13th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE – 2022   

·         We are again in the liturgical time called “ordinary time”. A professor once said that there is nothing ordinary about this time.     

·         Ordinary life is everyday life, the life of anyone of the human beings, the life that goes unnoticed, that seems monotonous and without value. 

·         However, it is the life in which God makes himself present to us through the persons we meet and through the events of life. 

BOOK 1 Kings

Ø  The two books of Kings are the continuation of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.  

Ø  These books are part of what we call the Deuteronomistic history, which goes from the conquest of the Promised Land to the Babylonian exile.  

Ø  In these books the monarchy is judged with the theological criteria of the book of Deuteronomy following the scheme sin – exile – return  

Ø  The author usually gives a negative judgment on the behavior of kings and of the people.   

Ø  In these books, the prophets have great importance. Elijah in 1 Kings and Elisha in 2 Kings.   

FIRST READING – 1 King 19, 16b. 19-21    

Ø  The reading has three paragraphs, we could describe them as three different scenes of a play.

Ø  In the first scene, Elijah hears God’s voice that orders him to anoint Elisha as his successor.  

o   How did he hear the voice? If we read some verses before the author tells us that Elijah hears the gentle whisper of the gentle breeze.  

o   Then he went out of the cave where he was hiding, and the voice asked him “what do you do here Elijah?”     

o   Elijah says, “I have been most zealous for the Lord, God of hosts” and he explains that things go wrong in the society where he lives.  

o   The Lord asks him to go back and to take the desert road. He should look for Elisha to anoint him as a prophet, his successor.  

o   To leave one’s ministry to another person is difficult; it is like allowing part of one’s life to be taken from, it is to accept that life has changed, that life is close to its end, to the last encounter.  

o   We do not know what Elijah thought, what he felt, Scripture does not say anything about that.  

Ø  In the second scene Elijah goes to meet Elisha 

o   Elisha is working, he is tilling with twelve yokes of oxen.  

o   Doesn’t this scene remind us of what the New Testament tells about the call of the fishermen or the tax collector…follow me?  

o   The call from God does not come to us necessarily when we are praying; it comes usually during our ordinary life. God calls me in my everyday life. Do I listen to his voice, which resounds in the persons and in the events? How has God called me…?  

o   Elijah communicates to Elisha God’s election by throwing his cloak on him.  

o   It seems to me that some of our liturgical rites have the same meaning: the Bishop’s imposition of hands on the future priests.  It is like sharing with the future priest the gift, the grace of the priesthood; we also say that faith goes from one to another, something like an infection….     

o   Elisha leaves what he is doing and says goodbye to his parents.                        

Ø  In the third scene Elisha  

o   Offers a sacrifice to Yahweh with the oxen he was using for his work, and invites the people to share the meal  

o   Then the text says that he went with Elijah. 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM 16:  1-2a y 5. 7-8. 9-10. 11

R. (cf. 5a) You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;
 I say to the LORD, "My Lord are you.
O LORD, my allotted portion, and my cup,
 you it is who hold fast my lot."
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
I bless the LORD who counsels me;
 even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
 with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices,
 my body, too, abides in confidence
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
 nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
You will show me the path to life,
 fullness of joys in your presence,
 the delights at your right hand forever.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.

What a beautiful prayer: You are my inheritance, Lord. Is he really our inheritance? 

GOSPEL LK 9: 51-62

v  When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.    

v  From chapter 9 verse 51 begins the last part of the ministry of Jesus. Jesus will teach his disciples on the way; this is his way to be Teacher, Rabbi. 

v  Doesn’t that remind us of the way to Emmaus when he spoke and taught them, and their hearts were burning?  

v  Now that we, the whole church, is doing the synodal journey, We are doing the “synodal way”. We are all on the way together to listen to the voice of the Lord, to follow it and thus build together and with our Master a better world, and a better humanity, more like the dream God has over each one of us and over the whole human community.

v  Jesus makes the resolution to go up to Jerusalem where he will give his life for us.  

v  In today’s reading Luke narrates three different vocation episodes  

o   In all these episodes Jesus says to those who offer themselves and to the one he invites, some conditions of the following, which could discourage them: the Son of man has nowhere to rest his head, not to be able to burry one’s dead, not to be able to say farewell to the family….  

o   These episodes have given plenty to think and to write regarding the life in the following of Christ. I think that the intention of the evangelist is not that we dwell on the details, but on the reality of the surrendering generously, completely and without conditions.  

o    Let us look at our own vocation history and let us ask the Lord for light to discover his presence in this history.  

SECOND READING  Gal 5: 1. 13-18

v  Paul reminds us that Christ has given us freedom.  

v  I think that freedom was given to us in creation, and it is given again back to us with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

v  Do not let anything or anyone take freedom away from us.  

v  Paul reminds us also that law and freedom are not opposed but they go together. 

v  He reminds us also the commandment:  Love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

v  Paul says something very interesting, if we allow the Spirit to guide us, we will not be under the dominion of the law.  

v  I invite all of us to reflect during this week

o   on this last sentence to understand what he wants to tell us.

o   In the radicality of the call Jesus makes to us

o   Let each one of us see if Jesus is the true origin, center, and goal of our life.   

 

CLARETIAN CORNER

TERESITA ALBARRACÍN

From January 1945 she again suffered spiritual darkness, with struggle and "many distractions and dryness" with "repugnance towards the things of God."  This continues also in May and later in August. We can say  that the spiritual life of the Servant of God In this time, closer to her death, went through  a period of hard inner trials. Everything seems to indicate that it was the purifying night of the spirit together with infused contemplation. [...]  On some occasions the dryness and turmoil was rather external because within her spirit reigned a great peace: "... in the depths of my soul reigns a very great peace and I only wish to love God with all my heart, even if I do  not feel him  [...] The Mistress of Novices tells us that she knew of her "struggles with faith" and that she judged that it was precisely because of her resemblance to the spirit of St. Therese of Lisieux, whom she so longed to resemble and whose spirituality attuned her so much . Knowing – as we know now – that the disease at that time was already destroying her intestines, because shortly after, it led  her to her death, we see the great suffering that the Servant of God had to carry. However, according to the testimony of her sisters and superiors, she never stopped attending her classes and continuing with all the acts of community. [...] and it is in this context of the purifying night that some interior difficulties, that the Servant of God apparently experienced in her relations with her superiors, make sense. (P.91-92) 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CONGREGATIO DE CAUSIS SANCTORUM -   Mariae Teresiae – Positio super virtutibus.

PAGOLA, José Antonio sj. El camino abierto por Jesús – Lucas

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia episcopal española.

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE, Revised edition 2010

US CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, webpage.