Wed. of Week 23 in Ordinary Time, September 13, 2006

Scripture: I Cor.7:25-31. Psalm 45:11-17. Luke 6:20-26

Whenever I read or listen to the beatitudes, I think of Jesus' best and first disciple, his mother Mary of Nazareth. In a true way, he,too was her first learner or disciple for a mother is the one who not only nourishes her child but also sings and teaches the child. So the beatitudes make me think of Mary as a Beatitude(s) personified. We know the importance of a name from the Hebrew Scriptures and, Mary's name means her very person. That is what we Marianists celebrated yesterday, Sept. 12th, on the Feast of the Solemnity of the Holy Name of Mary. Getting back to the theme of the day--the beatitudes as given by Luke the third Evangelist, we see that he parallels his presentation of the four beatitudes with four woes. Matthew, on the other hand, has eight or nine beatitudes which are stated with the rewards of living out each of them. We may ask why two different sets of beatitudes? Why eight or nine in Matthewf and only four in Luke? This is probably due to the fact that both evangelists had a similar oral source of the sayings of Jesus, but each redacted and sometimes copied verbatim what was found in this collection of sayings of Jesus. This is called by the biblical scholars (exegetes) the "Q" Source or Quelle (a German word for wellspring) hence, the wellspring for the sayings of Jesus. By the way, this is more factual and historically real than anything found in the fictional novel "The Da Vinci Code." (Sorry about that!). If you have what is known as a Gospel parallel you will easily recognize the Q Source by the passages that are common to Matthew and Luke--both are relying on the same source for these sayings.

Luke, our evangelist for this time of year, does not favor repetition whereas Matthew does. Luke likes to shorten and abreviate and summarize whereas Matthew loves to lengthen and repeat. Just look at some of his parables and at chapter 25. Repetition was important for his listeners who were definitely more Semitic than the listeners of Luke, the universalist who writes for the Nations or the Gentiles.

All of this shows me that the Scriptures are very much a human endeavor which respects the individuality of the writers and at the same time they are divinely inspired. In a sense, since they are all about Jesus, this foreshadows the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Christian understanding of Jesus being both totally human and divine at the same time. It is good to see such unity amidst diversity in our sources. And this is something worthwhile to think about when reflecting upon who Jesus is by way of the Gospels. Amen.