Monday, September 27, 2021

 

    27 - SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - B – 2021 

The teachings this Sunday are about love between the married couple.  

THE BOOK OF GENESIS 

«  Genesis is the name of the first book of the Greek translation of the Bible. In the Hebrew Bible the name is Beresit= In the beginning.   

«  It is the book about the origins. It has two parts, the first about the origin of the universe and humans, the second about the origin of the people of Israel.  

«  The book is formed by narrations and genealogies of Israel’s ancestors. 

«  Chapters 1-11 show mythical characteristics, like in the literature of the surrounding peoples. 

«  The myths are part of the system of beliefs of a given culture or community, that considers those myth to be true. Very often the myths try to explain the origins of that culture, or the origins of the world, or try to respond to the questions human beings have about: suffering, evil, death, sickness….. 

«  In the case of the narrations in the book of Genesis the sacred authors used the myths from the surrounding peoples and modified them according to their faith in God. By means of these 11 chapters the people of Israel want to give the message that God is the creator who creates by his word.  

«  In these 11 chapters we find especial characters, among them Adam the first man created by God. Noah who represents the prototype of the just man. Adam represents humanity created by God. Noah represents humanity saved by God, he is like a new Adam, since the story of the flood is the story of a new beginning.  

«  As we proceed  reading  the first 11 chapters of Genesis, we realize that running parallel to God’s kindness, we see the human creature going deeper and deeper into a world of sin and evil: from the disobedience of the first couple, to the killing of one brother by another driven by jealousy in the story of Cain and Abel, to Noah spared from the waters of the flood that eliminated the human beings because of their general sinfulness, to the climax of human pride, ungratefulness and mistrust in the story of Babel.

«  In contrast to all this corruption and sin, when everything seems lost God enters into human history changing its course, saving it from its own sinfulness with the call to Abraham in chapter 12.   

FIRST READING : Gn 2:18-24

§  God realizes that man cannot be alone. 

§  The narration tells us that God molded with clay all the animals, but when the man saw them, he could not find a suitable partner for him.  

§  Then God decides to make another being like Adam

§  Adam is so surprised on seeing the beauty of this new creature, who goes beyond his expectations, that he exclaims:  this is truly bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! That means, “she is like me”.  

§  The first couple of humanity has appeared on earth, couple that is united in love. A couple that is joyfully surprised when they see each other face to face. A couple that is the image of God who is love.    

§  The sacred text says that this is the reason for man to leave his family to unite himself to his woman, and the two become one flesh. 

§  The love that is born from this union and the strength of the commitment that springs from this covenant goes beyond the blood strings of the family of origin thus, the text says: man will abandon his father and mother… 

 RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Ps 128  

  May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.
Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
R.
May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
your children like olive plants
around your table.
R.
May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.
Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
R.
May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.
May you see your children's children.
Peace be upon Israel!
R.
May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives. 

ü  The blessing of the man who fears the Lord is his work, his wife, and his children.

ü  His blessing is to be blessed by the Lord in Zion, and to see the prosperity of the holy city Jerusalem all the days of his life.

ü  Peace is part of the blessing from God to those who fear the Lord.    

GOSPEL  MK 10:2-16

«  The liturgy allows us to use the long or the short version of this gospel, in this commentary I will use the short one which has to do with the matrimony.     

«  Jesus leaves from his native land and goes to Jerusalem, where, according to what he has told them, he will suffer, die, and rise from the dead.  

«  The Pharisees want to know what Jesus thinks about   Dt. 24:1 on divorce.

«  Some interpreters of this text said that a man could repudiate or give a document of divorce to his wife, for any reason whatsoever: he did not like his wife anymore, the wife had burned the meal etc. However, the wife could not divorce her husband.  

«  Jesus asks them what Moses says about that, and then he explains to them, that since the people were not ready to understand, accept and live the commitment of matrimony as it had been thought and designed by the Creator, Moses allowed them to divorce their wives.   

«  He speaks to them about the text in Genesis. We have already commented on this text in the first Reading.      

«  It is true that the word of God has to be interpreted according to the reality of the present moment in order to be fully understood, however there are some foundations put by God which cannot either be changed   or ignored. It is the case of the present theme.    

*      The equality between man and woman.  

*      Love as the foundation of the conjugal union.  

*      Jesus insists on the fidelity to the covenant of love.  

*      Marriage is a covenant of love, which implies equality of rights, dignity and, excludes any relationship based on dominion of one over the other.  

*      I write below a sentence from Luis Alonso Schökel, which I consider very beautiful:

As long as there is love, there will be a matrimony and there will also be a heart able to dream and to forgive. 

LETTER TO THE HEBREWS

Ø  The Letter to the Hebrews is not a letter as such, because its literary style does not correspond to that of a letter, it is an exhortation as we read on   13,22   “a word of exhortation”

Ø  It is one of the most important theological writings of the New Testament.  

The formulation of the doctrine about the priesthood of Christ, and about the sacrificial value of his death is found in this letter   

Ø  It is not probable that Paul be the author of this letter, as it has been considered in former times.  

Ø  The style of the letter is not Paul’s style, but the themes are very close to the theology of Paul.  

Ø  Some authors believe that the writer could be Apollo, whom we know through the writings of the New Testament.   

SECOND READING: Heb 2:8-11

ü  One of the messages of this text is the solidarity between Jesus and humanity.  

ü  His death brings good to us

ü  Because the Creator wants that all his children have part in his glory, maybe we could formulate this in another way saying that, he wants all of us to partake his joy and happiness without end.    

ü  The author continues saying that it was fitting that God should make perfect through suffering Jesus the author and leader of our salvation.  

ü  This statement challenges us on the value of suffering which we try to avoid because we do not understand it. 

ü  The sanctifier and the sanctified have the same human condition that is why he is not ashamed to call us “his brothers and sisters.” 

ü  The beauty of this text goes beyond our capacity to fully grasp the meaning of the Word that God says to us.  

 CLARETIAN CORNER 

J.M.J

 

To Mother Antonia París

Rome, July 21  1869   

               

My dear Mother in J.C. : Through Rev. Fr. Naudó I have received your letter and after reading it, I have to tell you that the first thing I did when I got to this city was to go with Most Rev. Fr. José Reig, General of the Mercedarians, in whose house I live in Campo Vaccino, to see the situation of your rules…   I do not doubt that it has been a Providence of God that I had come to Rome for your good.  I tell you that the above mentioned Fr.José Reig is your main agent, by himself or through another agent of his trust, or through me, we will do all that is necessary to achieve what it is intended. I am convinced that everything will go well.  Now I only ask your patience and prayer with trust in Jesus and Mary.

  

Now let us go to my things; what is happening in Spain, that I had foretold so long and so many times has come.  I offered myself as a victim and the Lord deigned to accept my offering, because all sorts of calumnies, infamies, persecutions, etc have fallen upon me. I only had the testimony of my good conscience; and thus, I have remained always tranquil, in silence, thinking in nothing else than in Jesus.

 

When we left Spain at the end of September, we went to France and in the first days of April of the present year, I have gone to Rome only with my chaplain.  On arriving I have requested an audience with the Pope who received me with the most evident signs of love and kindness. He called me “caro mío” (my dear). Alleging evidence and authorities of the Holy Scriptures and the most convincing reasons to console me, he was speaking, and I remained in silence. When he gave me the opportunity to speak, I told him: “Holy Father, neither the disciple can be more respected that his Master, nor the servant than his Lord.”  When the Pope heard these words, and on seeing my peace, he manifested the joy that his heart felt.  Afterwards he spoke with me about other subjects. (Fragment of letter 283 in Letters of the Origins.) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PAGOLA, José A. Following in the Footsteps of Jesus – Meditations on the Gospel for Year B.

RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras – Año B. Traducido por Justiniano Beltrán. Bogotá 2005.

CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ESPANOLA, Sagrada Biblia, versión oficial. 2011

RR. DE MARIA INMACULADA MISIONERAS CLARETIANAS, Cartas de los Orígenes (Letters of the Origins) Madrid 2009.   

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO. Misioneros Claretianos. China 2008.

 

Monday, September 20, 2021

    26 -SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - B – 2021 

*      In the Gospel of Mark Jesus continues to teach practical lessons about discipleship.   

*      In this Sunday’s Gospel he teaches two lessons to his disciples:

o   Whoever does something good does it because he/she has allowed God to act through them

o   If our actions induce other to sin, we have to change this radically. 

THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

«  It is the fourth book of the Pentateuch; it comes after the book of Leviticus.  

«  In the books of Exodus and Leviticus we left the people in the Sinai desert where they have received the Law, Aaron has been consecrated priest, the sanctuary has been built and the worship has been inaugurated. 

«  Now the people are ready to begin the journey toward the land promised to the fathers.  

«  This book is called in the Greek translation     ριθμοί, Arithmoi and in the Hebrew במדבר, Bəmidbar which means “In the desert.”     

«  The text is complex, it indicates the intervention of diverse authors along different times, during many centuries of composition.  

«  The title numbers fits well to this book since it has a large number of censuses.   

«  This book so complex has also a message for us today. 

«  The leading thread is the land promised to the patriarchs; thus the people cannot remain at Sinai or in any other place of its journey, it has to reach the land. The people receive the guidelines to divide the land among the tribes, and the borders of the whole land. 

«  We cannot stop during the journey “the land” the Lord has shown to us with our call, we need to continue until we get to the goal, he has set for us.  

FIRST READING: Numbers 11:25-29

, let us listen to its message  

§  The text describes the gift of the spirit of God, which God has given to Moses and to the seventy elders.  

§  On receiving the spirit, they prophesize.  

§  What is the meaning of prophesize? It is not to say something about the future, although some of this is present also. It is to say something about the present time, an interpretation, under the light of faith, of a concrete historical situation (political, financial, moral, from everyday life…)

§  Two of them remained in the camp, but they also received the gift of the spirit and   prophesized.  

§  A young man, Joshua, goes to Moses and tells him, with indignation, about the two elders, because they were not with the rest.  

§  Moses wishes that all could prophesize, that is, that all may have the spirit of God on them.  

RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Ps 19: 8,10,12-13,14  

Ø  This is a psalm of praise to the law of God, which is the manifestation of his will  

Ø  The precepts of the Lord are the joy of the heart of the just.

Ø  They give wisdom to the simple.

Ø  The psalmist asks God to be cleansed from sin 

The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.
The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul;
the decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.
The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.
Though your servant is careful of them,
very diligent in keeping them,
Yet who can detect failings?
Cleanse me from my unknown faults!
The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.
From wanton sin especially, restrain your servant;
let it not rule over me.
Then shall I be blameless and innocent
of serious sin.
The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.

GOSPEL  Mk 9:38-43.45.47-48

In this passage of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gives two new lessons about discipleship,  to his disciples and to all of us.  John comes to Jesus with indignation because there is “one” who expels demons in the name of Jesus, but he does not belong to their group.     

*      In the mind of John this should not be, they are the only ones who can expel demons because they are in the company of the Teacher.  

*      Jesus takes advantage of this situation to teach them a lesson on discipleship  

§  He tells them that it is impossible that someone who performs miracles in his name be against him.  

§  Because who is not against us is with us.  

§  This reading invites us to reflect on our own attitudes; to see if they resemble those of the jealous John.     

§  What Jesus wants to tell us is that everyone who does good works, does them because Jesus is with him or her, even if this person does not know or does not accept Jesus.     

§  No one can do good works without God.  God is always the author of good. The only thing we can do is open or close ourselves to his work in us. 

*      Now he is going to teach a lesson on “causing others to sin” and thus hurt people in their spirit.  

§  Jesus uses very harsh words, which shaken us. Jesus in the Gospel of Mark uses to do so frequently.  

§  All that is in you, which is occasion of sin for your brother or sister, eliminate or take it out from your life.  

SECOND READING  Jas 5:1-6

Ø  The strong words of James to his community help us to understand the magnitude of the social evil, which derives from our selfishness.  

Ø  On reading these words, we realize that the community of the beginnings of the church suffered from the same or similar injustices as our XXI century communities.  

Ø  Our social behavior must be a consequence of the commandment to love our brothers and sisters, which Jesus left us.   

Ø  The riches are not evil in themselves, because they are a gift of creation, and creation comes from God. What is evil is the wrong way to use them, to use them to abuse our brothers and sisters who are poor.  

Ø  James reminds those who have employees and have become rich abusing them, that the salary they have not paid on time is a voice that cries out to God.   Let us remember that our God hears the cry of the poor, the suffering and the oppressed.   In the book of Exodus God says to Moses that he has heard the cry of his people and has come to deliver them.    

Ø  From the explanation of James, it looks like the employers have kept the salary of his employees to keep the interest for themselves.  

Ø  James compares the luxury, the entertainments, and the banquets of the rich taking advantage of the people in need, to the fattening of cows before taking them to the slaughterhouse.   

Ø  These are very harsh words, which makes us tremble perceiving the suffering of God on seeing the selfishness and evil we can do, because these behaviors can lead us to our destruction as human beings.

 CLARETIAN CORNER 

 J.M.J

To Mother Antonia París

 

París, February 28 1869

 

My very dear Mother in  J. C.: By means of Fr. Currius I have received  your letter  from the 15th of the present month. After reading it I say that we are in times when we gave to practice the virtue of patience. Doing and suffering is how we walk to the happy eternity.    Jesus, Mary Most Holy and all the Saints have followed this path.   Alas! If we did not have to suffer!   This is the work of our profession, what would be the use of having many skills without anything to do?    What would we do if we did not have to suffer calumnies, persecutions? …  When good people praise us, there is always the danger of self-complacency and vanity; but when bad people praise us, there isn’t.  Maybe you will ask, when do bad people praise us?... They praise us when they persecute and calumny us; in order that you understand this truth I will use a comparison. Have you seen in a vegetable garden a fig tree with lots of figs, and many birds go to eat them? do you want to know which are the best figs? The birds will tell you, those they seek and eat most.

 

This is just like the Gospel. Jesus our Divine Master has said “if you were from the world, the world would love you, but since you are not from the world, but mine, this is why the world hates you…  When they will say all sorts of lies against you … rejoice.” Let us rejoice and say: Long live Jesus, long live Jesus!!!...  

 

When you have the opportunity greet the Penitentiary, the Prior from Reus, the Nuns. My greetings to you.   Your Chaplain.  

Antonio María  (Letter 281)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY .

PAGOLA, José A. Following in the Footsteps of Jesus – Meditations on the Gospel for Year B.

RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras (According to the Scriptures)  – Year B. Translated into Spanish by Justiniano Beltrán. Bogotá 2005.

RR. of MARY IMMACULATE CLARETIAN MISSIONARY SISTERS. Cartas de los Inicios (Letters from the Origins) Madrid 2009.

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española. (Official edition of the Spanish Conference of Bishops)

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO (The Bible of our people) Misioneros Claretianos. China 2008.

 

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

 

 XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME   B – 2021

Last Sunday Jesus spoke to his disciples about his future sufferings and invited us to take our cross and follow him. 

Today he teaches us another important lesson about the conditions to follow him, the meaning of taking our cross, the need to be humble, to serve with our own life.

The first reading and the psalm have always the same theme, but today they make a very especial unity. The reading tells us what the sinners are plotting against the just and the psalm is the prayer of the just asking God to protect him/her. 

BOOK OF WISDOM

Ø  The book of Wisdom was written at the beginning of the last century before Christ.  

Ø  It is probably the last Old Testament Book to be written.  

Ø  The author is identified as Solomon to give added stature to the book, but Solomon could not write this book because he lived many centuries before .   

Ø  The author is a Jew fully acquainted with the Hellenistic culture  

Ø  He knows the Greek Philosophy.  His anthropology is more Greek than Jewish. He knows the teachings of the Greek; man is composed of soul and body.   

Ø  The human being is immortal, but this immortality is due not to the soul but to justice and righteousness.   

Ø  Righteousness or justice, being God’s attribute is immortal.    

Ø  To live a just life is to participate of this eternal quality of God. 

FIRST READING – Wisdom  2:12.17-20

Ø  The wicked are against the just because his actions and his words denouncing them, their evil actions, make them angry. 

Ø  He reproaches them:

o   Because they transgress the law. Maybe they are teachers of the law who should know better, but so many times, the law is a means to oppress those they should be serving.  

o   Because they behave in a way, which is contrary to what they have been told in their formation,   

o   Because they are not responding to their call. 

Ø  The wicked want to see whether the words and the works of the just are true    

Ø  If he considers himself the son of God, let us see what happens when we mistreat him, we put him to the test. Will he keep being faithful? Will God defend him as he hopes and says?   

Ø  If, we did not know that this reading is taken from the Old Testament, we could think that it is the enemies of Jesus who are speaking.

Ø  In a sense this is true, we have always heard that the Old Testament is about Jesus. This does not mean that the authors knew about Jesus, but because, being God who inspires the sacred writers the messages have different levels of revelation. The sacred authors speak of situations of their own time, as time goes on, and we reach the time of Jesus, the church discovers the silent presence of Jesus in Scripture.     

RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Ps 54: 3-4.5.6-8

ü  R. The Lord upholds my life.
O God, by your name save me,
and by your might defend my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
hearken to the words of my mouth.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
For the haughty men have risen up against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they set not God before their eyes.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord sustains my life.
Freely will I offer you sacrifice;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for its goodness.
R. The Lord upholds my life. 

ü  This psalm talks about the conviction of he who trusts unconditionally in the love and goodness of God the Father.  

ü  The man who shares with us his trust in God, knows that there are some who want to do wrong to him. 

ü  But he trusts and hopes in the help of his God.  

ü  And as a consequence of this love he plans to offer to God a sacrifice, and offering of thanksgiving because God has been good to him.    

ü  What a beautiful psalm! Are these our feelings? Is this our trust?  

GOSPEL  Mk 9:30-37

v  Jesus goes with his disciples from the Decapolis to Caesarea of Philippi.  

v  This city is at the foot of Mount Hermon, near to the place where the Jordan River begins, and it is very close to the border between Israel and Syria. 

v  From there Jesus begins to travel around Galilee, and Mark tells us something interesting, he did not want anyone to know. 

v  On the road he tells them, for the second time, about his future passion, his sufferings.  

v  Mark says that they did not understand what he was telling them.  

v  Certainly, they did not understand, because if they had understood, they would not have discussed among themselves, about who was the greatest of all. 

v  When they are at home Jesus asks them what they were discussing on the way.  

v  But they do not want to speak about it, in some way, they know that their Teacher does  not agree with their ambitions.

v  With love and patience, Jesus sits down and speaks to them, to help them understand what does it mean,  to be his disciple.  

v  And using their same discussion he began to say:   

o   If anyone wishes to be the first, he shall be the last of all, the servant of all.  

o   He does not tell them that it is wrong to wish to be the first, what is wrong is their interpretation of being the first.    

o   The first will have to be the last, the servant of all. 

o   To make this lesson clearer Jesus takes a child, and puts him in the center.  

o   Why a child? Probably because a child in that society was the last of all. A child did not have a legal status, no voice, he did not count.  His existence was always related to an adult: parents, owners, masters.   They could make him work or do whatever they wanted with and to him.   

o   What a good image to help us understand Jesus’ mind, he wants us to be servants and not masters, this is the only way to be his disciple. 

o   The consequences are clear, but it frightens us, if we have not reached there, if serving in this way is not a real part of our life, if we continue to consider ourselves superiors to others because we go to church and “fulfill” what is prescribed, we have not even started the first steps in the following of Jesus,  no matter how long we have been part of the church. 

o   Jesus gives us one of the most beautiful and, at the same time challenging lessons, we are called to be like him, that, being God like the Father and the Holy Spirit he has made himself servant of all, he has become nothing, he has put himself into our hands.  

o   But as human beings, do not have any power over Him, we may want to make him disappear from our world, but he will continue to be always with us because he lives forever, because he is God.  

o   Last Sunday Jesus asked us: who do you say that I am? Who am I for you? Today he asks us: do you understand what it means to serve as I serve? And he asks us something else: Are you ready and willing to follow me as I am showing you?    

SECOND READING   Jas 3:16-4,3

In his letter James makes a beautiful reflection, which will help us to live up to  the invitation, Jesus makes to us in the Gospel.  

·         Disorder comes from jealousy and selfish ambition. 

·         On the contrary the wisdom, which comes from above, from God produces other fruits,  

·         And James describes those fruits with words, which make us desire to live in such a society.   

·         This is the litany he presents of this way of living: peace, goodness, mercy, good fruits and sincerity.

·         He insists on peace as a fruit of this kind of life.  

·         He asks us: where do wars come from?  

·         They come from our evil desires, which we cannot satisfy we want to possess for the wrong reasons, and we do not get it, and thus we kill. Remember that we can kill in many different ways. We may kill taking the life of someone, but we may kill also destroying his or her reputation, his/her feelings.           

·         James ends saying that we ask and we do not get what we ask,  because we ask for the wrong reasons, because we ask moved by our selfishness.  

·         In our daily life, do we cultivate and promote peace or division among ourselves, in our families, in our faith community, at work…?  

·         This coming Sunday the Lord, through the liturgy of the Church invites us to peace, joy, and happiness. Are we going to follow him?    

CLARETIAN CORNER

 

 

 


 

…no worldly interest has brought me here from Spain. I resisted at the beginning; I insisted in my refusal and the third time I accepted by obedience: I have never had anything; today I see myself vested of a dignity which I repel, and whose weight is very superior to my forces, I continue surrendered in the hands of the Providence.  Under the tinsel of my dignity, I only see my misery; I was poor; I lived poor, and I remain poor.  Only obedience has been able to reduce me, I repeat it, but in the hope that I could give more fuel to the charity, to the love of God and to my neighbors in which I want to burn.   The day I see that they put the slightest stumbling block to my mission;  the day I see that they tied my hands to prevent them to do good; or that my voice will not be  heard  when my expectations be founded  in justice and charity, which are the only incentives to work that I acknowledge, that day I will leave my position, and certainly I will lose nothing in relation to my person, because the nature of  missionary is enough to be poor, to love God, to love my neighbors and to gain their souls at the same time that mine. St.Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the   Claretian Missionary Sisters. Letter to General de la Concha, March 28, 1851.     

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, St. Anthony Mary. History of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters, chapter VII note 126.