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Commentary on Sirach 51:12-20

Today, we finish our selected readings from Sirach with a poem which is a quest for wisdom. It comes from the last chapter and closing pages of the book.

In the original Hebrew text it is an ‘alphabetical poem’ in which each verse begins with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. Sadly, the original version has not reached us in a good state of preservation. Our English-language reading follows the Greek. A good example of a similarly constructed poem can be found in Proverbs 31, which gives a picture of the perfect housewife, and which can be read on the feasts of ‘Holy Men and Women’.

The poem describes the approach to wisdom through prayer, persistent study and instruction, purification from sin, enlightenment and ardent desire. Ben Sira opens with words of praise and thanks to God and what follows is an autobiographical poem on Wisdom.

As a young man, before he set out on his travels, he was already praying for the gift of wisdom.

Outside the sanctuary I would pray for her, and to the last I will continue to seek her.

From the earliest stages to its maturation, “from her blossoming to the ripening of her grape”, he has delighted in her. Once again he personifies Wisdom as a ‘she’.

Now, since his young days he has been walking in her steps and so has been able to follow a straight path. By paying careful attention, he has learned much from her. And, because of her, he has made great progress.

Glory be to him who has given me wisdom!

God is the source of all Wisdom and it is perhaps the greatest gift that God can give to anyone. Wisdom gives vision, the ability to see and understand the meaning and direction of life. What could be more precious? When God asked the new king Solomon what he would most like as a gift from God, he asked for wisdom, a reply which greatly pleased God.

The writer says that from his youth he has sought wisdom and has continued to cultivate it.

I became resolutely devoted to her. It was the good I persistently strove for. I will not be put to shame.

In his struggle to possess her – like a lover pursuing the beloved – he has kept the Law scrupulously. He has reached to Heaven, to the God from which she comes, and bemoans his ignorance of her.

He has directed his whole being towards her and “in purity”, by a life of perfect integrity, has found her.

The search for wisdom is one we also should pursue. There is no greater treasure we can have in life because, more than anything it brings us closer to God and to the end for which we were made. Through wisdom, we understand how all things relate to each other, to God and to ourselves. It is based, not on knowledge, but on deep insight into what we know. As mentioned at the beginning, wisdom has to be worked for. It comes through prayer, through a constant effort to understand every experience in life, through freeing ourselves from everything which threatens our wholeness and integrity as persons, and through various forms of enlightenment and a deep desire that she be part of our being.

Let us repeat again and again the prayer of the blind man Bartimaeus in Mark’s gospel:

Lord, that I may see.

And, when Bartimaeus was able to see, he became a disciple of Christ and walked on the road with them to Jerusalem to share in Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.

Wisdom consists in being able to see – seeing with great clarity. Without it, we grope in the darkness.

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Commentary on Mark 11:11-26

We are now entering the final part of Mark’s gospel. Jesus is now in Jerusalem and in the final days of his ministry.

Today we have the strange incident of the fig tree. Jesus was leaving Bethany for nearby Jerusalem and was hungry. He went up to a fig tree looking for fruit to eat even though it was not the time of year for figs. Jesus then cursed the tree:

Never again shall anyone eat of your fruit!

Why curse a tree for not having what it could not have at that time?

In the evening on their way back to Bethany, the disciples saw the fig tree that Jesus had cursed all withered.

This story is generally understood as a kind of parable. The fig tree without fruit represents those people among the Jews who rejected Jesus. When he came to them looking for faith in his message, he found nothing. In a sense, they had closed their minds and withered up.

This meaning is reinforced by another event which is sandwiched into the middle of the fig tree story. This is a common device used by Mark and it is called ‘inclusion’, when one passage is enclosed within another. Another example is the story of the woman with the haemorrhage, which is included within the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter.

After cursing the fig tree Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem and began driving out all those who were trading in the Temple court. He accused them of turning God’s house of prayer into a market place. It was an example of people who had reduced their religious faith to mere commercialism. Religious ritual had been turned into an opportunity for making money. The meaning of the Temple as the symbol of God’s presence among his people was being lost. And there was also the failure to see the presence and power of God working through Jesus himself. The fig tree was adorned with beautiful leaves but there was no fruit.

And so at the end Jesus urges his disciples to develop real faith, a real trust and insight into God’s presence in their lives. To those with true faith, Jesus says, just anything is possible. It is an essential condition for prayer. And prayer must include a willingness to forgive and be reconciled with those who cause us difficulties so that we may find forgiveness and reconciliation from God for our own faults and failings in his service.

Let us pray today for that kind of faith. A faith that produces much fruit.

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Commentary on Sirach 44:1, 9-13

We now come to a section of Sirach, near the end of the book, which is a hymn in honour of the great ancestors of Israel. The eulogy shows how a devout Jew of the second century BC thought of the history of his people.

He recalls two sets of people – both the famous and the unknown. In today’s reading he recalls those countless good people who have lived down through the ages but of whom nothing is known and everything forgotten. Generation after generation, they brought children into the world and handed on their traditions and will continue to do so.

Later he will sing the praises, one by one, of some of the prominent personalities of the Hebrew Testament. Some of these portraits are read in our weekday liturgies at the end of a week which features one of these people.

The Harper Collins Study Bible makes the following introduction to this section of Sirach:

“Chapters 44 to 51 comprise a long poem eulogising the great leaders of the people throughout the epic history of Israel. It consists of an introductory poem in praise of all the ancestors, even those who left no name, a series of poetic units dedicated to specific figures from Enoch to Nehemiah and a concluding encomium, or work of praise, on the high priest (Simon) from Ben Sira’s own time…

The hymn as a whole is patterned on the model of Hellenistic encomia, eulogistic histories in commemoration of local shrines and cities, in this case with an eye on the temple at Jerusalem…

The ancestors are glorious because of their recognition by God, their honourable achievements, their recognition by their own generations, their godlikeness, their legacy to their children, and their lasting name and memory.” (Edited and abbreviated)

The passage opens with a phrase which has passed into the English language – “Let us now praise illustrious men (sic)”. In fact, all the names mentioned later are only of men, all ancestors of the Israelites; there are no tributes to any of the famous women.

However, the author also mentions that that there are others, a far greater number who have left no memories behind. It was as if they never existed, and it is no different with the children who followed them. The vast majority of the human race falls into this category, and many of us will be among them when we pass on, remembered only by some relatives and the friends we made in life.

But Ben Sira wants to introduce a list of “generous men”, whose good works remain in people’s memories. They have left behind a rich inheritance in their descendants. Not in the sense of material things, but in their ongoing observance of the covenants, expressed in the Mosaic Law and other traditions. And these traditions have been handed down to succeeding generations.

These covenants were contracts or agreements made between God and the patriarchs or the leaders of Israel at the time. They led to the setting up of institutions for the social and religious structure of the people. Most covenants, too, were linked with special ritual, and the stories surrounding them set the pattern for the rituals. Later in the poem, covenants with God will be mentioned for Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob-Israel, Moses, Aaron and Phinehas, from the ancient period and for David after Israel has settled in the Promised Land.

Lastly, Sirach asserts that the descendants of these great people will last forever and “their glory will not fade”. And, as we Christians regard ourselves as the continuation of that covenant tradition through the new covenant made through Jesus, this prophecy has been confirmed.

Perhaps today is an opportunity for us to recall with gratitude our ancestors without whom we would not be here today and who handed on the cultural and religious treasures of earlier ages, especially our Christian faith. The people of East Asia (the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese) have always demonstrated a great sense of the contributions their ancestors made, and pay the greatest reverence to them. In ways consonant with our own culture and beliefs, we should do the same.

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Commentary on Mark 10:46-52

Read superficially, this is simply another pleasant story about Jesus healing a blind man. However, as we shall see, there is much more here than meets the eye, and there is a lot to discuss. Although Mark’s Gospel is the one which gives most details when telling a story – leading people to speak of his using the memories of an eyewitness (perhaps Peter) – there is a lot more symbolism in his stories than at first seems apparent.

First of all, this story is strategically placed. It comes at the end of a long portion of the Gospel beginning with the healing of a man who is deaf (Mark 7:31-37). This section includes the high point at the middle of the Gospel where the disciples recognise Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and also the three predictions of his passion, death and resurrection and the accompanying teachings. In between are several other episodes and teachings. Through it all we see the disciples stumbling along in various degrees of misunderstanding as they accompany their Master.

Today’s story brings all this to an end and, in a way, can be seen as a summing up of all that has gone before. Immediately after this, the final phase of the Gospel begins with Jesus in Jerusalem for the last time.

We find Jesus and his disciples in Jericho, which lies just north of Jerusalem. They are journeying south on their way from Galilee. We saw yesterday how alarmed they were about Jesus’ determination to head for a place so full of danger for him (and them). As Jesus was leaving the city, accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd of people, there was “a blind beggar” called Bar Timaeus (son of Timaeus) sitting beside the road. Already we have a sentence full of symbolism here, some of which we will discuss further on.

Jesus is not just leaving the city*, he is on the first stage of the final and climactic period of his mission on earth. He is heading for Jerusalem. Although he is surrounded by a large number of people, most of them are with him only physically, but not in spirit, as we shall soon see.

When the blind man hears all the commotion he naturally wants to know what is going on and is told that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Immediately on hearing this he calls out,

Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!

It is a form of what we now call the “Jesus Prayer”. A prayer we need to make constantly; a prayer we can only make sincerely when we are truly aware and accepting of our dependence on Jesus’ help and guidance, when we fully acknowledge the distance that exists between what we are and what Jesus is calling us to be.

In making such a prayer, the blind man is opening himself up to all that Jesus can and wants to give him. However, the surrounding crowd, smug in their (physical) closeness to Jesus and contemptuous of an irritating beggar, try to silence him. How often people have given up their approach to Jesus because of discouragements they have met! How often have we, perhaps, been a source of discouragement or scandal to people who were tentatively looking for Jesus and the meaningful life he can open up for us?

This man, however, is not discouraged. The more he is scolded by the crowd, the louder he shouts. Jesus has told us to ask, not once, but many times. This the man does. Then Jesus stops…if the man had not called, Jesus might not have stopped. He would simply have continued on his journey. Jesus constantly passes through our lives. Every single day. How often have we failed to recognise his presence? How often have we failed to call him? And perhaps he has passed on and out of our day.

Jesus tells those around him:

Call him here.

Notice that Jesus does not call the man himself. He tells others to call him. Again that is something that is the norm in our lives.

If we believe that Jesus has appeared to us in a vision and directly called us, either we are ready for canonisation or, more likely, for a mental home! No, it is through others that we are constantly being called. In fact, we might reflect today on the huge number of people who have directly or indirectly brought Christ into our lives. It is because of them that we are what we are now. Without them, we would not know Jesus or the Gospel or the Church.

Notice, too, the fickleness of the crowd. Those who were just now scolding the man are now urging him to approach Jesus.

Take heart; get up, he is calling you.

How many people need to hear those words! And how often they never do! Yes, there is no need ever to be afraid of Jesus, our Good Shepherd. And he is calling everyone of us, in some way or other. But perhaps many have never heard the call, because Jesus expected me to do the calling. But I was too absorbed in myself to do so.

“Get up!” they tell the man. Yes, he is being told to rise, the same verb that describes the rising of Jesus from the dead. He is not just being told to get on his feet, but to enter a whole new way of living. He throws off his cloak, which presumably was all he was wearing, and comes to Jesus. He comes to Jesus encumbered with absolutely nothing. It is also reminiscent of the disciples leaving their boats, their nets and their family to follow Jesus. It is reminiscent of the early Christians stripping themselves of all their clothes, symbolic of their sinful past, as they go down into the baptismal pool. When we approach Jesus, we need divest ourselves of everything, get rid of everything we tend to cling to (see the story of the ‘rich’ man earlier this week).

Jesus now asks him:

What do you want me to do for you?

Isn’t this a wonderful thing to hear from Jesus? But he is asking the very same question of us every day. We often tend to ask what Jesus wants us to do for him, but he is also asking us what he can do for us. And when he asks you that question today – and he will ask today – what answer are you going to give him? What you say is going to reveal a great deal about you and your priorities in life.

In a sense, of course, Jesus does not need to know the answer to your question, but you do. And the answer comes from the asking. And have you noticed any changes in the way you would answer the question over the years? And what would today’s answer be? By the way, did we not hear Jesus asking the same question before? Yes indeed. In yesterday’s Gospel when James and John came asking for a favour, Jesus asked them,

What is it you want me to do for you?

Compare now the two answers. The disciples asked for a privilege, for positions of status and authority and power, to be one up over others. What did the blind man ask for?

My teacher, let me see again.

Of course, in our present context he is not just asking for physical sight. He is looking for something much more important; he is looking for in-sight, the ability to see into the meaning of life and its direction and its ultimate values.

In answer to the question that Jesus is asking us, we could hardly make a better response:

…let me see again.

When we truly see with our inner eye, it changes our whole way of looking at the world, and our behaviour changes accordingly. We cannot ask for anything more crucial in life. Perhaps we feel all along that we have been able to see both literally and figuratively. But today we are asking to see again, to have a deeper vision that goes much further into the ultimate meaning of our lives.

Jesuit Father Tony de Mello speaks of this in one of his books. He calls it “Awareness, being wide awake and living with your eyes open”. No wonder Jesus responds generously to the man’s request:

Go, your faith has made you well.

“Made well”, that is, he is restored to complete wholeness. Only a person with perfect (in)sight (in the sense we have discussed) is truly whole. Only such a person knows where to go and how to get there.

And what happens then? The beggar receives the sight he asked for (“Ask, and you shall receive”) and what does he do? He does the only thing that a person with true vision can do – he follows Jesus on the road, that Road, that Way to Jerusalem and all that it means. He becomes unconditionally a disciple.

Going back now to the beginning of the story we were told that Bar Timaeus, “a blind beggar” was sitting by the road. This description is one that fits every person who discovers Jesus. We are, without Jesus, blind, we cannot see clearly although we may be very clever and highly educated. But, if we cannot see what Jesus sees, we are sightless, blind.

And we are beggars. We can only truly come to Christ when we realise that, whatever intellectual, social or material endowments we may have, we are basically poor. That was the problem of the rich man who came to Jesus. In his monetary wealth, he was not aware of his radical poverty. In our present life, we have nothing that is really ours.

Thirdly, the man was sitting beside the road, not on it. And this indeed is the lot of everyone who sits beside the road, to be blind and a beggar in need. The road, as we have said, in the Gospel story is a symbol of the Way that is Christ. It is where there is Truth and Life. And so at the end of the story, the man having made his compact with Jesus, is now able to see, is no longer a beggar, and is accompanying Jesus on the road that is his Way.

This story has meanings going far beyond a mere miracle story. It is a beautiful summing up of how Jesus’ disciples learnt to see and walk with him along the Way. It is a Gospel in miniature, a vignette of the spiritually deprived person discovering where Truth and Life are and committing oneself to it totally.

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*Luke mentions the same visit but describes Jesus entering Jericho. Here he has his encounter with the Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector (see verses beginning with Luke 19:1).

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Commentary on Sirach 42:15-26

In a majestic passage, Sirach speaks of the glory of God manifested in the beauty and marvels of his creation. It is the product of God’s word, his creative, life-giving word. Creation becomes an expression of God’s very being, reflecting his truth, his goodness, and his beauty, and God has total insight into all that takes place in his creation.

Not a thought escapes him, not a single word is hidden from him.

The author begins by expressing his intention to speak of “the works of the Lord”.

Everything that exists has come into being by the “word of the Lord”, and every creatures is subject to his will. This is one of the first mentions of the creative “Word” of God. In Wisdom literature generally, it is Wisdom that is spoken of as creative.

The sun fills the whole world with its light, reflecting in a small way the glory of God which permeates the whole of creation. Not even “his holy ones” can adequately express all that God accomplishes throughout the universe, which remains a constant and pale reflection of his glory. The “holy ones” here are the angels, who live always in the presence of God.

At the same time, our all-knowing, all-creating God can penetrate the innermost recesses of the human heart, however devious it may be.

He knows all the knowledge there is, and has observed the signs of the times.

The heavenly bodies are the ‘signs of the times’, not only because they mark the seasons, but also because, according to a widespread belief, the future was already written in the heavens. There may also be a more specific reference to the extraordinary signs expected to announce the coming of the Messiah (Matt 24:29-31). In our own day, many still, with varying degrees of seriousness, look to the stars as an indication of what is in store for them.

So there is nothing which can be hidden from God’s knowledge. The future, too, is known to him from all eternity. He reveals what has been and what has yet to be. Not a single thought escapes him, nor can anything remain hidden from him.

The fruits of his wisdom can be seen everywhere and he remains unchanging from all eternity. There is nothing that can be given to him which he does not already have, nor can anything be taken away from him. He needs no one to give him advice on how he should act.

How desirable are all his works and how dazzling to the eye.

Down the ages, the beauty of our world has never ceased to mesmerise artists of all kinds – poets, painters and musicians. This beauty is something which will endure in one form or other as long as our created world exists, while, at the same time, each created thing has been brought into being to meet a particular need determined by him.

Finally, says the author, all things come in complementary pairs to give a sense of completeness. Each one supplements the virtues of the other. This is true not only of humans but of practically all living things where they are ‘male’ and ‘female’.

Given such a world, how can we ever tire of being carried away by the glory and beauty of its Maker?

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Commentary on Mark 10:32-45

We now come to the third and final foretelling of his passion, death and resurrection by Jesus.  It is not insignificant that it follows immediately on the story of the rich man and the teaching of Jesus that goes with it.  We are now going to see what discipleship of Jesus really means.

The first sentence is a statement of fact, but full of meaning:

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem…

They were on the road – not just any road – but the road…and that road goes to Jerusalem and points to all that Jerusalem will mean for Jesus and his followers.  Jesus is the Road, the Way and his way brings him to Jerusalem, the carrying of his cross, the letting go of his life in love of his Father and us, leading to the final triumph.  Those who wish to be his disciples have to be ready to walk that road with him.

The disciples have not quite reached this stage of discipleship yet.  As Jesus steps out firmly on the road to Jerusalem, his disciples straggle behind. The apostles:

…were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

As far as they were concerned, Jesus was out of his mind.  To go to Jerusalem at this time was asking for trouble, serious trouble.  Everyone knew the Jewish leadership was out to get Jesus.  Jerusalem was the last place to go.

Jesus shows them he is under no illusion about the situation.  He gives them a detailed description of what is going to happen to him, more detailed than in the previous foretellings.  The key term “handed over” is used again and, for the first time, a handing over to the “gentiles” is mentioned.  Condemnation to death will come from the leaders of his people, but the carrying out of the execution will be the work of the Romans.  It was not just some Jews who were responsible for Jesus’ death; we were there, too, in the person of the Roman gentiles.

Nevertheless, earlier on the disciples had acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah and Saviour-King of Israel.  In the second prediction they had revealed an awareness that what Jesus was predicting was going to happen and so debated who his successor might be.  Now, for the first time, the last part of the prediction – rising after three days – seems to be getting through.

Perhaps it was, in that frame of mind, that Jesus is approached by two of his closest disciples, James and John.  However, it is also clear that they showed little understanding of all that Jesus had taught them so far.  They approached him gingerly:

Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.

Replies Jesus:

What is it you want me to do for you?

(Note the question, because we will meet it again in tomorrow’s reading.)

The answer of the two brothers indicates how little they have understood of the mind of Jesus:

Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.

Left unstated was their reasoning: “After all, you did say three times that you were going to rise again after your death.”

This is a perfect example of using a personal acquaintance or relationship to get in by the back door and obtain a favour otherwise out of reach. And by “glory” they are almost certainly thinking in worldly terms of Jesus as an earthly, victorious, all conquering king.  The kind of person they expected the Messiah to be.

Jesus tells them:

You do not know what you are asking.

They neither know the kind of King Jesus is going to be nor do they know the price he is going to pay to enter that kingship.  This is clear from the next question he puts to them:

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

This is a clear reference to Jesus’ passion and death, the price he will pay to reveal God’s love for his children.

We remember, later in the garden, as the weight of his coming passion presses him down, Jesus prays that the cup be taken away.  “Baptism” implies a total immersion, and Jesus will be totally overwhelmed with suffering and shame and humiliation.

Do the two disciples realise this?  Are they ready to go through this with Jesus on their way to the privileges and glory they are asking for?  “We are able” they confidently boast without realising just what is involved.  In fact, with the rest of their companions, they will scatter and disappear when these events overtake their Master.

Nevertheless, looking further ahead Jesus generously tells them that they will indeed one day share Jesus’ cup and his baptism of suffering and death.  James would be one of the first martyrs of the young church.  However, as to giving them the places of honour they were looking for, that was beyond Jesus’ power to give:

…but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

In other words, these places are not just for the asking; they have to be earned.  They will be given, not to those who furtively ask, but to those whose love most closely approaches that of Jesus himself.

Not surprisingly, the other ten were highly indignant when they found out what James and John had done behind their backs.  They were not indignant at the impropriety or the daring, but that they had been beaten to it…they wanted exactly the same things themselves.

Following the same pattern as the other previous incidents, the prediction of the Passion and Resurrection is followed by a show of misunderstanding by the disciples, leading to a teaching. And that is what comes now.

Jesus now patiently gives them another lesson on what real greatness in his Kingdom consists of. In the ‘world’, “among the gentiles”, to be great is to have power over others, to exercise authority, to be able to control and manipulate people to be at your disposal, to use people to attain your ends.  However, in Jesus’ world, those really great put themselves and their unique gifts to use by promoting the well-being of brothers and sisters, especially those in most need.  And the more people we can serve the greater we are.

‘Authority’ is not to control, but to empower.  And it is the role of anyone in authority to generate ideas, energy, creativity in those for whom one is responsible.  In other words to serve those who have been entrusted to one’s authority.  But it is a corruption of the word to become ‘authoritarian’ in such a position.  After 2,000 years of Christianity it is a lesson practically all of us have yet to learn.

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Commentary on Sirach 36:1,5-6,10-17

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Commentary on Mark 10:28-31

Having overcome their initial shock at what Jesus had to say about the danger of wealth as a serious obstacle to being a follower of Jesus or of being a member of the Kingdom, his disciples begin to take stock of their own actual situation. Clearly they cannot even be remotely numbered among the wealthy. Is there something to be said in favour of their relative poverty? Worried, the ever-irrepressible Peter exclaims:

Look, we have left everything and followed you.

Indeed they had. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we are told that, on Jesus’ invitation, they had abandoned their whole livelihood and become followers of Jesus. It was a bold step when they really had no idea where it would lead them.

Jesus replied:

Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

This sounds like a pie-in-the-sky promise, but has it been fulfilled? In fact, it has been—and many times over. By leaving a world where each one scrambles for a piece of the cake and where some get a huge piece and others only get crumbs, the Christian who truly has the spirit of the Gospel enters a community where everyone takes care of everyone else, and where each one’s needs are taken care of by a sharing of the community’s resources.

This is how, by leaving one’s home and family and giving away one’s material goods, one enters a new family in which there are far more mothers, brothers and sisters; where one home is replaced by many homes offering their warmth and hospitality—in essence, offering a home away from home.

This is a reality which, unfortunately, has not been realised among many Christians—those who choose to live their daily lives in the rat race for acquisition characteristic of our modern capitalist societies. Their behavior reflects their belief that what they cannot get by their own efforts they will never come to enjoy.

Yet there are examples. One of the most obvious is religious life where the words of Jesus are lived out. The question is why should only religious have this experience of shared love and shared material goods? There are Christian communities and some charismatic groups where families live in a communal style sharing all their resources.

But by and large, we have to a great extent failed to realise that Christianity is not meant to be a religion where individuals, rich and poor, live individualistic lives and carry out certain ‘religious’ acts to “save their own souls”. Rather, Christianity essentially consists of creating a whole new way of living, by which people relate to each other in mutual love and care.

Jesus says that in his world the first will be last and the last first. In fact, he is saying that in his world there is no first and no last. Perhaps this can be illustrated by the following story.

A rich man was concerned about his future salvation, whether he would ‘go to heaven’ or not. In order to motivate himself, he asked God to give him a preview of heaven and hell, and God agreed. God said that they would first pay a visit to hell. When they got there the man was greatly surprised. He was brought into a sumptuous dining room of a large restaurant all decorated in red and gold. In the centre was a large round table and on it were the most exotic and delicious dishes that could be envisioned. Around the table were seated the diners. They were the most miserable-looking group one could imagine, all sitting there motionless and in silence just looking at the beautiful food in front of them. The reason for their glumness was that they had been given utensils which were three feet long! There was no way they could get any of the food into their mouths. And they were going to sit there like that for eternity. That was hell!

God then brought the man to heaven. Again he was amazed. Because they were in an identical banquet room, with the same kind of table and the same wonderful food. But everybody was in the highest spirits. The sound of laughter rang out everywhere. They were really enjoying themselves and the meal. Was this because they had the normal length utensils? No! Theirs were also three-feet long, but here everyone was reaching out food to serve people on the opposite side of the table—that was heaven.

It is a very good illustration of today’s Gospel. When everyone serves, everyone is served. When everyone gives, everyone gets. It is a lesson even we Christians seem to find difficult to learn.

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Commentary on Sirach 35:2-15

Today’s reading from the book of Sirach has a message which is relevant for all Christians. It teaches that there should never be a division between our worship in church and the way we lead our daily lives. Each one is meant to reinforce the other.

The author, Ben Sirach, is both a firm supporter of liturgical worship, and at the same time emphasises the observance of the Law, especially in matters of justice and charity. He brings them together in this reading. To live a deeply moral life is in itself a form of worship. But formal worship is also important for him.

He begins by saying that:

…one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being.

Following the teaching of Jesus, we Christians believe that, to extend true love and service to brothers and sisters, especially those in need, is to worship God really present in each one.

As examples, Sirach says:

…one who returns a kindness offers choice flour, and one who gives alms sacrifices a thank offering.

To abstain from moral wrongdoing is to make an act pleasing to God, and to give up sinful ways is the equivalent of making atonement (the Day of Atonement was the greatest day in the liturgical calendar of the Jews). We are told:

Do not appear before the Lord empty-handed, for all that you offer is in fulfillment of the commandment.

To “appear before the Lord” means to approach the Temple with offerings. And to come empty-handed here does not mean coming without sacrificial offerings, but without a record of good behaviour and acts of kindness and help to those in need.

Jesus’ teaches that, if we recall that someone has been hurt by us in some way, we need to work to bring them healing and reconciliation, and do so before we go to make our sacrificial offering. There is an intimate relationship between what is offered in the Temple and the kind of person who is making the offering.

The offering of the righteous enriches the altar,
and its pleasing odor rises before the Most High.

The offering of fruits or animals becomes greatly enhanced when the one offering is someone living a life truly in harmony with God’s will as given to us in the teaching of Jesus.

The sacrifice of the righteous is acceptable,
and it will never be forgotten.

It is the lifestyle of the one offering which gives the offering its real value before God.

As Christians, we need to take this reading to heart. We sometimes describe a daily communicant as a ‘good’ Catholic. But we also do not see what we call the ‘Sunday’ Catholic as an ideal. ‘Going to Mass’ must be much more than the mere observance of a commandment.

On the one hand, the way of life offered to us in the Gospel must be the basis for our everyday living and influence all our words, actions and relationships. Our Sunday worship, if properly celebrated, is intimately connected with our living a Gospel-centred life. And a Gospel-centred life will have a lot to bring to the celebration of the Eucharist. Perhaps it is in this that we find one of the inherent weaknesses of our Christian life in these times.

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Philip Romolo Neri was born on 22 July, 1515 in Florence, the youngest child of Francesco, a lawyer, and his wife Lucrezia da Mosciano. Philip received his early education from the Dominican friars at the famous San Marco friary in Florence (of which Fra Angelico was once a member). When he was about sixteen, following a fire which destroyed much of his father’s property, Philip was sent to his father’s childless brother, a wealthy merchant, to assist him in his business and with the hope he might inherit his uncle’s fortune. However, the plan was thwarted by Philip’s call to the priesthood.

In 1523, Philip left San Germano and went to Rome, where he became a tutor. Here he was able to continue his studies while beginning the work among the sick and poor which gained him in later life the title of “Apostle of Rome”. In 1538, he began the home mission work for which he would become famous.

In 1551, he passed through all the minor orders, was ordained deacon and finally priest. He settled down, with some companions, at the hospital of San Girolamo della Carità and while there tentatively began, in 1556, the institute with which his name is more especially connected, that of the Oratory.

It was immediately after taking possession of new quarters in Rome that Neri formally organized, under permission of a papal bull dated July 15, 1575, a community of secular priests, called the Congregation of the Oratory. He was at first elected superior for a term of three years, but in 1587, was nominated superior for life. He wished that all congregations formed on his model outside Rome should be autonomous, governing themselves—a regulation afterwards formally confirmed by a brief of Gregory XV in 1622. Neri continued in the government of the Oratory until his death.

Philip had a playful sense of humour, combined with a shrewd wit. He used to say:

“A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one.”

This was undoubtedly the secret of his popularity and of his place in the folklore of the Roman poor.

Night was his special time of prayer. After dark he would go out in the streets, sometimes to churches, but most often into the catacombs of St Sebastiano to pray. During one of these times of prayer he felt a globe of light enter his mouth and sink into his heart. This experience gave him so much energy to serve God that he went out to work at the hospital of the incurables and started speaking to others about God, everyone from beggars to bankers. Many miracles were attributed to him, and it is said that when his body was dissected it was found that two of his ribs had been broken, an event attributed to the expansion of his heart while fervently praying in the catacombs about the year 1545.

Philip Neri was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1600, and canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. Neri was not a reformer. His great merit was the instinctive tact which showed him that the older system of monasticism could never be the leaven of secular life, but that something more simple and everyday in character was needed for the times in which he lived.

The Oratory chiefly spread in Italy and in France, where in 1760 there were 58 houses all under the government of a superior-general. An English house, founded in 1847 at Birmingham, is celebrated as the place at which Cardinal Newman fixed his abode after his joining the Catholic Church. In 1849, a second congregation was founded on King William Street, Strand, London, with Fr Frederick William Faber as superior. In 1854, it was transferred to Brompton, where it is still based. Its church, the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was consecrated April 16, 1884, and is the second largest Roman Catholic church in London.