Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The Book of Wisdom is the source of the first reading for Mass this weekend. Always standing high in any ancient Jewish perception of God and religion was the story of the Exodus, when God guided the Hebrews from Egypt where they had been enslaved. God sent Moses to lead the people in their escape.
The people’s awareness of their debt to God and homage to him was very much a part of the story. On occasion, they failed, but overall they worshipped God, their deliverer.
This book, along with the other books of the wisdom literature, presents itself as the fruit of human logic as well as of faith, stressing that there is no conflict between the two.
The second reading for this weekend is from the Epistle to the Hebrews, written for Jewish converts to Christianity who faced the same difficulties as those experienced by pagan converts in the first generations of the Church.
After the Jews’ rebellion against Rome, quashed so brutally by the Romans in 70, the legal system of the empire was no friendlier to Jews than it was to Christians. Christians were beginning to face persecution because they defied laws requiring worship of the Roman gods and goddesses, including the emperor.
The writer of this epistle encouraged and challenged these Jewish converts to Christianity.
The reading is eloquent. It literally sings about the majesty and power of faith. By acknowledging God and by receiving Jesus, the Son of God, believers affirm the fact that God is and has been active through the centuries in human life. Abraham experienced this, and God rewarded Abraham. From Abraham, through his son Isaac, descended the Hebrew people.
St. Luke’s Gospel provides the last reading. It is always important to realize that the Gospels were not composed during the Lord’s time on Earth, but decades after Jesus lived and preached. Biblical scholars think that Luke’s Gospel, based fundamentally upon Mark’s but using other sources as well, was written around 80, a half century after Jesus ascended back to heaven.
This in no way diminishes the Gospel’s validity, but it says that the evangelist knew the stresses facing Christians at the time when the Gospel was composed. The Gospel was composed during the persecution, and certainly the struggle between the Gospel and the pagan culture affected its composition.
The words of Jesus chosen by the evangelist and read during this weekend’s Masses are encouraging. They also warn.
Jesus urges disciples to be prepared. He will take care of them. Surviving on Earth is not the ultimate, however. Believers will be vindicated by Jesus in the heavenly kingdom. A wedding banquet is used to describe what will come. Jesus is the bridegroom. The banquet will celebrate life in heaven.
Reflection
Only two things are certain in life, they say: death and taxes. People spend much time thinking about taxes, filing returns on time, paying what is due, watching withholding statements, and resisting political efforts to raise taxes.
Few people think much about death, though it is inevitable. It is too frightening to consider. So we turn a blind eye.
These readings are blunt and utterly realistic. Death awaits us all. Aside from final death, we can create for ourselves the living death of despair.
God wills that we live with peace in our hearts now, and that we live forever. He gave us Abraham and Moses. He gave us Jesus, his Son. Jesus will lead us to the eternal wedding banquet.
As the Gospel tells us, as the Hebrews longing for deliverance told us, we must recognize God. We must prepare ourselves to follow Jesus by being faithful and by loving God above all. God alone is our security and hope. He has proved it. †