Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

Reading 1 Jas 4:1-10

Beloved:
Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly,
to spend it on your passions.
Adulterers!
Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?
Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world
makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose that the Scripture speaks without meaning when it says,
The spirit that he has made to dwell in us tends toward jealousy?
But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says:
God resists the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.

So submit yourselves to God.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you of two minds.
Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning
and your joy into dejection.
Humble yourselves before the Lord
and he will exalt you.

Responsorial Psalm 55:7-8, 9-10a, 10b-11a, 23

R. (23a) Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
And I say, “Had I but wings like a dove,
I would fly away and be at rest.
Far away I would flee;
I would lodge in the wilderness.”
R. Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
“I would wait for him who saves me
from the violent storm and the tempest.”
Engulf them, O Lord; divide their counsels.
R. Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
In the city I see violence and strife,
day and night they prowl about upon its walls.
R. Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.
Cast your care upon the LORD,
and he will support you;
never will he permit the just man to be disturbed.
R. Throw your cares on the Lord, and he will support you.

Alleluia Gal 6:14

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May I never boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mk 9:30-3

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”

From: Mark 9:30-37

Second Prophecy of the Passion

[30] They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And He (Jesus) would not have any one know it; [31] for He was teaching His disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He is killed, after three days He will rise.” [32] But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to ask Him.

Being the Servant of All

[33] And they came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house He asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” [34] But they were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest. [35] And He sat down and called the Twelve; and He said to them, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” [36] And He took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in His arms, He said to them, [37] “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me”.

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Commentary:

30-32. Although moved when He sees the crowds like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36), Jesus leaves them, to devote time to careful instruction of the Apostles. He retires with them to out-of-the-way places, and there He explains points of His public preaching which they had not understood (Matthew 13:36). Here, specifically, for a second time, He announces His death and resurrection.

In His relationships with souls Jesus acts in the same way: He calls man to be with him in the quiet of prayer and there He teaches him about His more intimate plans and about the more demanding side of the Christian life. Later, like the Apostles, Christians were to spread this teaching to the ends of the earth.

34-35. Jesus uses this argument going on behind his back to teach His disciples about how authority should be exercised in His Church—not by lording it over other, but by serving them. In fulfilling His own mission to found the Church whose head and supreme lawgiver He is, He came to serve and not to be served (Matthew 20:28).

Anyone who does not strive to have this attitude of self-forgetful service, not only lacks one of the main pre-requisites for proper exercise of authority but also runs the risk of being motivated by ambition or pride. “To be in charge of an apostolic undertaking demands readiness to suffer everything, from everybody, with infinite charity” ([St] J. Escriva, “The Way”, 951).

36-37. To demonstrate to His Apostles the abnegation and humility needed in their ministry, He takes a child into His arms and explains the meaning of this gesture: if we receive for Christ’s sake those who have little importance in the world’s eyes, it is as if we are embracing Christ Himself and the Father who sent Him. This little child whom Jesus embraces represents every child in the world, and everyone who is needy, helpless, poor or sick—people who are not naturally attractive.

From: James 4:1-10

The Source of Discord

[1] What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is not your passions that are at war in your members? [2] You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. [3] You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. [4] Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [5] Or do you suppose it is in vain that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? [6] But He gives more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” [7] Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. [8] Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. [9] Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. [10] Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you.

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Commentary:

1. “Wars” and “fighting” are an exaggerated reference to the contention and discord found among those Christians. “Passions”, as elsewhere in the New Testament, means concupiscence, hedonism, pleasure-seeking (cf. verse 3; Luke 8:14; Titus 3:3; 2 Peter 2:13).

St. James points out that if one fails to fight as one should against one’s evil inclinations, one’s inner disharmony overflows in the form
of quarreling and fighting. The New Testament often refers to the good kind of fight, which confers inner freedom and is a prerequisite for salvation (cf., e.g., Matthew 11:12; Romans 7:14-25; 1 Peter 2:11).

“How can you be at peace if you allow passions you do not even attempt to control to drag you away from the ‘pull’ of grace?

“Heaven pulls you upwards; you drag yourselves downwards. And don’t seek excuses—that is what you are doing. If you go on like that, you will tear yourself apart” ([St] J. Escriva, “Furrow”, 851).

2-3. St. James is describing the sad state to which free-wheeling hedonism (specifically, greed for earthly things) leads.

“You do not receive, because you ask wrongly”: “He asks wrongly who shows no regard for the Lord’s commandments and yet seeks Heavenly gifts. He also asks wrongly who, having lost his taste for Heavenly things, seeks only earthly things—not for sustaining his human weakness but to enable him to indulge himself” (St. Bede, “Super Iac. Expositio, ad loc.”).

4-6. The sacred writer warns that inordinate love of the world, which stems from ambition, is incompatible with the love of God. “World” here has the meaning of “enemy of God”, opposed to Christ and His followers (cf. note on 1:26-27). The teaching contained in these verses echoes that of our Lord: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

The Saints have frequently reminded us—by their lives as well as their teachings—that inordinate love of the world is incompatible with the love of God: “Worldly society has flowered from a selfish love which dared to despise even God, whereas the communion of saints is rooted in a love of God that is ready to trample on self” (St. Augustine, “The City of God”, 14, 28).

“Unfaithful creatures!”: the original Greek simply says, “Adulterers” (feminine) and the New Vulgate, “Adulterers” (masculine). This echoes the symbol the prophets often use (cf., e.g. Hosea 1:2ff; Jeremiah 3:7-10; Ezekiel 16:1ff) of the marriage of God and His people sealed by the Covenant. St. James, therefore, is not referring to the sin of adultery; he is berating those whose excessive love for the things of this world makes them unfaithful to God.

5. The original Greek is open to various interpretations and the quotation as given here is not to be found in the Bible. Translated
word for word it means: “Jealously he loves the spirit which dwells in us.” It is not clear who “loves”—God or the spirit; and “the spirit” may mean the soul or the Holy Spirit; moreover, the jealousy can be either something good or something bad (like envy). It might perhaps be translated as “The Spirit who dwells in us jealously loves us” (which is how the New Vulgate translates it).

Although this sentence does not appear literally in the Bible, St. James may be referring not so much to a specific passage as to an idea
which often occurs in the Bible when it depicts God as a jealous lover (cf., e.g., Exodus 20:5; 34:14; Zechariah 1:14; 8:2), who expects His love to be returned wholeheartedly; this very human kind of language is a most moving evocation of God’s immense love for man. St. Alphonsus teaches: “Since He loves us with infinite love, He desires all our love; that is why He is jealous when He sees others having a share in hearts which He wants entirely for His own. ‘Jesus is jealous’, St. Jerome said (Epistle 22), in the sense that He does not want us to love anything that is outside Himself. And if He sees that some creature has a part of your heart, He is in a sense envious of it, as the Apostle James writes, because He tolerates no rival for our love; He wants to have all our love” (”The Love of Jesus Christ”, Chapter 11).

6. The sacred writer foresees the possibility that some may draw back from this “jealous” love God expects to be reciprocated: but God never expects the impossible; He gives us all the grace we need to do what He asks: “All my hope is naught,” St. Augustine exclaims, “save in Your great mercy. Grant what You command, and command what You will” (”Confessions”, 10, 29).

However, only people who are humble are given this grace, and have it bear fruit. The proud, who are full of self-love, even fail to realize that they need grace, and so they do not ask for it, or do not ask for it properly. The second part of the verse is a literal quotation from Proverbs 3:34 (according to the Septuagint Greek): it is an example of the “poetic” form, with the characteristic antithetical parallelism of Hebrew verse. St. Augustine, in his explanation of the fact that the Bible refers in places to the sins of prominent men, urges his readers to be humble, commenting that “there is scarcely a page in the sacred books which does not echo the fact that ‘God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble’” (”De Doctrina Christiana”, 3, 23).

7-10. Some ways of countering pride are identified here: basically what is required is a sincere and deep conversion, which must begin with the humility of recognizing that we are sinners and in need of purification. The tone of these verses is reminiscent of the way the
Old Testament prophets upbraid the people of Israel for the unfaithfulness to Yahweh.

To draw near to God the sinner needs purification. “Cleaning your hand” should not be understood as referring to the physical ablutions of the Jews (cf. Exodus 30:19-21; Mark 7:1-5); but should be taken in a moral sense—purification from sins, and upright actions (e.g., Isaiah 1:15-17; 1 Timothy 2:8). Of all the possible ways of being purified and converted (for example, the penitential rite at Mass, a visit to a shrine, or fasting), “none is more significant,” [Pope] John Paul II reminds us, “more divinely efficacious or more lofty and at the same time easily accessible as a rite than the Sacrament of Penance [...]. For a Christian, “the sacrament of Penance is the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of sins committed after Baptism” (”Reconciliatio Et Paenitentia”, 28 and 31).

7. When someone resists the devil’s temptations, the devil leaves him alone: he cannot force a man to commit sin. The “Shepherd of Hermas” (a work by an anonymous Christian writer, around the middle of the Second Century) elaborates on the same idea: “Be converted, you who walk in the commandments of the devil, commandments that are hard, bitter, cruel and foul. And do not fear the devil either, because he has no power against you [...]. The devil cannot lord it over those who are servants of God with their whole heart and who place their hope in Him. The devil can wrestle with, but not overcome them. So, if you resist him, he will flee from you in defeat and confusion” (”Eleventh Commandment”, 4, 6 and 5,2).

9. “Be wretched”: “To acknowledge one’s sin—penetrating still more deeply into the consideration of one’s own personhood—”to recognize oneself as a sinner”, capable of sin and inclined to commit sin, is the essential first step in returning to God” (”Reconciliatio Et Paenitencia”, 13).

Mourning and weeping are the external expression of sincere repentance (cf. Matthew 5:4 and note; Tobias 2:6; Amos 8:10): “You are crying? Don’t be ashamed of it. Yes, cry: men also cry like you, when they are alone and before God. Each night, says King David, I soak my bed with tears. With those tears, those burning manly tears, you can purify your past and supernaturalize your present life” ([St] J. Escriva, “The Way”, 216).

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: Green.

First reading	James 4:1-10 ©

Resist the devil and he will run away

Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.

You are as unfaithful as adulterous wives; don’t you realise that making the world your friend is making God your enemy? Anyone who chooses the world for his friend turns himself into God’s enemy. Surely you don’t think scripture is wrong when it says: the spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone? But he has been even more generous to us, as scripture says: God opposes the proud but he gives generously to the humble. Give in to God, then; resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and clear your minds, you waverers. Look at your wretched condition, and weep for it in misery; be miserable instead of laughing, gloomy instead of happy. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 54(55):7-11,23 ©