Scripture Reflections for Nov 1,2, 3 Lectionary # 667 All Saints, # 485, Nov.2 All Souls day, November 3
3:1-3. Matthew 5:1-12. Lectionary 667:
Beatitudes are numerous in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
On this feast of All Saints we commemorate these models of the Christian
life who lived out the beatitudes. One of the leading ones is the Blessed
Virgin Mary--even her title is addressed in a beatitudinal manner. It is
from Matthew and Luke that we first learned about the beatitudes. Both draw
on a common source (Quelle Source or Saying Source "Q") and adapted them to
the needs of their communities. Luke is crisp and short. Matthew has the
whole list of beatitudes given on the Sermon on the Mount, while Luke has
them given on the plain.
Those who lived them out by the grace of God and by the guidance of the
Holy Spirit show us how to live the life of the Spirit--it is by doing the
will of God through the beatitudes. When we ask ourselves what is the will
of God for me, we just need to reread the beatitudes. Therein is our call
to holiness as part of the People of God, the Church, the Body of Christ.
Through observing them we grow in the virtues that go directly to God:
faith, hope, and love (charity) called the theological virtues because they
are oriented toward our relationship with God. "Theos" means God.
Among the innumerable saints we all have favorites. They are the ones we
call upon in our needs. You often hear of certain ones like St. Jude
Thaddaeus, or St. Mary Magdalene, St. Anthony, St. Francis and St.
Catherine of Siena. We make our journey with them and pray to them for
helping us to stay on the path to God. They offer us a model for the
blueprint of the beatitudes. But today we take the opportunity for
remembering the saints and holy women and men who were not canonized.
These are so numerous that even the Book of Revelation uses an infinite
numbering of them by using a phrase that means they are so numerous we
cannot count them.
Today we may wish to call upon those now living and those who have died as
holy people to help us on the journey with Jesus that Luke has called us to
do. This mystery of All Saints is bound up with the Creed we say,"We
believe in the Communion of Saints." Beatitudes help us to join them
through our acts and our prayers. Amen.
Lectionary 485: November 1: See scripmed.com
Scripture: All Souls Day,November 2, All Souls Day: Wisdom 3:1-9. Psalm 23.
Romans 5:5-11 or Romans 6:3-9 and John 6:37-40:
Today we pray for all the faithful departed. Before Vatican II, three
Masses were offered on this day for the Poor Souls. Visits were made to
the churches to pray for the departed and visits to the cemetery took place
for many who had lost their parents and loved ones. They, the souls of all
the faithful,. are commemorated and prayed for that they be with God in the
kingdom of heaven.
St. Ambrose has this to say; it fits this commemorative day of prayer:"We
have loved them during life; let us not abandon them until we have
conducted them by our prayers to the house of the Lord." We keep this
thought in mind through our readings. The first two readings from Wisdom
and the Psalms are very consoling for us who are among the living. We
realize that the faithful have gone before us with the signs of their faith
and how they have followed our Lord through his suffering, death, and
resurrection.
Our reading from Wisdom is frequently used in the Masses for Christian
Burial and Psalm 23 is almost always used in services that commemorate the
passing from this life of our loved ones into eternal life. "Life is
changed, not taken away."
Jesus reminds us that we are all in the hands of God and that he comes to
help us do the will of the Father as he has done. We hear his voice saying,
" And this is the will of the one who sent me...that I should not lose
anything (anyone) he gave me, but I should raise it up on the last day."
We trust in these words and the promises of our Lord. We receive
reconciliation and salvation from him for our believing in him who is our
way, our truth and our life. Amen.
Scripture: Lectionary # 486. Philippians 2:5-11. Psalm
22:26-27.28-30.31-32. Luke 14: 15-24 (Continuous Reading for 31 week in
ordinary time)
We probably have realized that our weekday readings do not always have a
continuous theme. Unlike Sundays, the readings there are coordinated to
have at least two of them presenting the same theme. Even the Psalm
response often agrees with this similarity of themes. Today's readings are
different. We will concentrate only on Philippians 2:5-11 which is the
earliest Christological hymn in the New Testament. Paul borrowed it from a
Eucharist in which it was read to help us focus on who Jesus is. It is
called by some the Carmen Christi or the Hymn about Christ. This could have
been what Pliny the Younger describes about those who followed Jesus. John
Meier states, "Among the practices of Christians, Pliny mentions their
custom of meeting regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses "to
Christ as to a God" (Christo quasi deo)." Meier, Vol I of a Marginal Jew,
p.92) citing Letter 10.96 of a letter written by Pliny the Younger to the
Emperor Trajan.
St. Paul was probably borrowing this from a liturgy similar to what Pliny
is describing in order to bring home his point of having Christians take on
the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:1-4). The hymn in some respects
resembles the Prologue of John by mentioning the pre-existence of Jesus.
The pattern of coming down, being on earth, and then returning to the
Father is easily seen in this hymn. Philippians gives us more the Paschal
Mystery of Jesus in the development of the verses. Thus we see the
Pre-Existent One, coming down as a servant or slave of God through his
obedience even unto a death upon a Cross. At the end of the hymn Jesus is
declared to be "Lord". This is the sacred name substituted as Adonai
whenever the tetragrammaton appears in the Old Testament. For us
Christians, Jesus is Lord even though he lived among us as a human being
while at the same time being the Son of God. The term Lord denotes his
status and his power.
The hymn parallels what Luke has Mary singing in her Magnificat. There
several of the key words match what the hymn to Christ is saying. He
humbled himself and was a servant (doulos) of the Father. Mary both
expresses her humility and identifies herself as the servant or handmaid of
the Lord. Mary has to always be seen in relationship to Christ.
Christology and Marian theology are complementary like Mother and Son.
Amen.
Scripture # 487 November 3, 2010. Philippians 2:12-18. Psalm 27:1.4.13-14,
Luke 14:25-33:
Jesus' words to us today are strong and difficult. Detachment from others
and from our possessions is no easy task and yet that is what Jesus calls
us to in our discipleship. We are helped to understand this challenge of
following the Lord by first listening to Paul, the apostle of the
Resurrected Lord Jesus. He encoourages us, consoles us, and helps us to
assimilate even the "hard sayings" of Jesus. The cost of discipleship
seems impossible and too demanding. We need the grace of God and the
inspiriing Holy Spirit to help us discern the harshness of Jesus in this
selection from Luke. Paul as an apostle and agent of the Lord bring us his
good news especially in this Letter to the Philippians.
The joy, the hope, and the love that Paul preaches and writes about is
bound up with our following Jesus. The first step is obedience to God, that
is, doing God's will. Jesus has always had this as his top priority and we
too must place God first in our calling whatever that may be. We can start
by praying with Jesus and saying, "Father, not my will but thine be done."
We are moved by Paul telling us, "to work with anxious concern about our
salvation." We are to be the light and salt for others or as Paul puts it,
"We are to be like the stars in the sky holding fast to the word of life."
In our relationship to Jesus we strive to experience him and to be one with
him in his mind and his heart. We learn from him how to relate then to our
parents, our loved ones, and those who are our friends. He helps us to
extend this even to those who do not like or love us.
Our detachment from family and friends is how we learn to see how we fit
into God's plan of salvation history. We are all a part of it and are
members of the Body of Christ. Jesus never leads us in wrong or negative
ways of thinking; he is always with us as our brother and friend. We are
to continue to hold fast to Jesus the Lord who is the Word of life that
Paul is talking about. (John 14:6). We are to rejoice in Christ and with
Paul who lives only for Christ. "For me to live is Christ." Amen.
posted by Fr. Bert SM at 9:48 AM
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