many are like the tax collector.

Jesus criticises the Pharisee for not being aware that all these good things he claims to do have God as their source.  Without God, he could do nothing, he would be nothing.

Getting his ‘come-uppance’
We can readily go along with the idea that the snob gets his ‘come-uppance’ and the modest person is praised.  That is valued in our society, and in theory at least, generally accepted.  Yet, if we were more honest, we might find that there is a lot of the Pharisee in ourselves. 

Let us, by way of experiment, update the prayer to that of a ‘good’ Catholic. It might go something like this:

“Thank you, God, that I am a Catholic and not like those deluded Protestants and materialistic pagans.  I go faithfully to Mass every Sunday and I usually receive Communion and now and again I go to Confession.  I am generous with the church collections, my children are all baptised and they go to good Catholic schools.  I am faithful to my wife (well, maybe there is the odd peccadillo) and, thank you, God, I am successful in my business.  It is not always easy, but I try to keep on the right side of the law.  I want to see all my children do as well as I have or even better.  Once year I do a retreat.  I, of course, do not claim to be a saint, but I am an average, maybe above average, church-going Catholic, which is more than can be said of the many so-called Catholics and non-Catholics I know.  Thank you, God, that I have not become like any of them.”

We might compare this attitude with what seems like boasting on Paul’s—another Pharisee—part in today’s Second Reading.  Paul says, with apparent satisfaction:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Yet his attitude is so different from that of the Pharisee or ‘good’ Catholic.  First, all that he achieved he attributes to his Lord and, second, his whole life had been lived as a “libation”, all his energies poured out, not for himself, but so that others might come to know, as he did, the power of Christ’s love in their lives.

A sinner
On the other hand, the tax collector is certainly a sinner.  He surely does not observe the Jewish law. If he is like the average tax collector, he is a swindler and extortionist.  He collects tax money from his own oppressed people and hands (some of) it to the hated Romans.  He really is a sinner.  He really behaves abominably before God and neighbour.  And God loves him!

For Jesus says that when the tax collector left the Temple, he did so as a friend of God, while the Pharisee was rejected.  How can this be?  Is this God’s justice?  The reason is that, although the tax collector is undoubtedly a sinner, he admits his sin.  He knows that by himself he cannot do anything, that he cannot change, unless God comes to his help.  He implores:

God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

God will come immediately to the help of a sinner who, in humility and truth, recognises his sin.  On the other hand, how can God come to help a proud man, who thinks he can take care of himself?

A special gift
One of the greatest gifts is for us to know our sinfulness.  In the First Letter of John it says:

If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true….If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:6,8)

This was the problem of the Pharisee. He thought he had fellowship with God, but he walked in darkness; he was blind.  But this is not so for the tax collector.  It would be true to say that, in recent years, while we have gained much in our understanding of a Gospel-centred life, we have lost a sensitivity about sin in our lives.

One indication of this is that, while many, many more people go to Communion at Mass now, far less are using the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  No one should regret the passing of the old “since this is Saturday, I must go to confession” mentality, or worse, “I can’t go to Communion because I have not been to confession” conviction. But in its place, many have not learnt the place of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as an important element, not only in our individual lives, but in our lives as community.

Sin can too easily be seen as a personal failure to meet certain behavioural standards: “I was impatient”, “I was jealous, I got angry”, “I was not at Sunday Mass” and so forth.  Sin is much more fundamentally a failure in relationships—with God, with other people, with oneself.   We can sin against ourselves, with our family members, with our colleagues, with our friends, with total strangers, with people we never see, but who have been affected by our love or our selfishness.

Sin is a failure to love, a failure to work for the well-being of others.  Many of our worst sins—seldom heard in the confessional—are the things we don’t do at all.  At the judgement the Lord will say, “I was hungry, thirsty, lonely, struggling to get along, obviously in trouble—and you did not abuse me, attack me, get angry at me or hurt me.  No, you did absolutely nothing at all!  I was in desperate need and you walked by, away from me!”

Sin and God
A deep awareness of sin does not separate us from God.  On the contrary, it is a sign that God is very much part of our lives and that we wish to partake of that love he is reaching out to us.  The most tragic people are those who:

• think that they do not need God in their lives (like the Pharisee or some ex-Catholics);
• when asked, cannot think of anything sinful in their lives, present or past;
• think that God does not, cannot love them because of some terrible or shameful things they may have done.

The Easter Vigil (Holy Saturday) liturgy speaks of the felix culpa, the “happy fault” when we human beings crucified the Son of God.  Many of our sins, too, can be seen as a happy fault, if they help us to realise how weak we are, how much we depend on God’s help and the help of other people.

An awareness of our sins, too, can help us in our lives to be far more compassionate and understanding towards others in their sinfulness and weakness.  In the depths of our sinfulness we must never lose sight of the God who is always standing by ready to come at our merest signal. Again, as Sirach tells us:

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds,
and it will not rest until it reaches its goal….
Indeed, the Lord will not delay… (Sir 35:21-22)

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Commentary on 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

There are a number of concurrent and related themes running through today’s readings. All can be linked to our own personal experiences and, hopefully, we will see how they operate in our lives in either a constricting or liberating way. These themes may be enumerated as negativity, uncleanness, leprosy, ostracism, imprisonment, as well as positivity, cleansing, healing, wholeness and thanks.

At this stage in Luke’s Gospel we see Jesus making his way south to Jerusalem, to the goal of his life’s mission. He has just reached the southern border of the northern province of Galilee (where he came from) and Samaria, which was sandwiched between Galilee on the north and Judea on the south.

Ten lepers
As Jesus enters a village he is greeted by ten lepers who come out to meet him (incidentally, they are all men—in Greek, andres):

They stood at a distance from him…

As lepers, they were compelled to cry out “unclean” and to ring a bell when they saw people approaching. People in those days did not know much about the causes or the nature of leprosy, but they did know that it was contagious. No cure was known and it slowly resulted in disfigurement of the person. So those who were believed to have leprosy had to keep a safe distance from all other people. Hence the expression, “They treated him like a leper.” Very likely, some unfortunate people who had non-contagious skin diseases were also lumped together with them. They all were treated as outcasts, forced to live on the fringes of society, an object of both fear and contempt.

Still some distance from Jesus they called out in desperation—words we use in every Mass—Kyrie! Eleison! That is:

Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!

They had no illusions about their helpless situation. Their only hope now was the compassion of Jesus, their Master and Lord, who was the living embodiment of the mercy and compassion of God—a mercy and compassion they had long ceased to expect from their fellow-citizens.

Jesus makes no fuss. He simply tells them:

Go and show yourselves to the priests.

On their way to carry out this instruction, they discovered that they were cleansed and healed. Was this as a reward for their unquestioning and trusting response to Jesus’ instructions? Was it a reward for their faith in him? And why did Jesus tell them to go to the priests? Because it was not enough for them to be healed—they would also have to be officially declared clean by the religious authorities. Only then could they be fully integrated back into ‘normal’ society.

Only one comes back
Finding himself cured, just one of the group went back “glorifying God in a loud voice”, threw himself at the feet of Jesus and expressed his deepest thanks for what had happened to him. And:

He was a Samaritan.

Much of the punch of the story is in those four words. As a Samaritan, he belonged to a hated and despised group. In his case, he was an outcast twice over. Even the disciples of Jesus were heard to speak violent words against Samaritans. And it says a lot for the miserable lot of lepers that there could be Jews and Samaritans together in one group. In their shared misery, other prejudices were forgotten.

Yet, after they were cured, it was not the members of God’s chosen people who came back to express thanks to their Lord, but this outcast, a man who would be regarded as an outcast in Jewish society, even if he did not have leprosy. It was a foretaste of the future composition of the Christian communities.

Jesus’ reaction
Jesus highlights this fact by his own reaction:

Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?

This alien, this outsider and, by implication, this godless pagan (or at least, dyed-in-the-wool heretic), a person who is presumed to be far from God, is the one who is most deeply aware of God’s action in his life. We, too, in our time must have met non-Christians who had a much better sense of God working in their lives that some of us who carry the label ‘Catholic’.

Jesus tells him:

Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.

The man is called to resurrection, to new life and to walk the Way of Jesus. His deep insight into what he has experienced has been a saving experience for him. There is far more here than physical healing. The whole person has been fully restored in his relationships both with God and with his neighbours and the community.

A message for us
On reflection this passage can say so much to us in our own lives. Leprosy, thank God, once such a terrifying disease, has largely disappeared from many parts of the earth. Where it is still found, modern drugs are able to control it and even to heal it. We also know now that, although it is contagious, occasional contact with a leprous person is not dangerous.

However, leprosies of different kinds are still endemic in every society, no matter how sophisticated. In some parts of the world whole communities of people are neglected, despised, exploited and alienated. In every society there are people who are marginalised, sometimes by ‘benign neglect’, sometimes by outright discrimination and oppression. Racism and ‘communalism’ (discrimination based on religious identity) are rampant everywhere, sometimes very openly, sometimes in more subtle, but equally hurtful ways.

And we need to remember that prejudice and non-acceptance occurs in all directions, not just from the majority downwards. Minorities can be equally prejudiced against a surrounding majority. There can be divisions between one minority and another. We can all be guilty of making lepers of others.

In our own society, some racial groups are very aware of being seen as different and inferior. Newly arrived immigrants can fall into such a category, even when making a significant contribution by often doing the work that local people are unwilling to do. In Hong Kong during the 1980s, it was ironic that many Vietnamese ‘boat people’, who were not wanted by anybody, were housed in camps which had formerly housed actual lepers. Even immigrant communities which have been in a country for generations are sometimes not fully accepted by all.

The new leprosy
It is worth reflecting on who the new ‘lepers’ are in society today. There are many whose lifestyle and choices are different from that of our own. Does this make them in some manner ‘lesser’ that us? When the time comes for the sign of peace at Mass, would I shake that person’s hand? As well, are they are so afraid of being totally rejected and condemned even by us—good, Mass-going Catholics—that they don’t come to Mass?

Fear and ignorance
But no matter who we are talking about, be they victims of disease, or people of other races, religions or cultures, gender or sexual orientation, we need to be aware of our attitudes and the values of Jesus portrayed in his interactions with people of all kinds. We need to be aware of the role that both fear and ignorance play in our attitudes and reactions to people who are ‘different’ from us. (Prejudice, from the Latin, pre-judicium, means coming to a conclusion based on emotion and not on adequate data or facts leading to a truly rational, objective judgement.)

As followers of Jesus, we need not only to be aware, but to promote the dignity and rights of people who are ‘different’ by reason of race, culture, religion, life-style choice, or any physical or mental disability. Really, it is not those who are different who need to ‘show themselves to the priests’, but we, the victims of the disease of prejudice, who need to be made clean of our fear, ignorance and intolerance. It is the propagators of intolerance rather than their victims who are most in need of help and healing.

God’s news cannot be chained
So, in the Second Reading from the Second Letter of Paul to Timothy, Paul speaks of the hardships he has to bear for preaching the Good News:

…I am suffering, even to the point of chains, like a criminal.

It is striking how much resistance people, including ourselves, show to hearing the Good News! But just as significantly, Paul says:

…the word of God is not chained.

There are still today in many parts of the world people languishing in jails, being subjected to the most unspeakable torments and indignities for sharing the Good News. But that does not stop the Good News from being propagated. Nothing and no one can stop that. These people, with Paul, show their chains and their jail sentences with pride and joy. Far more insidious are the chains of fear and ignorance with which so many people are tied down.

Who are the outsiders?
Today we need to ask ourselves individually and as a family or community: Whom do we openly or silently marginalise as ‘outsiders’, as ‘not one of us’, people we would keep our children away from—people we treat, in effect, as lepers.

Yes, we all need, with the Samaritan, to be cleansed, to be healed, to be made whole of all the toxic substances in our system which distort our relationships and the way we see those around us. We need to see that for God, there are absolutely no lepers, no outsiders. All are family, all have the same Father, all are his children, all are brothers and sisters to each other. We all need to be given by each other the same love that God gives to us.

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Commentary on Galatians 6:14-18; Matthew 11:28-30

The Gospel reading is from a longer passage in Matthew in which Jesus speaks words of praise and thanks to his Father. He especially thanks the Father for revealing his message, through Jesus, not to the intellectually powerful of this world, but “to infants”, the simple and even illiterate people of the world. Jesus was surely thinking of his own disciples, most of whom were not educated people. Many of them earned their livelihood as fishermen.

And how did they get the message?

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11:27)

It is Jesus who, through his life and teaching, has revealed God to the world. But his message does not reach everyone—only those who are ready to hear it. It is the readiness and docility to hear that makes it possible for one to know Jesus and his Father.

Francis, who came from a wealthy family, could have had the best education that money could buy. But he chose a very different kind of life, a life in solidarity with the uneducated poor. It was his total openness to the call of the Gospel that made it possible for him to be filled with its spirit and to live it out in a very striking and inspiring way.

The First Reading comes from the concluding lines of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. The first sentence in particular perfectly echoes the spirituality of Francis:

May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

This was the heart of Paul’s life and also of Francis’. Apart from Christ and the love he showed for us on the Cross, all else was rubbish and of no account.

Paul has no time for purely external expressions of religion:

For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is everything!

In this letter he particularly deals with some Jewish Christians who want to impose circumcision on all Christians, including non-Jews. Paul, himself a circumcised Jew, would have none of it. The message of Jesus had moved to a higher plane, where such external signs were irrelevant. What mattered was where the heart was.

In the case of Francis, too, his holiness is to be measured, not by the external signs of his stigmata, but by his deep love of Jesus as shown by his passionate following of the Gospel. For us, too, it has to be the same.

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Commentary on Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14; Luke 17:5-10

Sometimes we must have the same feelings as the prophet in today’s First Reading. Why is there so much injustice and tyranny and oppression everywhere? Why so much outrage and violence? The prophet says:

Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.

Times have hardly changed since those words were written. On one side we hear politicians talking bullishly about ‘unity’ while on the other our news is filled day in day out with one atrocity after another. The world looks on helplessly as genocide takes place in some part of the world. Thousands die of starvation amidst political corruption and communal turmoil. Members of the great religions emerge from church, mosque or temple to slaughter all round them, either members of ‘rival’ religions or even members of their own.

One might begin to ask: Where is God in all this? Why does he not protect his children, especially the most defenceless? Often, in these situations, people are reduced to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. We feel there is nothing we can do; the only thing is to get out and go far away. There is an endless wave of millions of refugees seeking sanctuary in a place that promises a modicum of peace and security.

Message of hope
But listen to the prophet again. He has a message of hope in the future:

For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end and does not lie.

Then he continues:

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.

But this vision is not for the fainthearted:

Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.

Whatever the surrounding circumstances, the one who is not in touch with God wilts, while the one who is full of God’s spirit lives. He believes that “it will surely come; it will not delay.”

And so, in the Gospel today, the disciples ask Jesus for an increase of faith. This prayer may well reflect the feelings of some communities of early Christians, who saw their future in very dark colours and who wondered whether, as a small minority in a sea of hostility and even persecution, they had any future. And in all of the ensuing centuries, many Christians have been overwhelmed with persecution and the obliteration of their Church. It is a feeling that thousands of Christians must have felt, and still feel in various parts of the world today. But we need to have courage and not misjudge or underestimate the power of Christian faith!

Faith that is trust
The faith that is being asked for is not to have a better knowledge of our catechism. What is being asked for is a much deeper and stronger trust and confidence that our God is near us, even when he seems so far away, and that he will take care of his own.

That does not mean, however, that with such a faith Christian life will be free of all hardship and difficulty. Being a Christian, taking the Gospel seriously, is never going to be a tea party. God has promised his loving care, but he has never promised a life free of pain, difficulties, suffering, or even sudden and violent death. Let us not forget that he:

…did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us… (Rom 8:32)

What God does promise is that, with a deep faith and trust in him, we can endure pain and difficulties, that we can accept pain and suffering, if and when it comes, for the sake of making the message of Jesus a reality in our world.

A reliable servant
So Jesus goes on to compare the Christian disciple with a servant of his own time, usually a slave. When the servant comes back from working hard in the fields all day, he is not told, “Oh, come in, you must be tired! Sit down, have your supper, put your feet up and watch TV!” No, he is much more likely to be told, “It is about time you got back. I’m hungry. Hurry up and get my supper ready. Then, and only then, can you have some time for yourself.”

Our relationship with God is not about buying and selling, about giving and getting in return, i.e. I give God so much and I can expect so much from him in return. No, our relationship with him is one of total and unconditional love and service. The joy and satisfaction is not in what we can do to squeeze favours from God, but in what we can give and share of ourselves.

The reason for this, of course, is that no matter what we do, we are ever in God’s debt. The very energies with which we serve him are his gift to us. As the Gospel puts it:

We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!

We can never do more than ‘our duty’. However much we give to God, it is a small repayment for all that he has already showered us with.

Love does not keep accounts
In any case, in a true love relationship one does not say, “Well, darling, I have loved you for three hours; now it is your turn to love me back for three hours.” If the loved one gets sick, one does not say, “Well, I’ll stop loving you now because you cannot give me anything. When you get out of hospital and can do things for me then I will begin loving again.”

In a true, loving relationship, whether it be with God or another person, the joy and satisfaction is in unconditional giving and sharing. Of course, in such a relationship, we do not have to worry—our love will be returned, often on a much richer level than what we have offered. But our emphasis is on the unconditional giving, on the happiness of the loved one. As many sang in song a long time ago. “I want to be happy, but I won’t be happy till I make you happy too”.

So perhaps it is time for us to stop thinking of our religion as something which entitles us to ‘get things’ from God, as if somehow he is indebted to us for our being Christians. It is time to stop our ‘supermarket’ approach where the church is a place where I get the things I need. Then I find myself saying, “I don’t get anything out of going to church, or to Mass.” Remember the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son who said:

For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. (Luke 15:29)

Let us instead listen to the words from the Second Reading of today:

I remind you to rekindle the gift [Greek, charisma] of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands…

Our life as Christians is not a compliment we make to God, but our inadequate response to a precious gift made to us. Why me?—a good question.

Strong, not weak
This gift of faith in Christ is “not a spirit of cowardice”, a spirit of timidity and anxiousness about the future. It is:

…rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Armed with this Spirit, we are never to be “ashamed…of the testimony about our Lord”, even if it means going against the tide of social expectations and running the risk of losing material and social support and security. And even if we are not suffering ourselves, we will not hesitate to express our solidarity with those who do so for the sake of the gospel, even if it will entail personal loss for ourselves. We cannot be ashamed of being linked with fellow-Christians, or indeed any brothers and sisters, who are being intimidated by authorities of any kind for witnessing to love, justice, human rights and authentic freedom.

Today’s readings are highly relevant to our own lives today. On the one hand, we live in a world where thousands suffer appallingly in the struggle for truth, freedom and dignity. What support do we give? On the other hand, we live in a world of ever-increasing material indulgence becoming available to more and more people. The dream of being part of this can close our minds and hearts to the cry of the poor, distressed and marginalised. The affluent society becomes both a trap and an escape. Many like to blame God for many of the world’s ills, but to be honest, the vast majority are of our own making.

“Increase our faith”, O Lord, that we may see. Teach us to use the precious gifts you gave us to serve you by being courageously at the service of all who are in need.

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Commentary on Amos 6:1,4-7; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

To some people, the story in today’s Gospel may seem quite unfair. A successful man, indicated by the prosperity of his surroundings, is buried in hell. A snivelling beggar, who may have never done a day’s work in his life, ends up in Abraham’s bosom. Is this Christian teaching?

To understand this story properly may involve a radical change in the way we—and the society we belong to—normally think. And, importantly for those who wish to be truly Christian, it will involve learning some of the values of Jesus, and of the gospel.

We live in a world which praises achievement and has little time for failure. It starts right in kindergarten with the very first school report. We live in a society which says people deserve everything they are able to work for and acquire. The materially successful (and in our society is there any other kind of success?) are sometimes heard to say that, if anyone else did what they did, they could be billionaires too. The emphasis is not on what people are, but what they can do and on what they can acquire with what they do. Sadly, how they get it or what the consequences may be for others is sometimes not regarded as of great importance.

Another distortion
For us Christians, often as deeply infected with these ideas as anyone, there is another distortion as well. Our way of living our faith can be very individualistic and self-centred. The emphasis is on personal salvation (‘saving my soul’) and that is achieved by being a morally good person. ‘Morally good’ means avoiding actions which are ethically wrong, such as failing to worship God in the ‘official’ way, committing violent actions against others, behaving in a sexually immoral way (we coyly use the word ‘impure’), stealing things from people, gossiping maliciously about others, being jealous, envious, angry, resentful and so on. Seldom in confession do people say: “I was not a loving person”, but that they broke rules and disappointed themselves. Seldom do people confess the harm that their sins caused in others. I have never heard a person confess to cheating on taxes, although this is one of the chief ways in which people fail to express solidarity for the less well-off in their community.

As long as I am not aware of doing any of these things, or at least, not doing them in a serious way (‘mortal’ sin), then I am a ‘good’ person and, if I am a Catholic, then I am ‘quite a good’ Catholic (no need to exaggerate!).

However, this is not really the picture that the Gospel today describes. If we were to base our judgements on the above image of the ‘good Catholic’, then there was really nothing much wrong with the rich man. All he did was to enjoy his wealth and his good food, his big house, his fashionable and expensive clothes. He did not seem to do any harm to the poor man. He did not drive him away or use abusive language towards him. The rich man was, in fact, quite ‘charitable’. The poor man was welcome to any of the (surplus) food that fell from the table.

The rich man (and some of us) might ask why the poor man did not just get up and see a doctor about those ulcers on his leg, and then go and do a proper day’s work. We have no idea how the rich man became rich. Perhaps he was born into a rich family and inherited his wealth; perhaps it was the result of working long hours over many years. Why should such a man be punished? And, even more strangely, why should the beggar be rewarded?

Why love the poor
Someone has said that God loves the poor, not because they are good, but simply because they are poor—where ‘poor’ means deprived of what is necessary to live a fully human life.

Can we say also that God does not love the rich, not because they are bad, but simply because they are rich? Does one hear cries of “Unfair!”? “What’s wrong with being rich? Everyone wants to be rich and prosperous.” “Just look at the number of people buying lottery tickets every week!” “The rich are people too; they have souls.” “I thought God loves everyone without exception.”…and so on.

But is it so unfair? Who is really being unfair? What does ‘rich’ really mean? Indeed, that rich man in the parable may have worked very hard to get his money. Perhaps he was a good family man who loved his wife and was a good father to his children. Perhaps he went faithfully to the synagogue every Sabbath and observed all the regulations of the Sabbath day. He may have been seen as a very pillar of his community. Yet, as long as that poor man lay uncared for at his feet, the rich man was totally condemned.

Why was he condemned? Because he did not know what justice means. He did not know what love means. He did not know what a truly human society means. He did not know what religion means. And perhaps there are thousands of us just like him in the Catholic Church here and all over the world.

Of course, one may say to oneself: “Jesus is not talking about me. I could not be regarded as rich. I am just a tax-paying fixed salary earner.” No, but is such a person looking anxiously to move in the direction of wealth? Does such a person dream of striking it big on the national lottery? Does one dream of finding a short cut to making a killing on the stock exchange some day?

Relativity of wealth
As an individual in our society, I may not (yet) be regarded as rich and we all belong to a society which is regarded as prosperous today. But like most other rich communities, we are living in a society where wealth is very unevenly divided. There are many social problems in our midst affecting both rich and poor. Every social problem is a form of deprivation, a denial of full human living, and hence poverty, in gospel terms.

How aware am I of these problems? How aware am I that I am somehow responsible for their elimination? What, in practice, am I contributing to the removal of these problems? Being a personally ‘good Catholic’ is hardly enough.

Again, a lot of our community’s wealth comes from buying and selling to countries of the Third or developing world, where millions continue to live in poverty. Would we dare to say that there is no exploitation going on in our trading practices—perhaps by the very company I work for or companies whose goods I buy? How come our society continues to grow in prosperity while theirs goes deeper and deeper in debt? Is it really only a question of mismanagement or corruption or ‘laziness’ on their part?

The rich countries sit at their groaning table in purple and silk, with champagne and caviar, while the poor, covered in the wounds of deprivation and exploitation, are shut out. We constantly pat ourselves on the back and look forward to the day when our material standard of living reaches that of the richest countries. Is that what we really want to aim at?

Excuses too late
The rich man made the excuse (when it was too late) that he did not realise what was going on. His brothers (also rich?) did not realise either. Let them be warned, he pleaded. Even in hell, the rich man could still only think of his own family and not of all the others to whom he was responsible.

It would be no use warning them, Abraham said:

If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

Ironic words indeed. Jesus has been risen from the dead for more than 2,000 years, and how many of us have taken in the message of the Gospel about wealth and poverty? Sadly, not a great many, it must be said.

The table with food
One final point. Central to the story is the table laden with food. This is both the symbol of the Kingdom and also points to our Eucharistic table, which we dare to approach every Sunday. If we saw our Sunday Mass in terms of today’s Gospel reading, we might be more hesitant. We might be less smug about sharing the food of the Lord’s table.

The rich man made no move whatever to share what he had at the table. He could have done so at either of two levels. First, he could have seen to it that the poor man had enough to eat and he might even have gone further and ‘donated’ medical treatment. This is the level of ‘charity’, the level most of us feel good about doing. But it is not yet the gospel.

In the second level, neither of the men can be regarded as rich or poor. They sit down together at the same table and they give and receive and share on a footing of equal dignity the meal and the food. It is quite irrelevant whether one of them is more intelligent, more active, more enterprising, more healthy. What is important is that each cares deeply for the other and sees that the needs of each are taken care of with the resources available. Strangely enough, the poor are usually much better at that than the rich—which makes one wonder, who in the world are the really rich, enriched and enriching?

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Commentary on Amos 8:4-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

Each of the readings today makes a separate, but related, point:

• A warning from the prophet Amos on swindling and cheating in business;
• An exhortation to pray for those in authority;
• How to make use of our material goods.

A world of injustice
During the 8th century BC, the prophet Amos arrived in the prosperous kingdom of Israel. Behind the glitter of political and religious life, he saw a world of injustice and exploitation of the poor. He wrote his denunciations long before the time of Christ, but they sound perfectly familiar to anyone living in any prosperous city of our own day. Cheating on weights and measures, tampering with scales (now calculators and computers!), inflating the value of goods and deflating the value of money, buying up the poor for money (“Every man has his price”), finding someone gullible enough to buy what is basically trash, and so on. Practically every year, in nearly every country, corruption among the rich and politically powerful is reported. And for the most part, it involves far greater sums of money and a higher level of criminality than the procession of petty criminals that pass through our courts daily and who are portrayed with such disdain and condescension in our media.

In over 2,000 years of ‘civilisation’ and ‘religion’, hardly anything has changed. In spite of social welfare, the poor and the needy continue to be exploited and trampled on. The very existence of social welfare is the result of social imbalances in the distribution of a community’s wealth. And yet some are even critical of the existence of social welfare, saying “Let them work hard like the rest of us!” One is reminded of the late Bishop Helder Camara of Recife in Brazil. He was an outspoken critic of injustice in his society. He used to say: “When I give money to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist.”

We are all familiar with the dramatic crimes involving robberies and shootouts on our streets by ‘gangsters’ and ‘thugs’. But far more money is disappearing—immorally and illegally—in plush air-conditioned offices by those oh-so-respectable people wearing expensive suits and tooling around in luxury cars.

Serious imbalances
Such an abuse of the use of money and property results in serious imbalances both in our own society and in societies elsewhere. The world is divided now into North (rich) and South (poor), between a First and a Third (and even a Fourth) World.

So many are driven to get rich. “What’s wrong with being rich?” people ask. Catholics can be, and sometimes are, very rich. But is it possible that no one can really become rich without (many) others being made or kept poor? To be defined as rich in our society means having more, much more, than the average person.

But some may argue, what do purely social and economic matters have to do with the Church and religion? What business has the Church meddling in the market place? Ask Amos that question. Ask Jesus that question:

I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Matt 19:24)

It is not just because the man is rich, but because to be regarded as rich he must have goods which are denied in justice to others. We cannot say we love God if we do not love our brothers. Such a person cannot be in the Kingdom:

Lord, lord, open to us. But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ (Matt 25:11-12)

To be actively unjust to others is to deny love to them. It is not enough ‘just’ to pray, as the Apostle James tells us:

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. (James 2:26)

Put in the vernacular, an example might be, “I’m really sorry for your trouble, but I will pray for you at Mass on Sunday.”

In so far as economic matters touch on moral issues—justice, the dignity of the individual, basic human rights—then they certainly concern the Christian and the church community. To be an agent—actively or passively—of injustice is to deny love to another.

Luck of the draw
In our capitalist society built on competitiveness, we seem to accept that there are (some) winners and (many) losers. We can even attribute it to ‘the luck of the draw’. In that case, we basically accept the situation as ‘normal’. Many of us Christians have a deep (if largely unconscious) need to become more aware of just what Christian love and compassion actually entails. It can never be accepted as ‘normal’ for people to live in inadequate housing, to have to work in intolerable conditions, to have to work twelve or more hours a day seven days a week just to make ends meet, to have to endure hunger or malnutrition over long periods or to have to sell their bodies in prostitution or near-slavery.

Nor, while people live in such conditions, can it be accepted as ‘normal’ that others live in comfort and luxury, especially if the source of their wealth comes from the exploitation of those who are living below the level of human dignity. No aware Christian can accept such a situation or, still less, be a contributor to such imbalances. Unfortunately, many of us are, wittingly or unwittingly, contributors. We show it by our own frenetic participation in trying to climb to the top and pushing our children to the top.

It is not a question, of course, of advocating total equality. On many levels, people are quite unequal. But on the level of dignity and rights, no one can claim superiority over another person. Any diminution of human dignity (which demands a certain minimum material standard of living) cannot be tolerated by the conscientious and loving Christian. Some have been given more talents than others (and the Gospel clearly recognises this), but these gifts are to be used not to get more for oneself, but to offer more for the building up of the Kingdom community. The greater our gifts, the greater our responsibility to share them with those who have less.

Praying for our leaders
The exhortation, then, in the Second Reading to pray especially for those in authority, in this context, makes sense. Those in authority do need our prayers that the power entrusted to them is used for the well-being of every person in the community. Considering that the presumed writer of this letter (Paul or some other Christian leader) was himself the victim of savage persecution by some authorities, he is not telling us to give our unqualified support to all the policies of our leaders. The Church can never, and and should never, identify itself fully with any civil administration. At best, there should be what Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila used to call “critical co-operation”. But at worst, it may also require an out and out denunciation of an administration’s immoral practices and policies.

Stewardship
And so the Gospel speaks about stewardship. A steward is a person who is made responsible to handle the goods and property of his employer. The steward in the Gospel today was a bad steward because he was wasteful of his master’s property. He was going to be fired so he took steps to guarantee his future employability, and:

…his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly…

Jesus obviously told this story not to encourage dishonesty, but to draw attention to the foresight of the steward. He continues:

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

Jesus’ choice of a “manager” or ‘steward’ in today’s passage is altogether to the point. We need to be constantly reminded that we are the stewards and never the owners of what we possess. We have no absolute right to anything we have. “I can do what I like with my money and property because it’s mine” is not a statement any committed Christian can make. So the question of a successful life is not “How much did you make?”, but “How did you use what you had to creative purposes for the general welfare of all?” That is the way to make the friends Jesus talks about in the Gospel.