Lectionary for Sunday and Monday, # 152,485.

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Scripture: Lectionary 152: Oct.30^th, 31 Sun. A. Malachi 1:14-2:2.8-10. Psalm 131:1.2.3. I Thessalonians 2:7-9, 13. Matthew 23:1-12:

Both Paul, the Psalm, and the reading from yesterday about Jesus comparing himself to a mother hen who protects her chicks under her wings show us the feminine side of God both in our human reckoning and in the revealed Scriptures of both the New and Old Testaments.

Paul cares for the believers in Thessalonica as a mother cares for her children. She nurses them, caresses them, and cares for all that they need. The Thessalonians have responded to that special love of Paul and take comfort in it. He is pleased with them as a mother is for her children.

In our first reading from the prophet Malachi we hear him telling the Israelites to lay to heart the faith they once had and to return to God their Creator. They have turned the blessings of God into curses by their forgetting that God alone is their helper. There is an emphasis on the holy Name of God which in Hebrew thought means the very Person of God. The Hebrew Bible always presents God to us as a Person not as a force or figment of imagination. There is nothing superstitious in Jewish believers when it comes to the Person of God. We need to remind ourselves of Deuteronomy 6:4 whenever we think of them who are to love God with all their heart, their soul, and their might.

In the Psalm we learn more about the comforting love of God who is likened to a mother who is weaning her child. We can learn much from this Psalm about the tenderness of God toward us. God’s love is everlasting in this comfort and tenderness. Though it is the third shortest psalm there is a deeper spirituality expressed in those psalms that are shorter. The Hebrew commentary of the Soncino collection has this comment:” A remarkable piece of imagery. An infant in its mother’s arms instinctively yearns for her milk; but after being weaned, it still finds happy security when held by her although the earlier longing has passed. Such is the psalmist’s condition after weaning himself from the desire for prominence.”

We also can compare the image given to us in this psalm to what Isaiah tells us: “As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:13) And in another chapter: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee.” (Isaiah 49: 15).

In the Gospel, Jesus warns the leaders and scribes to practice what they preach. They are to be servants in their leadership to others in the community. They, however, seek their own glory and lay burdens on others but not on themselves. They seek titles of honor and prestigious places in gatherings. Jesus is the servant of God who comes to serve those who follow him as disciples. He is the teacher par excellence and does whatever he asks of us first. We can model our own way of being a servant on his words and deeds. There is nothing phony about him. He assures us that the greatest among us has to be the servant of all. We are all learners and should be led by Jesus and Paul to take on the pattern of leadership that they show us in the Gospel and in the Epistles. We are to trust in Jesus and in God as a loving parent who cares for us. Disciples should have the disposition to be simple like a child in its mother’s arms. These feminine images of God and Jesus are important for us in our relationship with the divine realm of the Trinity. We then may be able to extend such tenderness in our role as servant leaders. Those who are teachers then will be able to become educators who are concerned with the persons in front of them. Amen.

Monday of thirty-first week. Lectionary # 485:

Scripture: Lectionary 485: Romans 11: 29-36. Psalm 69:30-31.33-34.36-37. Luke 14:12-14:

Paul reasons and teaches under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through the gift of faith which he received in his conversion experience of the Risen Christ. He has ceased kicking against the goad and now is a prophetic apostle in what he writes to the Romans who are both Christian and Jewish in their respective callings. As a pastor he is concerned for all who listen to his preaching and read his writings whether they be Christian Jews or Gentiles. Rome had both in abundance at the time of his last and greatest epistle, that of Romans. All are to be under the plan of God for their salvation which Paul now is convinced is through the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. (See Galatians 4:4-5).

We learn of how Paul is overwhelmed by the mystery of God’s wisdom and wonderful plan of salvation for all humankind. He again sums it up with this statement that is also a prayer: “For from him and through him and in him all things are: to him be the glory forever. Amen.” We are now aware that Paul often prays within the epistles that he writes and thus they are significant for all times since they enter the realm of God’s time called “chairos”.

Psalm 69 is harmonious with what Paul conveys to us in the short passage for today. This psalm is frequently found in the New Testament and in early Christian writers. It takes on a messianic perspective and thus enters into the unfathomable mystery of God’s wisdom in creation and in our redemption. The core of this psalm is God’s merciful and tender love (hesed). The abundance of God’s compassion is felt (rehem) and the truth (emet) of our salvation is experienced. This Psalm has the passionate prayers of a Jeremiah and may have even been composed by him. We make it our own prayer by reciting it with attention and devotion.

Jesus now speaks to the chief Pharisee who probably invited him to the wedding feast or the banquet. Though the passage is very short for this day, it reminds us of our responsibility for the poor and the underprivileged. Our reward will be in the resurrection of our souls because we have shared the food of life with the disadvantaged. (Father Karris, O.F.M.). Amen.