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. It offers a reflection on the story of the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt in the Exodus, which always stood high in any ancient Jewish perception of God and religion. God sent Moses to lead the people in their escape.
Very much a part of the story was the people’s awareness of the debt of homage they owed to God. On occasion, they failed, but overall, they worshipped God, their deliverer.
This book, along with the other books of the Old Testament’s wisdom literature, presents itself as the fruit of human logic and 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, brutally quashed by the Romans in the year 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.
This epistle encouraged and challenged these Jewish converts to Christianity.
The reading is eloquent. It literally sings about the majesty and the power of faith. By acknowledging God and by receiving Jesus, the Son of God, believers affirm that God is and has been active in human life through the centuries. Abraham experienced this and God rewarded him. The Hebrew people descended from Abraham through his son, Isaac.
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, may have been written around the year 80, a half century after Jesus.)
This is no way diminishes the Gospel’s validity, but it says that Luke knew the stresses facing Christians at the time when the Gospel was composed. It was written during the persecution, and certainly the struggle between the Gospel and the pagan culture affected its composition.
The words of Jesus, recalled in Luke and proclaimed 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 only be fully 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 debating political efforts to raise or lower taxes.
Few people think much about death, although it is inevitable. It is too frightening to consider. So, we turn a blind eye.
These readings are blunt and utterly realistic for our own good. Physical death awaits us all. Before that comes, we can create for ourselves the living death of despair and separation from God.
God wills that we live in peace now as well as in eternity. He gave us Moses and Abraham. He gave us Jesus, the very Son of God, to lead us to the eternal wedding banquet.
As the Gospel emphatically tells us, as the Hebrews longing for deliverance told us, we must recognize God. We must prepare ourselves to follow Jesus by loving God above all. God alone is our security and hope. He has proved it.
The Criterion will not have an issue next week due to its summer schedule. The reflection of Msgr. Owen Campion for Sunday, August 17, will be posted at www.archindy.org/campion. †