From: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
For everything there is a season
Man cannot see far
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Commentary:
3:1-15. After arriving at the previous conclusion, the sacred writer picks up the
thread of his discourse to say something along the same lines as 1:3-7, but this
time focussing not on the created world but on “seasonal” changes in human life.
These, too, are fixed in advance and man can do nothing to alter them (vv. 1-9).
However, even though he may not be able to make sense of them, man has to
accept that it is God who makes “everything beautiful in its time” (vv. 10-11), and
therefore man should enjoy life as a gift from God (vv. 12-13), conscious that God
controls what happens now and in the future (vv. 14-15; cf. 1:9).
3:1-9. In this passage the teacher of Israel uses some ideas from the Greek phi-
losophers. He lists fourteen pairs of “times” in the ordinary life of man. In Hebrew
culture, numbers had symbolic values, multiples of seven denoting completeness;
so this list is meant to include all the stages and tasks of life. By putting birth
and death first he is giving them pride of place: all the other pairs fit in between
birth and death. The Stoic philosophers claimed that the human mind can know
the season fixed for each activity, and that a virtuous man knows and respects
the appropriate time for each thing. As the Preacher sees it, man can know them,
but he cannot change them, because it is God who has established those times
and he has charged man with the task of discovering them. Moreover, the “sea-
sons of life, the times at which events in man’s life happen, are presented here
as transcending man’s understanding, while, at the same time, they lie at the
core of his existence. Believing, as we do, that the coming of Christ marks the
fullness of time, we see time to be the backdrop against which the salvation his-
tory unfolds: “In Christianity, time has a fundamental importance, said Bl. John
Paul II. “Within the dimension of time the world was created; within it the history
of salvation unfolds, finding its culmination in the ‘fullness of time’ of the Incarna-
tion, and its goal in the glorious return of the Son of God at the end of time.
In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, time becomes a dimension of God, who
is himself eternal. With the coming of Christ there begin ‘the last days’ (cf. Heb
1:2), the ‘last hour’ (cf. 1 Jn 2:18), and the time of the Church, which will last un-
til the Parousia. From this relationship of God with time there arises the duty to
sanctify time. This is done, for example, when individual times, days or weeks,
are dedicated to God, as once happened in the religion of the Old Covenant, and
as happens still, though in a new way, in Christianity. In the liturgy of the Easter
Vigil the celebrant, as he blesses the candle which symbolizes the Risen Christ,
proclaims: ‘Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end. Alpha and
Omega, all time belongs to him, and all the ages, to him be glory and power
through every age for ever.’ He says these words as he inscribes on the candle
the numerals of the current year. The meaning of this rite is clear: it emphasizes
the fact that Christ is the Lord of time; he is its beginning and its end; every year,
every day and every moment are embraced by his Incarnation and Resurrection,
and thus become part of the ‘fullness of time’” (Tertio millenio adveniente, 10).
Thus, every time, every moment, is not purely transitory; it is an eternal dimen-
sion. So, “what is important is to make good use of time, that time which is al-
ways slipping from our grasp and which to a Christian is more precious than
gold, because it represents a foretaste of the glory that will he granted us here-
after” (St. J. Escriva, Friends of God, 212).
3:10-15. Earlier, the sacred writer spoke about his personal reflections (”I said
to myself”: 1:16; 2:1, 15); now he is going to speak about what he sees, what
his own experience has been (”I have seen”: v. 10; cf. 3:16; 4:1; etc.). He sees
man’s activity as the “business” entrusted to him by God. Although man does
not grasp the full import of his actions, he can still take some pleasure from
them and benefit from them.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Luke 9:18-22
Peter’s Confession of Faith
First Prophecy of the Passion
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Commentary:
20. “Christ” means “anointed” and is a name indicating honor and office. In the
Old Law “priests” were anointed (Exodus 29:7 and 40:13), as were “kings” (1
Samuel 9:16), because God laid down that they should receiving anointing in
view of their position; there was also a custom to anoint “prophets” (1 Samuel
16:13) because they were interpreters and intermediaries of God. “When Jesus
Christ our Savior came into the world, He assumed the position and obligations
of the three offices of priest, king and prophet and was therefore called Christ”
(”St. Pius V Catechism”, I, 3, 7).
22. Jesus prophesied His passion and death in order to help His disciples believe
in him. It also showed that He was freely accepting these sufferings He would un-
dergo. “Christ did not seek to be glorified: He chose to come without glory in or-
der to undergo suffering; and you, who have been born without glory, do you wish
to be glorified? The route you must take is the one Christ took. This means re-
cognizing Him and it means imitating Him both in His ignominy and in His good
repute; thus you will glory in the Cross, which was His path to glory. That was
what Paul did, and therefore he glorified in saying, ‘Far be it from me to glory ex-
cept in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 6:14)” (St. Ambrose, “Ex-
positio Evangelii Sec. Lucam, in loc.”).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.