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Gregory was born about 540, the son of a Roman senator and, as a young man, became a servant of the state. In 573, he sold off his considerable properties and, with the money, founded six monasteries in Sicily and another in Rome as well giving generously to the poor. In 574, he entered his own monastery of St Andrew’s on the Celian Hill. Here he led an austere life which he looked back on with pleasure in later years, but which was also the cause of constant health problems later in life.

Pope Benedict I called him from the monastery to be one of the seven deacons of Rome. The next pope, Pelagius II, made him apocrisiarius (or ambassador) in Byzantium. Six years later, Gregory returned to Rome and became abbot of St Andrew’s monastery of which he had been the founder. He apparently believed that the future of Christianity lay with the monastic style of life as he watched the Eastern Roman Empire in decline. However, he would not be able to continue following this way of life.

In a well-known story he one day saw Anglo-Saxon slaves on sale in Rome. On being told they were ‘Angli’, he replied, “Non Angli, sed angeli ” (Not Angles, but angels). They inspired him with a desire to go as a missionary among them. However, during an outbreak of the plague he was elected pope. He was at once faced with major problems—floods, famine, plague, a Lombard invasion of papal territory. There were also problems arising from the role of Byzantium in Church affairs and the need for missionary work among the so-called ‘barbarians’ coming down from the north.

In 592-593, he made peace with the Lombards. He appointed governors to Italian towns and administered the vast properties of the Church with prudence and skill. Also, following the breakdown of civil order with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the pope and the clergy had to assume many of the secular roles of a civil society.

Gregory, as mentioned, was very keen on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. It was he who sent St Augustine and his monks on this potentially dangerous mission. However, as the mission succeeded, Gregory continued to give advice when Augustine was not sure how to proceed. Later popes continued this policy so that England in some ways was closer to the papacy than Gaul. And it was in England that the first biography of Gregory was written. In time, with more attention being given to St Augustine and also to St Aidan, Gregory’s role as pioneer and support of the mission was partially forgotten.

Gregory is also remembered for his writings both in quantity and quality and in their accessibility both to contemporary and later readers. He was able to pass on to the Christianised ‘barbarians’ the learning of the Greek and Latin Fathers. He did this especially through his Homilies on the Gospels and his Moralia on the Book of Job. His works on pastoral care had a deep influence on bishops of the Middle Ages. His 854 letters are of particular interest to historians as they reveal his wisdom, prudence, and preoccupation in dealing with Church and State problems. This included monastic issues, the missionary role of the Church, the integrity of Church teaching and the reproof of senior clerics who liked to use impressive titles. He himself liked to be referred to as the ‘servant of the servants of God’, a title still used by popes today.

Gregory is also remembered for his interest in the development of the liturgy. Many prayers in the Roman liturgy reflect his ideas, if not actually composed by him. He moved the Pater Noster (Our Father) to its present position immediately after the Eucharistic Prayer. He also added material to the Hanc igitur (Father, accept this offering…) in the First Eucharistic Prayer (also known as the Roman Canon). He also introduced the nine-fold Kyrie at the beginning of the Mass, as it still is in the Tridentine Rite. His name has also long been linked with Church music and especially by the Chant which bears his name. It is believed he was much involved in the development of a number of forms of plainchant.

Although his own monastery did not follow the Benedictine rule, Gregory wrote The Life of St Benedict and he was seen as embodying the Benedictine spirit. Few had more influence on medieval monastic life.

Although he was pope for just 13 years, his influence on the development of the Church and of the papacy in the Middle Ages was regarded as far-reaching. He certainly earned the title of ‘Great’ given to him.

During much of his life he suffered from gout and digestive problems, but was intellectually active to the end. He is believed to have been between 65 and 70 when he died in 604 and was soon acclaimed a saint.

The earliest pictures of Gregory show him as pope, writing, with the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove dictating what he should write. Later he figures as one of the Four Latin Doctors (along with Sts Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine). Later again the pictures stress his role as teacher of the efficacy of prayer and the Mass in freeing souls from the pains of Purgatory. He introduced the custom of having 30 Masses for a deceased person, still known as Gregorian Masses. Gregory was also highly regarded in the East and in Ireland, where he was even provided with an Irish royal genealogy!

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Commentary on Luke 4:38-44

After the scene in the synagogue where Jesus healed a man possessed by an evil spirit, he goes straight to Peter’s house. It was a Sabbath day so Jesus could not move around or do any major activity. He seems to have used this house as his base when in Capernaum and that part of Galilee. Jesus had “nowhere to lay his head”, no dwelling of his own, but it seems clear that he was not homeless. There were always people ready to offer him hospitality—a custom of the Middle East and a model for Christians of every age and place.

Peter’s mother-in-law was in the grip of a fever and the disciples begged Jesus to do something for her. Jesus stood over her and, with a word, cured her. Immediately she got up and began to serve Jesus and his group.

There is a lesson here. Health and healing are not just for the individual. Her healing immediately restored her to the community and the duty of serving that community. And not just because she was a woman! If it had been the father-in-law, the same would have applied. As long as we are in health, our energies are meant to be directed to the building up of the community and not simply for our personal enjoyment.

“As the sun was setting…” – we need to remember it was a Sabbath. The Sabbath went from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday (so Jesus could not be properly buried on the Friday evening when he died). According to the traditions, Jews could not travel more than two-thirds of a mile or carry any load. Only after sunset could the sick be brought to Jesus.

As soon as the Sabbath was over, large numbers brought their sick to him:

…and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them.

As Jesus had announced in the synagogue at Nazareth, the Kingdom of God had arrived and was entering the lives of people, bringing them health and wholeness.

Many were also liberated from the power of evil spirits. These spirits shouted at Jesus “You are the Son of God”. As we mentioned earlier, by using Jesus’ title they hoped to exert control over him. That did not work, of course. Whether these were actual cases of possession or were psychological or mental disorders which made people behave in abnormal ways, and perhaps ways harmful to themselves and others, is not clear. What is clear is that the presence of the Kingdom is being felt.

At daybreak—Jesus had been working the whole night for the people—he went off to a quiet place. The desert is the place where God is to be found and very likely, as Mark tells us, Jesus went there to pray and to be alone.

The people, who had seen what he did for them, wanted him to stay with them (their attitude is in marked contrast to the people of Nazareth), but he could not and would not:

I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.

And so we are told that he was now preaching in the synagogues of Judea—in the south of the country, although the term may simply refer to the whole of Jewish territory. No place could have a monopoly on his attentions.

We need to attach ourselves to Jesus and keep close to him, but we cannot cling to him in a way that prevents others from experiencing his healing touch. On the contrary, it is our task as his disciples to see that as many as possible come to know and experience his love, his compassion and his healing.

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Commentary on Colossians 1:1-8

Today we begin reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in the city of Colossae, on the west coast of what is now Turkey. The letters to the Christians of Ephesus and Colossae (both in the Roman Province of Asia, now part of western Turkey) and the letter to Philemon are all closely related. All three were written while Paul was under arrest in Rome.

Several hundred years before Paul’s day, Colossae had been a leading city in Asia Minor. It was located on the Lycus River and on the great east-west trade route leading from Ephesus, on the Aegean Sea, to the Euphrates River. By the first century AD (when this Letter was written) Colossae had been diminished to a second-rate market town and had been surpassed long ago in power and importance by the neighbouring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis, both of which are cited in the Letter (see Col 4:13).

What gave Colossae importance in New Testament terms, however, was the fact that, during Paul’s three-year ministry in Ephesus, Epaphras had been converted and had carried the Gospel to Colossae. The young church that resulted then became the target of heretical attack, which led to Epaphras’ visit to Paul in Rome and ultimately to the writing of the Colossian letter.

The danger at Colossae was due to basically Jewish speculations the Christians had taken up about the heavenly or cosmic powers. These were the powers thought to be responsible for the regular movement of the cosmos, and the speculations about them, much influenced by Hellenistic philosophy, attached an importance to these powers that threatened the supremacy of Christ. Paul’s point is not to deny these powers but to show that Christos Kyrios, Christ the Lord, has established a new order of things and he now governs the cosmos.

According to notes from the Jerusalem Bible and the New International Version Study Bible:

“Paul’s purpose is to refute this Colossian heresy. To accomplish this goal, he exalts Christ as the very image of God (1:15), the Creator (1:16), the pre-existent Sustainer of all things (1:17), the Head of the church (1:18), the First to be resurrected (1:18), the Fullness of deity in body form (1:19; 2:9) and the Reconciler (1:20-22). Christ is completely adequate. We “have been given fullness in Christ” (2:10).”

Colossians is a relatively short letter and contains much material also found in the longer letter to the Ephesians.

Following the custom of putting the writer’s name at the beginning of a letter, Paul introduces himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and his fellow-evangeliser, Timothy. Right from the opening words he reveals how Christ-centred he is. In this relatively short letter, he uses the title ‘Christ’ 26 times and the title ‘Lord’ (referring to Christ) 7 times.

Timothy is also mentioned in 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Philemon, but Paul is really the sole author of the letter, as indicated by his constant use of ‘I’. In fact, at the end of the letter he says it has been penned in his own hand (4:18).

The letter is addressed to “To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae” wishing them grace and peace from God, the Father of all.

Paul frequently calls the members of Christian communities ‘holy ones’. It is a term which includes the Old Testament idea of the people of God, but here also expresses a relationship with Christ. They have been called by God to union with Christ and have experienced the spiritual benefits of this union. The awareness of it helps them to be “faithful brothers and sisters in Christ”, i.e. dedicated to working together on the tasks implied in their calling. And Paul mentions their spiritual union “in Christ” no less than 13 times in the course of the Letter.

Following the opening greeting there is an expression of thanksgiving and a prayer which forms the rest of the reading and will be continued in tomorrow’s reading.

Recalling his prayers for them and the deeply satisfying account of them he has received, Paul congratulates the Colossians upon their acceptance of Christ and their faithful efforts to live his Gospel. For their encouragement he mentions the success of the Gospel in other places, and assures them that his knowledge of their community is accurate since he has been in personal contact with Epaphras, their presumed founder.

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

Every one of Paul’s letters, except that to the Galatians, begins with thanks or praise. The possible reason for Galatians being an exception is that Paul was quite disturbed by developments there. In Colossians, thanks is an important theme, repeated a number of times. The Letters, too, do not thank humans for their faith and love, but rather God, who is the source of these virtues. And, although Paul usually begins with words of thanks and praise, the words of concern or criticism will usually follow later on.

We might note also that thanks is given for the manifestations of faith, hope and love that the Colossians so clearly display. The three great Christian virtues of faith, love and hope appear also in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians and Hebrews.

And that hope of a future life without end has come to them through “the word of the truth”, the Gospel, and has come to them in the same way that it is producing fruit and growing all over the world. This Christian hope is not mere wishful thinking but based on firm assurances that what is believed will be realised.

Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world…

“The whole world” – even if we mean the known world of the Mediterranean, is still somewhat of an exaggeration. But it does dramatise the rapid and remarkable spread and acceptance of the Gospel into nearly every corner of the Roman Empire within 30 years of Pentecost. In refuting the charge of the false teachers, Paul will insist that the Christian faith is not merely confined to Colossae or the region but is ‘worldwide’. Paul knew that because he travelled so much, but many of those he is writing to would have very little contact with anyone outside their own immediate environment.

And their strong Christian faith is something they learnt from Epaphras who is:

…our beloved fellow servant…a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf.

It was he who told Paul about their love in the Spirit.

Epaphras was a native and probably the founder of the Colossian church, but also evangelised in the nearby towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis (although the Book of Revelation has some hard words for the Christians of Laodicea). Paul was clearly fond of Epaphras and admired him, calling him a “fellow prisoner” (Phil 23), his dear fellow servant and a faithful minister of Christ.

Epaphras was the one who told Paul at Rome about problems in the Colossian church and thereby stimulated him to write this letter. His name, a shortened form of Epaphroditus (derived from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love), suggests he was a convert from paganism – but he is not the Epaphroditus mentioned in the Letter to the Philippians.

Let us today give thanks for the faith we have received and also to those through whom we have received it and who have helped to enrich it over the years. As well, we might also consider how many people’s faith has been enriched by their coming in contact with us, and how much more we could do in this regard.

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Commentary on Luke 4:31-37

Immediately after his mixed reception in Nazareth, Jesus moves on to Capernaum, a town on the north shore of Galilee, which was to be the base from which Jesus did much of his missionary work. As in Nazareth, he taught the people in the synagogue on the sabbath. Unlike in Nazareth:

They were astounded at his teaching because he spoke with authority.

He did not quote other authorities like the teachers of the law, because his authority was directly from God; it was his own.

At the same time, it was not the authority of domination. It was the authority of someone who has access to special knowledge, the authority of someone who speaks in his own name and not just on behalf of others, the authority of one who empowers others and makes them grow.

The word ‘authority’ comes from the Latin auctoritas, which in turn comes from the verb augere, meaning to increase or augment. And Jesus’ authority is not only in word and teaching. Right there in the synagogue as he speaks is a man possessed by a “spirit of an unclean demon”. The spirit, through the man, speaks in fear of the power of Jesus:

Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

This title seems to indicate that the spirit recognises Jesus’ divine origin, but not his Messiahship. There was a belief in those times that knowing the exact name of one’s opponent gave one power over him.

Jesus ordered the evil spirit to leave the man, who was thrown to the ground, but not hurt. The people are amazed. Exorcism was not new to them, but they had never seen it done with such speed and effectiveness. They are astounded again at the power and authority of Jesus. They realise they are in the presence of someone very special, in fact, the “Holy One of God”.

Each one of us is given authority of some kind—as a parent, a teacher or perhaps our job responsibility. Let us make sure that we use it in such a way as to enhance the abilities of others rather than diminish them.

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Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11 Read Tuesday of Week 22 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Luke 4:16-30

Today we begin the reading from Luke’s Gospel, which will bring us to the end of the Church year. We have already gone through Matthew’s and Mark’s, and John’s Gospel has been spread through various parts of the year, especially during the Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons.

Luke’s Gospel is a companion volume to the Acts of the Apostles, and the language and structure of these two books indicate that both were written by the same person. They are addressed to the same individual, Theophilus, and Acts refers to Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel and Acts could be considered as volume 1 and 2 of the same book.

Luke presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially important for understanding the way of salvation. Its scope is complete from the birth of Christ to his ascension and it appeals to both Jews and Gentiles.

Today, we take up Luke’s Gospel at the beginning of Jesus’ public life (chap 4). After his baptism by John the Baptist:

Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…
(Luke 4:14)

As we know, Galilee is the northern province of Palestine and his home province. Already people were talking about him everywhere.

Now, as our reading opens, we find him in Nazareth, the small town in Galilee where he grew up. From the verses immediately preceding, it does not seem that Jesus actually began his ministry in Nazareth. The event described here may not have taken place until a year later. One suggestion (NIV Bible) is that all that is described in John’s Gospel between 1:19 to 4:42 took place between the temptation in the desert and the moving north to Galilee (see Luke 4:13-14).

But Luke has arranged the structure of his Gospel so that Jesus will begin his public life in Nazareth, and will gradually proceed southwards towards his goal, Jerusalem, without turning back. In the other Synoptics, he moves around Galilee in all directions, and John suggests that he made a number of visits to Jerusalem during his public life.

The Jerusalem Bible suggests that our passage today actually combines three distinct parts:

1. vv 16-22 Jesus is honoured: occurring at the time indicated by Matthew 4:13;
2. vv 23-24 Jesus astonishing his audience: the visit of which Matthew and Mark speak;
3. vv 25-30 the life of Jesus threatened: not mentioned by Matthew or Mark and to be placed towards the end of the Galilean ministry.

In this way Luke presents an introductory tableau which is a summary and symbol of Christ’s great offer and of its contemptuous rejection by his own people.

As the reading opens we find Jesus in the town synagogue. It is a Sabbath day. He gets up to read the Scripture and comments on it. The ruler of the synagogue could authorise any adult Jew to read the Scripture lesson. The passage he reads is full of significance. It comes from the prophet Isaiah and Jesus’ reading of it amounts to a manifesto or what we might call today a ‘mission statement’. ‘Books’ in those days were in the form of scrolls, and the Scriptures were kept in a special place in the synagogue and given to the reader by an attendant. Jesus may have chosen the passage himself or it may have been assigned for that day.

But it is more than just a mission statement. As he reads, it becomes clear that the whole statement is about Jesus himself:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…

This has already been confirmed during his baptism in the river Jordan when “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” and a voice was heard to say:

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
(Luke 3:22)

Next Jesus, still reading from Isaiah, says:

…because he has anointed me…

In saying this, he is making an unequivocal claim to be the Messiah or the Christ, the long-awaited liberating King of Israel. The word ‘Messiah’, translated into Greek as Christos, means someone who is anointed with oil (we call the oil in baptism and confirmation ‘chrism’). And a person was made king by having oil poured over his head (remember how David was anointed king). Jesus, of course, was not literally anointed, but had been figuratively ‘anointed’ by the coming of the Spirit on him during his baptism. ‘Anointing’ is our equivalent of ‘coronation’, symbolised by the putting of a crown on the new king.

Then comes the mission of this King:

-to bring good news to the poor,
-to proclaim release to the captives,
-recovery of sight to the blind,
-to set free those who are oppressed,
-to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

There is nothing here of restoring the glories of Israel, nothing about conquering enemies and laying waste their lands. No, it is about letting the poor of this world hear the Good News of God’s love for them. It is about healing and reconciliation. It is about liberating those who are tied down by any form of enslavement. It is about helping people to see clearly the true meaning of life. It is about restoring wholeness to people’s lives and to societies. It is about the inauguration of the Kingdom by its King.

It is, in short, the whole picture of Jesus that will unfold in the pages of Luke, a Gospel which focuses on the poor and vulnerable, a Gospel of tenderness and compassion, a Gospel of the Spirit and of joy, a Gospel of prayer and healing.

It is about proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor”. This refers to the Messianic age when salvation would be proclaimed. Isaiah, in the original text, is alluding to the Year of Jubilee, when every 50 years slaves were set free, debts were cancelled and ancestral lands were returned to the original family. Isaiah was thinking mainly of freedom from Babylonian captivity, but Jesus was speaking of liberation across the board of human living.

As he finished the reading, Jesus put down the scroll and said:

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And the townspeople who thought they knew him so well were overawed by the wisdom with which he spoke. This positive reaction to Jesus is a favourite theme in Luke.

Rhetorically they asked:

Is not this Joseph’s son?

But they were wrong. He was not Joseph’s son; he was the son of Mary and of the Father, the divine Word sharing our ‘flesh’ (as suggested above, this event may have occurred on a second visit).

And this in turn leads us to the third section of the reading which provides an unexpected turn of events and is more in harmony with the later part of Jesus’ public life. Jesus’ hearers were surprised at the way he spoke, but they were not moved to change. After all, he was ‘just’ the son of Joseph, and someone they knew so well could have nothing to say to them. At the same time Jesus says they, his own townspeople, must be wondering why he is not doing the things in Nazareth that he was doing in places like Capernaum.

Capernaum, apparently a sizeable town, was where Peter lived and Jesus made his house, the centre out of which he did his missionary work in Galilee. A modern church now stands over the ruins of a 5th century basilica on the supposed site of Peter’s house and there is a 4th century synagogue nearby.

The reason for the townspeople’s non-acceptance of Jesus is that they do not really accept him for what he is. He reminds them that prophets are seldom accepted in their own place. Familiarity blinds people to their message. Their attitude was: “I know who he is and he has nothing to say to me.” Jesus then gives two rather provocative examples:

• During a great famine in the time of the prophet Elijah, Elijah was sent to help, not his fellow Israelites, but a poor widow in Zarephath, near Sidon, in non-Jewish territory. Sidon was one of the oldest Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast and about 33 km north of Tyre. (Later, Jesus would heal the daughter of a Gentile woman here.)
• In the time of the prophet Elisha, there were many lepers in Israel, but Elisha was sent to cure Naaman, a gentile general from Syria.

God reaching out to Gentiles through his prophets sets the stage for the Gentiles to receive the message of the Prophet Jesus, which is so much a theme of Luke’s writings. These remarks so angered the people of Nazareth that they dragged Jesus to the brow of a hill with the intention of throwing him down, but:

…he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Whether he did this miraculously or from the sheer power of his personality is not clear. In any case, his time had not yet come.

Prophetic voices being rejected by their own is a phenomenon only too common in our own day. And it was something Jesus foretold would happen to his followers, simply for being his followers and proclaiming his vision of life. In the meantime, let us make Jesus’ mission statement our own. It is what being a Christian means.

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Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

The early Christians, including the Thessalonians, were convinced that Jesus would return in their lifetime. They were consequently upset about the fate of their brothers and sisters who had already died. What would happen to them if they were not around to greet the Lord when he came?

So here Paul takes up the practice among the Thessalonians of mourning excessively for their dead, a reaction deriving from the stress placed by the community on their belief that the Second Coming of Christ was going to happen very soon, definitely in their lifetime. But now people were dying off before this took place: what was going to happen to them? Did they think that the dead, in accordance with Jewish and Greek belief, went to a place for the dead (Sheol or Hades) from which there was no escape? And so they would not be around when Jesus came to take all the Christians to himself?

The apostle reminds them of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in Christ. On the basis of Christ’s teaching, he affirms that the resurrection of the dead is to precede the Second Coming. Those who are alive at the time of the latter will not have the advantage over the dead of being the first witnesses to it. On the contrary, the Lord will first command the dead to rise; the living will then join them and both groups will be witnesses of the Parousia.

The doctrine spoken of here is to be remembered when there are more deaths in the community. Since Paul does not know the time of the Parousia, he aligns himself with the Thessalonians in the hope of living to that day, i.e. within the first Christian generation. In his mind such a possibility seems not to have been excluded by the teaching of Jesus himself.

That is the background, now to the reading proper. The converts in Thessalonica had obviously been worried about friends and relatives who had died and would not be there to see the coming of the Lord. Replying to their questions Paul affirms the fundamental doctrine of the resurrection so as to strengthen their faith and hope.

Paul wants the Thessalonians to be quite certain about the fate of those who have “fallen asleep”. This euphemism for death was common in both the Old and New Testaments and in Greek literature. It was natural, then, to refer to ‘resurrection’ to new life or from death as an ‘awakening’. For the Christian, sleep is a particularly apt metaphor for death, because of its finality.

Some of the Thessalonians seem to have misunderstood the meaning of the Parousia and thought all believers would live until Christ returned. When some died, the question then arose, “Will those who have died have part in that great day?”

But, says Paul, there is no need to grieve over them, as others do who have no hope. Inscriptions on tombs and references in literature show that first-century pagans viewed death with horror, as the end of everything. The Christian attitude was in strong contrast (see 1 Cor 15:55-57; Phil 1:21-23).

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. [i.e. those who have died as Christians]

The resurrection of Jesus is absolutely essential for Christian belief in a future life. As Paul wrote to the Christians of Corinth:

If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain…If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (1 Cor 15:14,17-20)

Paul can also state from the Lord’s own teaching, namely, that those who are still alive when the Lord comes will not have any advantage over those who have fallen asleep, that is, who have already died. The Thessalonians had evidently been concerned that those among them who died would miss their place in the great events when the Lord came, and Paul assures them that this will not be the case. There is no exact reference in the written gospels for this saying of Jesus. Perhaps Paul is relying here on traditions he had received from others, but which did not find their way into the gospel texts. There must have been many such sayings.

Paul next speaks about those believers who are still alive at Christ’s Second Coming:

…we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord…

‘We’ does not necessarily mean that Paul thought he himself would be alive then. He often identified himself with those he wrote to or about. Elsewhere he says that God will raise “us” at that time (1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14). If he is including himself among those who will be present at the Parousia, it is more by hope or desire rather than by conviction.

The apostle then gives an image of the Parousia using traditional apocalyptic imagery for a divine intervention. It is not to be taken as a literal description of an experience that is totally beyond our imagination.

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven…

The only named archangel in the Scripture is Michael (Jude 9; Dan 10:13). In Luke, Gabriel is simply called an angel, similarly with Raphael in the Book of Tobit. Later tradition calls them all ‘archangels’. The ‘trumpet’, together with voice and clouds were traditional signs that accompanied a theophany, a divine manifestation, such as that at Mount Sinai. They were later adopted as conventional elements in apocalyptic literature, for example, Matthew’s description of the coming of the Son of Man at the end of time (Matt 24:29).

Then, in a reassuring remark, Paul affirms that:

…the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air…

This is the only place in the New Testament where a ‘rapture’, being caught up or taken up into God, is clearly referred to. Although some hold that such experiences will be secret, Paul seems to be describing something open and public, with loud voices and a trumpet blast.

Contrary to their fears, Paul says that:

…we will be with the Lord forever.

Of all the details given here: that the dead will answer the summons by returning to life, that they and the living will be taken to meet the Lord, and that they will accompany him to the judgement with which the eternal kingdom begins, the essential one is the last – eternal life with Christ. That is the ‘salvation’, the ‘glory’, the ‘kingdom’ that Jesus shares among his chosen followers.

And, Paul concludes:

Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The primary purpose of the whole passage is not to give a chronology of future events, though that is involved, but to above all urge the Thessalonian community to mutual encouragement.

As mentioned, it is not necessary to take the scenario here described too literally; in fact, it would be quite wrong to do so. It consists of traditional apocalyptic and scriptural language to describe the indescribable – our future life with God after our death.

Very soon in the life of the Church people began to think less and less about this problem. We need to remember that this Letter is a very early Church writing. By the time we get to the gospels, this anxiety has passed and the concern is now about how to live in a time of uncertain and presumably lengthy or indefinite duration.

But the gospel warnings we saw in Matthew’s Gospel last week still remain valid. The critical issue is not the when or the how of the Lord’s final coming, but the when and how of our leaving this earth. Will I be ready? Am I ready now?

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Commentary on Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because, in each year of the liturgical cycle (on this 4th Sunday), the Gospel is always taken from the 10th chapter of John where Jesus speaks of himself as the “good shepherd”.

In today’s passage Jesus emphasises the self-sacrificing element in his own life:

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

First, he contrasts the good shepherd who owns the sheep to someone who is simply hired to look after them:

The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away…because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

The hired man thinks primarily of his own welfare and, Jesus, on the other hand, will not be like a hired person because:

…I lay down my life for the sheep.

Perhaps he contrasts himself with those mercenary religious leaders among his own people – and to be found in every religious group – who do just what is expected of them but have no real commitment or sense of responsibility to those in their charge.

He knows his sheep
Second, Jesus says:

I am the good shepherd. I know my own…

There is a mutual bond of love and intimacy. That love is compared to the deep mutual relationship that exists between Jesus and his Father:

…my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.

Again the hired man or the self-interested leader will not have such a relationship with his charges. The Second Reading speaks in similar terms when the author says:

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.

One shepherd and one flock
Third, the good shepherd deeply desires that many other sheep should come to identify themselves with him:

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

And that is the ultimate goal, that the whole world will be united together with its God and Lord. This is the meaning of the Kingdom which is at the heart of the Gospel message.

This is a goal which preoccupies us still today. There are still so many millions of people who have not yet heard the message of a loving God, a God who sent his only Son to die for them. They seek meaning and happiness in their lives by pursuing all kinds of other goals which inevitably turn to ashes: material abundance, status in the eyes of others, power over others, mistaking pleasure and hedonism for happiness…

In so doing, they reject Jesus the Good Shepherd:

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

This is something we must learn to accept as a fact, even if it is hard to understand and even harder to take.

No matter how closely we follow in the footsteps of our Shepherd, in fact, the more closely we follow him, the more likely it is that we will be rejected and even attacked. More tragic still, however, there are so many people who claim Christ as Lord, many of them very good and sincere people, who are often divided, even bitterly divided among themselves. Here, more than anywhere is there a need for all to follow one Shepherd and form one flock. Otherwise how can we give witness to the love of Christ if that love is lacking among the servants of Jesus?

As well, there are those who, though incorporated through baptism into the Body of Christ, consistently behave in a way which totally distorts people’s understanding of Christ and his call to discipleship, fulfilment and happiness. Probably, most of us have at one time or another failed in our call to give witness to the truth and love that is to be found in Christ.

Giving life willingly
Jesus emphasises that, in giving his life for his sheep, he is doing so of his own will. It is not just by force of circumstances. His death is to be the living proof that:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

This is the proof that Jesus truly is a Good Shepherd.

On the face of it, and looked at with purely secular eyes, the life and mission of Jesus seemed an utter failure. Even Jesus’ friends and admirers must have shaken their heads in sorrow as they saw him die on the cross. Jesus himself said “It is finished.” But, for him, the words had a completely different meaning.

As Peter, quoting from Psalm 118, tells the assembled Jews in the Temple in today’s First Reading:

This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.

As Jesus himself says in the Gospel today:

…I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.

And so it was. The Second Reading contains part of an address Peter gave in the Temple after he and John had cured a “crippled beggar” at the Temple’s Beautiful Gate. The healing of the man in the name of the crucified Jesus through the agency of Peter and John is the proof that Jesus is risen and working among us.

Vocation Sunday
Lastly, all of this is intimately linked with a second theme of this Sunday. Not only is it Good Shepherd Sunday, it is also Vocation Sunday. On this day we are especially asked first of all to pray that the Church may be provided with the leaders needed to do its work of spreading the Gospel.

We know that at the present time there is a critical shortage of such leaders, at least in the traditional sense – priests and religious. But, while we may earnestly pray that our Church be supplied with the leaders it needs, there can be a tendency among us to pray that ‘others’ may answer that call. We do not see ourselves as included. We may pray earnestly for more young people to offer themselves as priests and religious, but clearly exclude our own children.

But the problem is a wider one. We have for too long given a much too narrow meaning to the word ‘vocation’. We tend to limit it to a calling to be a priest or a member of a religious community. But, in fact, every single one of us has a vocation. For most of us, probably, it is what we are now doing, be it as spouses, parents, teachers, doctors, civil servants, running a business, salespersons, and myriad other identities.

Nevertheless, each one of us should be asking ourselves today:

And, if I am in a position which would be difficult to change (as a spouse or parent or holding a particular job):

God is calling every single one of us to work for the Gospel. For a small number it may be as a priest or religious – and that call can come at any time in one’s life. But there are hundreds of other ways of serving the Church and helping to build up the Christian community.

Where is God calling me to make my own unique contribution based on the particular talents God has given me? If every single one us were to answer that question sincerely and to act upon it, it is likely that that our Church would have all the leadership it needs.

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Commentary on Jeremiah 1:17-19; Psalm 70; Mark 6:17-29

The story told in today’s Gospel comes from Mark. Not altogether coincidentally, it is sandwiched between Jesus sending his disciples out on a mission to do the same work he was doing, and their coming back full of enthusiasm for what they had been doing. As Jesus would tell them, the day would come when they, too, would be ‘handed over’:

Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues… (Matt 10:17)

After he had sent them out, Mark tells us that King Herod was getting reports of the wonderful things that Jesus was doing—healing the sick, liberating people from evil powers, even bringing people back to life. Herod, however, thought it must have been John Baptist come back to life with new powers who was responsible. Other opinions were that Jesus was really Elijah, who was expected to return to earth on the eve of the Messiah’s coming. Others were saying that Jesus was just another prophet. However, Herod was convinced that Jesus was John come back to life:

But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised”. (Mark 6:16)

It was clear that his killing of John the Baptist was a source of great disquiet to him.

It is then that Mark relates how this killing took place and it is the reading for us today. John the Baptist had been put in prison by Herod because John had criticised the king for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. This was a clear act of adultery and clearly condemned by the Law of Moses. John had said:

It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.

Herodias was deeply resentful of John for this and wanted to get rid of him. Herod, however, respected John as a good and holy man and would do no more than keep him in prison. Although John was critical of Herod’s behaviour, the king could not resist listening to him speak.

Then, one day, Herodias saw her chance. On his birthday Herod threw a large party for his courtiers, his military officers and leading citizens of Galilee. During the meal, Herodias’ daughter came in and danced (while she is not named, by tradition she is called Salome). The king and all his guests were completely won over by her performance. The king, undoubtedly having had a few tankards of wine too much, promised to give the girl anything she wanted, even if it were half of his kingdom.

Excitedly, the girl went to her mother. “What should I ask for?” She may have been somewhat disappointed or perhaps bemused when her mother suggested: “The head of John the Baptist.” However, she went straight back to the king and said:

I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Herod was horrified, but he had made his oaths and could not lose face in front of his guests. An executioner was sent to decapitate John and bring the head back to the assembly. The head was then given by the executioner to the girl, who in turn handed it over to her vindictive mother. Later, John’s disciples took his body and buried it.

John is often called the Precursor, literally, the ‘one who runs in front of’. While John prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, he was really a man of the Old Testament—the last of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus would say that even the least in the Kingdom of God inaugurated by him would be greater than John.

In fact, John first appears in Mark’s gospel just at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. As Jesus began his mission to proclaim the Kingdom, John had already been arrested and had left the public scene. But John was a precursor, not only in the sense of preparing people for the coming of Jesus, he also was a man of complete integrity and was ready to give his life for truth and justice. Hence, he was the first of those who would be ‘handed over’ (Latin, tradere) and who would be ready to die for his God. In this, he prepared the way for Jesus and those of his followers who would be handed over and give their lives. And of this we are the beneficiaries. Each one of us, too, needs to be ready hand over our lives for the work of the Kingdom.

The First Reading are words of encouragement for the prophet Jeremiah as goes out to face great hostility from the kingdoms of the north in his proclaiming of God’s message. Yahweh says to his prophet:

Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them.

For Yahweh has made Jeremiah:

…a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.

They will attack Jeremiah:

They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

John the Baptist too had to stand up to a king and his wife who thought they could take God’s law into their own hands. John may have died, but he won the moral victory and for that we still recognise and honour him today.

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Today’s celebration commemorates the death of John the Baptist, which was in many ways a precursor to the death of Jesus. From the time of their birth, the lives of Jesus and his cousin are closely linked. From the very beginning, John paves the way for Jesus. There are similarities about their birth, their work and their death. Yet, as John always insisted, he was just preparing the way for Jesus, the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to loosen.

There is a key word in the Gospel which runs like a refrain throughout it—the term ‘handed over’. The Greek word is paradidomi and it means ‘to hand over’. In Latin it becomes tradere, from which we get the words ‘tradition’ (handing on of customs and wisdom of the past) and ‘traitor’ (the treacherous handing over of a person into the hands of another).

The whole of the Scripture is ‘tradition’ in that sense and we use the word ‘traitor’ for people who treacherously betray some good person or good value. The verb ‘hand over’ is used in the Gospel of Mark with regard to Jesus and his most faithful disciples. It was something of which Jesus spoke several times, and it continues to our own day.

Today we remember the ‘handing over’ of John the Baptist into the power of people who were totally against what he stood for and who ultimately executed him.