25
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - CYCLE C - 2019
The
liturgy of the Church continues to put before our eyes the teachings of Jesus
that Luke left for us in his Gospel. Today Jesus teaches us a lesson which may
help us in our society: the use of wealth
and honesty in fulfilling our labor.
FIRST READING - PROPHET AMOS
Ø
This prophet
lived in the VIII BC. He was born in the Southern Kingdom, Judah; but the Lord
called him to do his ministry as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom.
Ø
He has been
called the prophet of the justice of God.
Ø
Justice as the
Scripture understands it, not in the way our modern states understand it. We
say that justice is to give to each one what is his or hers. We also say that
justice is to abide the law.
Ø
But, for the people of the Bible, justice has to do
with human relationships among us and
with our God.
Ø
It has to do with
the mercy and the generosity that we discover so abundantly and surprisingly in
the relationship of God with us.
Ø
The just deeds of
God are acts of liberation of his people from slavery.
Ø
Jesus has
manifested to us in a very clear and surprising way this justice of God, in the
fact that the Son of God personally has come to live among us in order to make
us just, with the justice of God, liberating us from the greatest of the
slaveries: sin.
Ø
Thus, we may truly say that the book of Amos is
about justice, not about the justice of God but about the lack of justice of the people.
Amos 8:4-7
ü
Amos describes
the lie, the lack of truth in the behavior of those who accumulate riches, to
enjoy them without worrying about those less fortunate.
ü
He describes
persons who "abide" the law, with a fake repose but God
sees something else, he sees the lack of truth of his creature, these persons rest because they are constraint
to do it, but while they do nothing apparently, they are planning their
businesses.
ü
They not only
plan their business, they also think how they will cheat, take advantage and trick those more vulnerable.
ü
The prophet Amos,
who defended strongly the rights of all, puts in the mouth of God a sentence, which
terrifies us, if we take it seriously, "never
will I forget a thing they have done!"
ü
It does not
frighten us, that God who "forgets and erases" all the sins we have
committed, says that he will never forget the injustice that we do to our
brothers and sisters?
ü
What will he say
to our generation, to our society, in which millions of our brothers and
sisters die from lack of what is most essential for the human life, while we
waste money, and possessions buying
worthless things and making devices to kill, or buying expensive food, toys and
treats for our pets?
ü
Each one of us will give his or her own answer
to that question.
ü
I think that this
is the purpose to choose these readings for the liturgy
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps
113
PRAISE THE LORD WHO LIFTS UP THE
POOR.
Praise, you servants of the Lord
praise the name of the Lord
blessed be the name of the Lord
both now and forever.
High above all nations is the Lord
above the heavens is his glory
who is like the Lord, our God, who is enthroned on
high
and looks upon the heavens and the earth below?
He raises up the lowly from the dust
from the dunghill he lifts up the poor
to seat them with princes
with the princes of his own
people.
v
This psalm
describes the works of the power of God, who bends towards the needy, the
poorest, thus showing his mercy and justice.
GOSPEL Lk 16:1-3
This is a very interesting parable of Jesus.
It describes the situation of an employee, one who
works for a salary, a steward to whom the master asks him to give an account of
his administration, before he is fired from his job.
The reason to fire him is that he has been dishonest,
he has not been faithful to his master, but has used his position for his own
benefit, cheating.
Let us look more closely to the situation of that
man:
·
On one hand, we
realize that the behavior of this man is as dishonest as the behavior of those
men described in the first reading. His life is a lie. He has the appearance of
honesty and fidelity, while the truth is that he is dishonest and a
liar.
·
On the other hand,
we realize also that in some way he is able to be honest sometimes. He says the
truth about himself: he cannot work because he has never worked, he is not able
to beg, to ask for help, but he finds the way. He will lower the debts of all
the debtors of his master. In this way he will continue to be in charge, he
will not be subjected to them, because he knows that they are also dishonest,
as much as he is. In a word, he is
blackmailing them.
Sometimes as I meditate on the situation of injustice
in which we live in our societies, it seems to me that it is very similar to
what the parable explains to us:
§
Those who
"sell" to us, they really "buy" us instead, lowering the
prices and giving two for one
§
Then our greed
makes us blind and we do not see anymore the injustice around us.
§
Thus, we do not
denounce because if we do so, we will be
left without the benefits that they offer to us.
Jesus continues saying that the "children of the
world", world understood as unjust society, are more prudent than those
who try to live according to the values of the Kingdom.
Something very interesting is that riches are
presented as something we do not own we only are the stewards of it.
This is the truth, none of us owns the riches, we only
administer them. The call here is to administer with the justice of God, which
is the same as the truth of God.
Strong message, this one, it knocks at the door of our
heart strongly inviting us to live in the truth of God, in his justice which is
made of mercy.
SECOND LETTER 1 Tm 2:1-8
v The author of this letter invites us to personal and
community prayer
v A prayer with external gestures
v A prayer for those who govern us
v And not only pray for them for their own good
v Also for the good of all, so that we will be able to
live in peace.
v The reason for this is the only mediator that we have,
Christ Jesus who wants to save us.
v
This second
reading has something in common with the other two readings: peace and
justice. CLARETIAN CORNER
Many other times our Lord has
given me the grace to follow him with great detachment from all things and much
trust in His Divine Providence. The Lord always does this with a great feeling
of gratitude and tells me with great love: “My daughter, if one could be
detached from oneself, then he would know what I do for him. Venerable
María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography
91
After
that time, I recited the rosary not only in church but at home every night, as
was the custom of my parents. After I had finished grammar school and had begun
to work regularly in the factory, as I mentioned in chapter 5, I recited the
three parts daily along with my fellow workers, who kept on working as I led
them. We said the first part before eight o'clock breakfast, the second before
lunch at noon, and the third before nine in the evening when they went home to
dinner. Saint
Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography
46.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, Antonio María Claret, Autobiography.
HAMEL, Jean-François. « Digne de confiance » in Prions en Église, 117.
JENSEN, Joseph. Ethical Dimension of the Prophets. Collegeville, Minnesota 2006.
PAGOLA,
José A. Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. Meditations on the Gospels for
Year C.
PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiography
RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según
las Escrituras, Año C.
SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso, Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.
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