Tuesday, August 21, 2012

XXI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – AUGUST 26, 2012- CYCLE B

*      The readings of this Sunday’s liturgy are an invitation to choose between God and the idols, the false gods:  
o   Joshua asks the Israelites whether they really want to follow God who delivered them from the slavery of Egypt, or they rather prefer to return to the slavery in Egypt.
o   Jesus asks his disciples if they also want to leave him, because his words are difficult to accept. 
o   And what about us, whom are we going to choose and to follow?  

THE BOOK OF JOSHUA 
«  This book narrates the conquest of the promised land by the Israelites, and its distribution among the tribes. 

«  The conquest is presented 
o   In a very synthetic and simplified way 
o   Probably it was more difficult, and surely it was not homogeneous 
o   The tribes would enter and conquer different places of the land of Canaan over a long period of time, sometimes even without any war at all.
o   Some people would enter as workers, others as nomad shepherds, others as immigrants…  

«  The book of Joshua is indispensable to know the fulfillment of the promises made to the Fathers, about the promised land.

«  The Biblical scholars see this book in different ways: 
o   Some consider it to be so close to the themes of the Pentateuch that they think it should be part of it. We would have an Hexateuch (six books) instead of a Pentateuch (five books)   
o   Others see it together with the Deuteronomy so different from the rest of the 4 books that they should not be included and therefore become a Tetrateuch (4 books). 

«  The composition of this book:
o   Most of the chapters are written by a deuteronomistic author or authors. 
o   Later on an author o several authors from the priestly tradition introduced the texts about:
§  The distribution of the land 
§  The cities of asylum
§  The levitical cities  

«  THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF JOSHUA:
o   The land is a gift from Yahweh to Israel, his chosen people, it is the land promised to the fathers.  
o   This gift comes with a condition: faithfulness  
o   When Israel forgets about its faithfulness it loses the land. 
o   This is the way they could explain the meaning of the Babylonian exile: they had been unfaithful to Yahweh.   
o   If they dream to go back to the land they will have to be faithful and not contaminate themselves with the pagan nations.    

«  JEREM (EXTERMINATION)
o   We find in the theology of the book of Joshua a dark side which is difficult for us  to explain and to understand.
o   The institution of the Jerem or  God’s ban.   
o   They could not take anything and not spare the life of anyone of the inhabitants of the places they conquered.  
o   This was a common practice of the peoples of the ancient Middle East that were neighbors of Israel, all of them offered the goods and the persons of the conquered places to their divinities. 
o   The scholars say that probably they did always apply this law, and even when it was applied they did not kill more people than in a regular war.    

«  This is the way Israel explains 
o   The events of history to understand them. For all those peoples, including Israel everything that happens is because God wants it, and if it is something that God does not want, punishment will follow, and destruction.  
o   But we have learned something more from Jesus, who is the full and final revelation of God:  
§  He has told us that the Father loves us all
§  And that we should love one another, even the enemies.    

FIRST READING   Joshua 24:1-2ª,15-17,18b
Ø  Joshua is the successor of Moses who has led the people into the promised land. Now when he is near to his death he summons the tribes at Shechem, the heart of the promised land which they have conquered. He asks them:  whom do they want to serve?  

Ø  The word “to serve” does not have a servile meaning in the Old Testament.  It means the joyful and free acceptance of God’s project.   

Ø  Joshua reminds the people what God has done for them since the call of Abraham, and how he has fulfilled the promises, and Joshua says AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSEHOLD, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.   

Ø   The people answered “we will serve the Lord, He is our God!  

Ø  This passages is written in the form of a covenant similar to the covenants between the masters and the vassal among the Hitites:
o   First a reminder of what the lord had done for the vassals
o   The covenant clauses
o   The witnesses     

Ø  This covenant had two directions:
o   One vertical between the tribes and Yahweh
o   Another horizontal among the people, this covenant with Yahweh helps them to become a people,   

RESPONSORIAL PSALM   Psalm 34  
We continue to read  psalm 34 like in the previous Sundays and the response is the same TASTE AND SEE THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.   

GOSPEL Jn 6: 60-69
ü  We have reached the end of chapter 6 of  John’s Gospel. Jesus has fed the crowd, He has declared that He is the bread that has come down from heaven, He has said that we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life, those who heard him could not accept these words and left.   

ü  Now Jesus asks his disciples, who also have doubts, the great question, do you want also to leave? 

ü  And Peter, like at  the confession at Caesarea of Philippi which we read in the gospel of Matthew, says to the Lord in the name of the group of apostles: to whom shall we go, you have words of eternal life, you are the Holy One of God.  

ü  In the gospel of John this episode of the life of Jesus has a great importance. It has been called the Galilean crisis. At this point the life of Jesus changes. He  leaves his country Galilee, and starts his journey towards the South, towards Jerusalem where he will end his earthly life.   

ü  The disciples have to choose like the people of Israel had to choose at Shechem. 

ü  The liturgy of this coming Sunday asks us to face the key question of our life, whom do we want to follow? Christ, who gives us life, but whose following is difficult and many times incomprehensible? Or do we prefer the comfort which our society offers to us, road that will lead us to death.        

ü  The choice is ours, each one of us will find at the end of his or her journey what he or she has chosen during his or her life.   

ü  May the Lord grant us that our response be like Joshua’s response “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Or like the words of Peter “to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life, you are the Holy One of God.”   

SECOND READING Ephesians 5: 21-32
«  The author of the letter has spoken about the need of unity and harmony among the members of the community, the Church. 

«  Now he turns his eyes towards the family, the domestic church, to remind also the need for unity and harmony among its members and with Christ.  

«  He uses the vocabulary of his times, which he does not want to make them the word of God, becvause what is the word of God is the meaning of the words he uses. By sure that today he would not use the word “subordinate” when he speaks to the wives.

«  The union between husband and wife is called to be the image of the union of Christ and the Church. This union between man and woman bound in matrimony has to be the image of the relation which exists between Christ and the Church: a union of love and of reciprocal self-giving.  

BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, ANTONIO MARÍA, Autobiography.
PARIS, MARÍA ANTONIA, Autobiography.
RAVASSI, GIANFRANCO, Según las Escrituras Año B. San Pablo Bogotá Colombia 2005.  
SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Madrid 2011. (Conference of Bishops of Spain, oficial translation of the Bible.)
SCHOKEL, LUIS ALONSO, La Biblia de nuestro pueblo (The Bible of our People)  Misioneros Claretianos, Ediciones Mensajero, China 2010.  

 CLARETIAN CORNER


 
The good missionary must adjust himself to the disposition of the persons with whom he relates and be all for everybody in order to gain them all. Never speak ill of the country God will send him; nor tolerate that his brothers or companions speak ill of those poor people that God has entrusted them. The whole world must be country for the missionary of Christ, because our Divine Redeemer came to redeem all, sending to preach the same Gospel all over the world. The missionary crying before God of the bad customs of the country will obtain more than speaking with his brothers of the poor sinners. María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters,  The Apostolic Missionary,  2:8-11

While I was traveling I would strike up a conversation with those who chanced to join me about the various things we saw. If I happened to see some flowers, I would point to them and remark that, as these plants produced beautiful and fragrant flowers, we should produce virtues. The rose, for example, teaches us love, the lily symbolizes purity, the violet, humility, etc. We must, as the Apostle says, be "the good odor of Christ in every place.'' If I saw a tree laden with fruit, I would remark that we, too, should bear the fruit of good works, so not to end up like the two fig trees in the Gospel.  If we passed by a river, I would say that the running water reminds us that we are passing on toward eternity. If we heard birds singing or music being played, I would refer to the new and everlasting song of heaven, etc. I have personally witnessed the great value of conversations like these; their effect was like that of the conversation Christ held with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus. I also found that they had the further advantage of avoiding useless talk and grumbling Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 336.    





No comments:

Post a Comment