Lectionary 192

Scripture: Lectionary 192. Isaiah 56:1-3,6-8. Psalm 67:2-3.5.7-8. John
5:33-36:

Keep holy the Sabbath is the motif behind our reading of Second Isaiah
today. Even the nations, the Gentiles and our ancestors are called to
revere and worship the Lord and dedicate this day to him. Perhaps, we are
not called to observe it in the same way as Isaiah's listeners, but the
lesson is there. Prayer, leisure, taking time our for God is important
especially when we feel the world is running ahead of us and controlling us
with its demands. We are called in spirit to join in on Isaiah's call to
take the time to slow down and stop the stressful and frantic panic that
comes to us as we prepare for Christmas. Isaiah promises that peace,
justice, and salvation is ours when we turn to the Lord with all our heart,
mind, and soul. We have learned from Jesus in that marvelous fourth
chapter of John's Gospel that "Salvation is indeed from the Jews" (John
4:22). In that spirit we read Isaiah with a new understanding that lets us
in to his message.

Psalm 67 furthers the call to the Gentiles with the great priestly blessing
within its verses: "The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face
shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and
give you peace!" This is the greatest blessing we have in the Bible. We
respond to the psalm and its message,"O God, let all the nations praise
you."

We then turn to John's Gospel for the first time this Advent and we listen
to Jesus testifying to the great lamp of light that John is. He burns
brightly and witnesses to the coming Messiah. Jesus is the Light, John
the lamp. There is an echo of the majestic Prologue of the Gospel that
already has an encomium for the Baptist. It is the prose of the Prologue
for John while the poetry remains for the Word of God, Jesus become flesh
of the Virgin Mary and dwelling among us. We ponder on the words of the
Prologue about John and hear Jesus the Word explaining them to us in the
passage for today's liturgy: "There was a man named John sent by God who
came as a witness to testify to the light, for he himself was not the
light, so that through him all men might believe--but only to testify to
the light, for he himself was not the light. The real light which gives
light to every man was coming into the world....John testified to him by
proclaiming,"This is he of whom I said, the One who comes after me ranks
ahead of me , for he was before me." John 1:6-8, 15. Amen.

Dec. 17th Beginning of the O Antiphons. Lectionary # 194. Genesis
49:2.8-10. Psalm 72:3-4,7-8,17. Matthew 1:1-17:

What's it to you that we read the genealogical account of Jesus descending
from Abraham down to Joseph, the just man and husband of Mary? For many
this birth record is boring and does not make sense to them with all of
these ancient Hebrew names. Consider this, they merited to be in the most
read book in the world, the Bible. Our names will never appear in divinely
written scriptures from two thousand years ago and even further back if we
include the Old Testament. Our genealogy for today is contained within the
books of the Old Testament especially within Genesis. So Matthew, who is
probably a Jewish author is trying to situate the birth within Judaism and
within the Messianic lineage of David. Patriarchs are named, then kings,
women, and some good and some bad persons, but this is the stuff and
reality of humans made in the image and likeness of God. Some have lived
up to that description of what it means to be human; others have not come
close to it since we have sinners amidst the just ones. The genealogy
reflects salvation history which continues and in many respects is the same
as what went on in the lives of those mentioned in the genealogy.

One of the greatest biblical scholars from our own country, Father Raymond
Brown,SS. encouraged preachers and homilists not to leave this birth record
aside. They are to preach on it. When was the last great homily you heard
on it?

Why not start with the five women who are mentioned, that is easier than
going into the names of the men. Each of the women has a story that will
be found in the Old Testment except the last one whose story will unravel
in Matthew and Luke. They are easily located in the Old Testament by
looking at the cross-references to them given in a student's bible. Here
are some of the most colorful narratives in the Old Testament.

Some of the reasons for reading the genealogy are the following:
1) It shows or demonstrates through human births how Jesus is related to us
in all of the things that we possess from birth and that his birth is real
and historical. Jesus stems from the ancestors who are mentioned from
Abraham on and then through the royal lineage of David; each king passes
this on till we reach Jesus who also is from the davidic line and thus has
a legitimate claim to being the messiah. Jesus is a bona fide human born of
a human mother who name is Mary.
2) Matthew's immediate congregation is given a way of looking at the
legitimacy of Jesus in his birth of Mary, a virgin. He is the first to
explicitly speak of the virgin Mary in terms of human generation. He also
mentions the importance of Joseph as the foster-father of the child (you
will see this in carefully reading verse 16). Again the humanity of Jesus
is real and is not as some early Christians falsely taught that Jesus is
merely an appearance, a phantom, a other worldly person who is not real
flesh and blood. This tendency is called Docetism (Appearance).
3) We enter into the mystery of salvation history and the communion of
saints by our realizing the lineage has all of the components of our own
immediate ancestors except for the royalty. God is working through the
limits and weaknesses of human nature. The women show how God breaks
through and justifies them and thus shows us great hope in humankind. It
is good that Matthew did not neglect mentioning them.
4) There may be a symbolic meaning to five women who may represent the
fullness of God's revelation seen in the Pentateuch or Torah (the first
five books of the bible). We know that there is the strong possibility of
a symbol that represents the name of David. DVD in Hebrew is equivalent to
the number fourteen. D=4, V=6, and another D =4, thus fourteen. Matthew
gives us three sets of fourteen with a problem of our finding only thirteen
in the third set. A scholar helps us through this problem: "Various
solutions have been proposed: Is Christ the fourteenth? Or is the
fourteenth place reserved for the coming of the Son of Man? Or does Matthew
imply a generation between the second and third section: Joakim was the
father of Jeconiah. The puzzle remains." (Benedict Viviano, in New Jerome
Biblical Commentary, p.635).
5) The genealogy highlights David, Joseph, and Mary--three persons who help
us during this Advent season and who bring us to the crib. Today as we
sing the first of the O Antiphons let us be thankful for the birth record
of Jesus.
O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet
tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation. Amen.

Dec. 18th. Lectionary 193. Scripture: Jeremiah 23:5-8. Psalm
72:1.12-13.18-19. Matthew 1:18-24.

Our only description of who Joseph is appears today in the conclusion of
Matthew's first chapter. Joseph is the husband of Mary and the
foster-father of the child born of her, Jesus. We see him not as an old
man who is there just as a protector of Mary, but truly as a strong and
just person who has all of the best of human qualities that a father should
have. Only the Apocryphal Gospels picture him as old. The New Testament
says nothing about his age and handles the delicate relationship he has
with Mary in a sane and different way that makes sense to us who have the
Christian faith. Our passage then is the fullest description of who he is.
Though short it contains much with in it as do most of the passages in
Scripture. The passage is central to the mystery of the Incarnation and to
our salvation. Joseph is the parent who gives the name of Jesus to the
child according to the information he receives from an angelic messenger
sent to him from God in a dream.

The key word to describe Joseph is "dikaiosyne" in the text of Matthew. It
is multivalent in meaning; here are the words used in the dictionary of the
New Testement' Greek: just, upright, righting wrong, doing what God
requires, putting oneself in a right relationship with God and neighbor,
doing acts of charity (Matthew 6:1), and one who fulfills his or her
duties. Joseph is such a person who has all of these qualities and virtues.

The word in Hebrew contains the same meanings. It is tsadiq. Here are a
few examples of how it is used to day among Jewish persons. " A word from
the same root as tsadiq is tsedakah, "charity." Tsadiq and tsadeket are
powerful words. This is the ultimate compliment to someone or to someone's
memory. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov said,"I hope I can love a tsadiq as
much as God loves a wicked man. Tsadikim are greater in their death than in
their life."

And from the Short dictionary on the Psalms we learn that the word tsadiq
has three main meanings: the objective right of persons, the respect of
this right (social justice) and the quality of relationship with God--one
is righteous (tsaddiq) if he or she respects God's plans for the world.
This is one of the principal designations of the believer in the Psalter.

Our devotion to St. Joseph has him as the Protector of the Universal Church
and as the Patron for a peaceful death. We can see that the word that
describes him is correctly handed on in the tradtion about Joseph in our
prayers dedicated to him. May he guide us this day of Advent as we sing
the second O Antiphon. Amen.