October 16, 2016 – Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Lectionary: 147
Reading 1 – Exodus 17: 8-13
In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
Moses, therefore, said to Joshua,
“Pick out certain men,
and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.
I will be standing on top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand.”
So Joshua did as Moses told him:
he engaged Amalek in battle
after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,
Israel had the better of the fight,
but when he let his hands rest,
Amalek had the better of the fight.
Moses’hands, however, grew tired;
so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
one on one side and one on the other,
so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 121: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
- Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth. - Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel. - Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night. - Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever. - Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Reading 2 – 2 Timothy 3: 14-4:2
Beloved:
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who will judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingly power:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
Gospel – Luke 18: 1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.'”
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Listen to the Scriptures: click on the link below:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/16_10_16.mp3
29th Sunday of the Year – C – 16th October 2016
Theme: STEADFASTNESS IN FAITH. Whatever the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed by God’s will, the way to final victory is a steadfast and unquestioning faith. The ways of God are not the ways of men. We have been given a certain measure of intelligence, but not enough to judge God’s will: it remains for us an eternal mystery, in which we must have total confidence.
Even when we do not understand what is happening to us, a childlike act of faith will bring us peace in the present life and eternal salvation at the end.
Point 1: Our faith must be childlike. There is a great difference between childishness and childlikeness. Childishness is a defect, a case of arrested development. Behavior acceptable in the case of a child is intolerable in an adolescent (teen-ager) or adult. Each age has its corresponding pattern of behavior and response. Childlike faith is not childish faith; it is not irrational and capricious. But neither is it loaded with the anxieties and complications of the over-sophisticated, or with the demands for scientific proof of the modern positivist. Childlike faith is the attitude of the man or woman who accepts once and for all the fact that the mystery of God is totally beyond the comprehension of the human mind. True believers realize that all important matters are undefinable mysteries, that love, life, beauty, art – all the things that count – are beyond the reach of scientific analysis.
Point 2: Our faith must be apostolic. It is not enough to have realized for our own sake that the infinite God is beyond human understanding, and that yet he is speaking to us through revelation and in the intimacy of our personal consciences: this message must be spread abroad. A faith kept under the bushel is a sterile and dead faith. Like love, faith is self-diffusive, contagious. It must go out and multiply in the hearts of others. That is the message that Paul is imparting to Timothy with such vigor and eloquence: “I charge you to preach the word, to stay with this task whether convenient or inconvenient.” Steadfastness is necessary in our own belief, but also in our efforts to share with others the treasure we have received through God’s grace.
Point 3: Our faith must be insistent. Inspite of apparent darkness – expressed by the mystics as “the night of the senses” and “the night of the spirit” – our faith must be persevering and insistent. Even if, at times, we have a feeling that God is not listening, our prayers of praise and petition should not be slowed down. Perhaps the very silence of God is an occasion given to us to reach, through renewed effort, a greater depth and greater merit. The mystics themselves, those great lovers of God, are never closer to him than when they have nothing left but blind faith. It is when they are stripped of all response, of any emotional satisfaction, or any consolation in their devotions, when they are reduced to total spiritual nakedness, that God reveals to them his greatest gifts.
Conclusion: The ways of God are not the ways of man. God’s silence may be his greatest gift to us: only when we are able to seek him in total blindness and abandonment to his will does he come to us with the fullness of his rewards. Job was stripped of all his earthly goods and sorely tried: his faithfulness led to God’s favor. Sorrows, privations, trials make space in our hearts for God.
We should consider God as our Father: not as a nebulous figure in heaven, but as one who is the most directly and lovingly concerned with our welfare, both in this life and in eternity. But our own idea of what is good for us is not always the same as God’s – yet God is always right in the long run.
SOME QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTION / DISCUSSION / WRITTEN
- When was the last time you were mad (angry) at God?
- Do you really try to live the gospel message? Give an example of when you decided to do something according to God’s wishes when you strongly felt drawn to do it according to your own way.
- Do you judge yourself and others by human standards? Can you think of an instance where you judged someone wrongly because you judged by human standards and not as the Gospel teaches?
- Have you ever experienced the peace that comes from acceptance and abandonment to Divine Providence?
This parable in Luke’s Gospel tells of the kind of thing which could, and often did, happen. There are two characters in it.
- The judge was clearly not a Jewish judge. All ordinary Jewish disputes were taken before the elders, and not into the public courts at all. If, under Jewish law, a matter was taken to arbitration, one man could not constitute a court. There were always three judges, one chosen by the plaintiff, one by the defendant, and one independently appointed.
This judge was one of the paid magistrates appointed either by Herod or by the Romans. Such judges were notorious. Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe his way to a verdict he had no hope of ever getting his case settled. These judges were said to pervert justice for a dish of meat. People even punned on their title. Officially they were called Dayyaneh Gezeroth, which means judges of prohibitions or punishments. Popularly they were called Dayyaneh Gezeloth, which means robber judges.
- The widow was the symbol of all who were poor and defenseless. It was obvious that she, without resource of any kind, had no hope of ever extracting justice from such a judge. But she had one weapon–persistence. It is possible that what the judge in the end feared was actual physical violence. The word translated, lest she exhausts me, can mean, lest she give me a black eye. It is possible to close a person’s eye in two ways–either by sleep or by assault and battery! In either event, in the end her persistence won the day.
This parable is like the parable of the Friend at Midnight. It does not liken God to an unjust judge; it contrasts him to such a person. Jesus was saying, “If, in the end, an unjust and rapacious judge can be wearied into giving a widow woman justice, how much more will God, who is a loving Father, give his children what they need?”
That is true, but it is no reason why we should expect to get whatever we pray for. Often a father has to refuse the request of a child, because he knows that what the child asks would hurt rather than help. God is like that. We do not know what is to happen in the next hour, let alone the next week, or month, or year. Only God sees time whole, and, therefore, only God knows what is good for us in the long run. That is why Jesus said we must never be discouraged in prayer. That is why he wondered if men’s faith would stand the long delays before the Son of Man should come. We will never grow weary in prayer and our faith will never falter if, after we have offered to God our prayers and requests, we add the perfect prayer, Thy will be done.
Luke offers a parable about prayer. God is the just judge who listens to our needs and acts on our behalf. Prayer is the voicing of faith which persists in placing everything in God’s hands and allowing him to resolve our needs. The process is at one level simple. We turn resolutely to God in prayer, and he sorts things out. The sorting out, however, includes the sorting out of ourselves. So God’s response is not always a direct answer to our request. Rather it comes in a way that equips us better for the journey, either bringing us outside support, giving us the inner resources to continue, or even transforming our desires where they do not conform to God’s will.
When in crisis, one of the first feelings we may have is that of isolation or abandonment. Sometimes our feelings correspond to what is actually happening. People who are bereaved or divorced often find that friends do not know how to greet them, never mind support or comfort them. Yet we do need that helping hand, that shoulder to cry on, that thoughtful word to keep us going. No wonder we say that “a friend in need is a friend indeed.” Most of us don’t cope very well by ourselves.
As Christians we believe we are the body of Christ. Through us, he offers support to the other members. In practice, however, that does not always happen. It is all too easy to get wrapped up in our own concerns. If we are suffering, we tend to close down and not let anyone near. Then we complain to God that he isn’t helping. But when we are fit and well and life is going smoothly, we can close ourselves to those in need, not wanting our equilibrium to be upset. At such moments it is not enough to say: “I will pray for you.” Prayer has to become real action on behalf of those in need. Often this works best when fellow sufferers combine in self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a shared honesty, a lack of illusions and a knowledge that the way forward can only be “one day at a time.” But we can be confident in knowing that God is present, seeing that justice is done.
Prayer of the faithful – 29th Sunday C – 16 Oct 2016
For the Church: that we may pray unceasingly and be open to God’s invitations to greater discipleship, let us pray to the Lord.
For fidelity: that God will sustain us as we encounter challenges and keep us faithful to the virtues of the Gospel in all our responses to people and events, let us pray to the Lord.
For the grace of perseverance: that we may consistently call upon God in our times of need and remain open to be changed by God’s love, let us pray to the Lord.
For a greater love of the Scriptures: that our hearts may desire to hear and learn God’s Word and be open to the challenges and insights it offers, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who have no voice or standing in society: that we may be aware of all who are forgotten by society and raise their needs and aspirations before others, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who support us in our journey of faith; for family, friends, and fellow believers: that God will renew and strengthen each us so the work of God may be more evident in the world, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who proclaim the Word: that the Spirit of God will guide them in offering convincing and encouraging insights so that all may come to know and love God more deeply, let us pray to the Lord.
For all judges and attorneys (lawyers): that God will guide and inspire their work so that justice is served and the injured be assisted, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who work for justice and the rights of the oppressed: that they may find strength and perseverance through prayer and the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who have given themselves to a life of persistent prayer, particularly contemplative religious: that God will strengthen them and renew their ministry through the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are caught in desperate situations, for the people of the Middle East, for refugees of the Syria, for those living in abusive households, and for those caught in addictions: that God will hear their cries and bring freedom and new life to them, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who feel so crushed by life that they wish to end it: that they may sense the nearness of God’s love and find someone with whom to share their pain, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who have been victims of crime: that God will heal their painful memories and renew their spirits, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who have experienced disasters: that God will renew them, heal them and guide them in restoring their lives, let us pray to the Lord.
For all who are struggling financially: that God will guide them in making wise decisions and guide them to new opportunities to use their gifts, let us pray to the Lord.
For peace: that God will inspire world leaders to new paths and greater risks to end violence and establish peace and justice for all people, let us pray to the Lord.