Martin Jumbam
Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, October 29, 2017, as the thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A. In the Entrance Antiphon we pray: “Let hearts rejoice who search for the Lord. Seek the Lord and his strength, and seek always the face of the Lord. Amen.”
This day’s liturgy centers on the love of God and the love of neighbour. In the first reading, from the Book of Exodus, God appears as the defender of the widow and the orphan, biblical symbols of the weak, the poor and the oppressed. Saint Paul, in the second reading, reminds his harassed converts of Thessalonica how they rejected the worship of idolatrous practices to serve the real, living God, whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to save them and would return to gather them to himself. In Matthew’s Gospel, the leaders of Israel are still trying to trap Jesus with tricky questions: today they want him to tell them which is the greatest commandment of all. In the course of this Eucharist, let us pray for the grace to follow Christ more closely so he can lead us to eternal salvation.
First Reading: Exodus 22: 20-26.
Thus says the Lord: "You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans. "If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate."
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Exodus is the second of the first five books of the Bible. The first is Genesis, which deals with the origin of the world, of mankind and of the people of Israel; the third is Leviticus, which gives the lists of the laws of the priests of the tribe of Levi; the fourth is Numbers, which gives the list of those who came out of Egypt and wandered about in the desert for forty years, and the fifth is Deuteronomy, the second Law laid down by Moses before the entry into the Promised Land. These five books, attributed to one author, Moses, form a unit known collectively as the Pentateuch (from the Greek word for five books), or as the Torah (the Hebrew word for the Law).
The Book of Exodus, from where the passage of our meditation is taken, proclaims the good news of God’s powerful interventions among his people, whom he has freed from slavery in Egypt and brought to Canaan, the Promised Land. Exodus in Greek means “departure” or “going out”; in this case, the providential escape of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt to freedom.
This day’s reading tells us of God’s faithfulness and love for us all, Jew or Gentile alike. The Jews must protect the foreigner in much the same way as God protected them when they were living in slavery in Egypt. The widow and the orphan, biblical symbols of all who are without, protection or livelihood, are especially guarded by God’s compassion. To ill-treat them is to defy God himself. No one must use his neighbour’s misfortune to reap his own gain, nor must the poor be deprived of the necessities of life to win from them a share in God’s blessings.
What lesson do we take home from this reading? The fate of the widow and the orphan in many Cameroonian communities is not a good one. For the most part, they are poorly treated by family and society. This reading, therefore, challenges us to ask ourselves how we have treated the wife of a late relative? Have we brutalized her and deprived her of her right to her husband's property – which is often the case in many of our communities today? Have we treated their children with love and dignity, or have we chased them out into the street to usurp our relative's house and other material property – as it so often happens in our society today? If we are guilty of such ignoble acts towards our late relative’s wife or children, then we must listen seriously to God’s warning in this reading: "My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans" (Ex 22: 23). These are very hard words that call for deep reflection on our part.
Let us share this prayer for the poor and the needy which Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, left to the Church: “Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow human beings throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy. We make this prayer through Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever. Amen.”
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1: 5-10.
Brothers and sisters: You know what sort of people we were among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Saint Paul expresses joy that his converts of Thessalonica, who are harassed and battered by persecution, are learning from the Gospel message and breaking with idolatrous practices to serve the real, living God, Father of Jesus, their Lord and Saviour. Paul’s evangelizing mission is bearing the fruit of conversion to God – which is the whole purpose of Gospel preaching. Blessed Pope Paul VI says that “For the Church, evangelisation means bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence, transforming humanity from within and making it new.”
Saint Paul reminds his converts of the joy of Christian message, namely, that Jesus is the Son of God, who died, rose from the dead, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Christ will be the judge of all mankind and those who live by his word have nothing to fear from his Second Coming – the Parousia. They should instead rejoice in anticipation of our Lord’s coming for they will be rewarded for their faithfulness to this word. It is those who fail to abide by his commandment, especially the commandment of love of neighbour, who will feel the weight of his anger of the judgment day.
What lesson are we taking home from this reading? One of Saint Paul’s favourite themes is the offering of his life in imitation of Christ. We learn that through the power of the Holy Spirit everything is possible. As Saint John Chrysostom once said: “A feature of the joy of the Holy Spirit is that it causes an uncontainable happiness to grow even out of affliction and sorrow. Joy is the privilege of those who accept sufferings for Jesus Christ’s sake; it is one of the good things bestowed by the Holy Spirit.”
As we too go out into the world to spread the good news of Christ’s love this day, let us share this prayer which Blessed Pope Paul VI left to the Church: “O Lord, God of peace, you have created us and shown us your glory. We bless you and give thanks because you have sent us Jesus, your well-beloved Son. Through the mystery of his resurrection, you made him the worker of salvation, the source of peace, the bond of brotherhood, through Christ the risen Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God forever and ever. Amen”.
Gospel: Matthew 22: 34-40.
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
I owe part of this day’s Gospel reflection to Father Francis Fernandez of the Opus Dei Movement from his beautiful book In Conversation with God: Daily Meditations. He writes that this day’s Gospel is an invitation to joy because it is an invitation to love. The law of love is also the law of joy.
The Pharisees approach Jesus to ask him which is the greatest commandment of the Law. Jesus answers them: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.” This is what we too have to do – direct our entire being to God, serve our neighbours, open ourselves to the Lord and forget about ourselves. We have to put aside our longing for ease and comfort, our vanity and our pride.
Many people labour under the delusion that they will find greater happiness once they possess a ‘sufficiency’ of things, once they achieve popularity or are more admired. They forget that all they need is to have their heart in love. No love can ever fill our heart like the love of God. It is what our hearts were made for. All noble love acquires its true meaning in the context of a radical love for the Lord above all things. He who puts his heart in the things of this world will not find the love of Jesus promised to his own (Jn 16:22). This is because the worldly person does not know how to love in the deepest sense of the word. Saint Teresa of Avila says that “Love has its greatest power when it is perfect. Then we forget our own feelings for the sake of the one we love. If this is really the case, if we seek only to please God, then even the greatest of trials will be made sweet. All trials and tribulations become easy to bear with the help of the Lord.”
But, can we really love God, who we do not see, if we cannot love the one he has placed by our side and who we see everyday, our neighbour? That is indeed the question of the day! In today’s Responsorial Psalm we pray: “My God is my rock where I take refuge; my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold … I love you, Lord, my strength.” We find strength in our God. We also find our joy and peace there in the Lord. We should go to the Lord personally each day in prayer and in the Eucharist because much, indeed, everything depends on our friendship with him.
We should therefore bring this joy and peace to those whom God has placed by our side: our neighbour. We should begin from our own homes, which should be bright and cheerful, like that of the Holy Family of Nazareth. When people say that a home seems like hell, we immediately think of a home without love, without joy, without Christ. A Christian home should be cheerful because Christ is at its head. Being disciples of Christ means that we are living those human and supernatural virtues that are so intimately tied to joy: generosity, cordiality, the spirit of sacrifice, sympathy, concern for making life pleasant for others.
We should bring our joy to the place where we work, to our business associates, to people we meet by chance on the street. Many of these people are sad and troubled. We should help them to see the joy of living in Christ. How many souls have found their way to God by means of this attractive virtue!
Christian joy is also necessary for the proper fulfillment of our ordinary obligations. The more important our duties, the more important it is that our attitude should be one of Christian joy. When we have responsibility for others, then we have a duty to communicate this joy. Such is the case of parents, priests, spiritual directors, teachers, etc. The smiling face of the Lord should shine through our life and works. His perfect peace was shown during his Passion, and Death. Precisely when we find our struggle the more taxing, then we should turn to the poignant example of the Master. It is only then that we can understand that the path to joy is the same as the path to God.
Let us pray: “Lord, you created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Please show us how to love you with all our hearts and our neighbour as ourselves. Teach us to be practical about loving one another in you and for you and as you desire. Show us our immediate neighbour today; call our attention to the needs of others. Remind us that you count as done to you what we do for one another, and that our turning away from one another is really turning our backs on you. Make us know, love and serve you in this life and be happy for ever in the next in union with all our sisters and brothers, children of a common Father, to serve you is to reign. We make our prayer through Christ the risen Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever. Amen.”
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