Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 8-27-02, Memorial of St. Monica

Reading I
2 Thes 2:1-3a, 14-17

We ask you, brothers and sisters,
with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our assembling with him,
not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly,
or to be alarmed either by a "spirit," or by an oral statement,
or by a letter allegedly from us
to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.
Let no one deceive you in any way.

To this end he has also called you through our Gospel
to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm
and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,
who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement
and good hope through his grace,
encourage your hearts and strengthen them
in every good deed and word.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 96:10, 11-12, 13

R (13b) The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Say among the nations: The Lord is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity.
R The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!
Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.
R The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Before the Lord, for he comes;
for he comes to rule the earth.
He shall rule the world with justice
and the peoples with his constancy.
R The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Gospel
Mt 23:23-26

Jesus said:
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and fidelity.
But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup,
so that the outside also may be clean."

From The Word Among Us

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Meditation
Matthew 23:23-26

Many parents conscientiously provide a comfortable home for their children and care for all their needs. But if they supply music lessons and give birthday parties while failing to teach their sons and daughters about integrity, curiosity, ambition, and even the meaning of life, are they good parents? Are they being faithful to what God asks of them? Hardly. It is an injustice to emphasize external behavior but neglect the inner life. In a way, parents who do this are like the Pharisees in today’s gospel.

Those Pharisees were teaching people to give more weight to religious minutiae than to God’s central command to treat others with mercy—“straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel,” as Jesus described it (Matthew 23:24). His harsh rebuke shows how seriously God takes the inner life. It also shows that Jesus didn’t come just to reconcile us to God, but to each other as well. By his cross, he can deliver us of the selfishness that causes us to neglect the needs within our families and communities.

Look within your heart. Can you see something of the Pharisee in yourself? Most of us can. We may want to be faithful to the spirit of God’s law, and yet it can be so easy to fail! It’s tempting to give importance to the wrong things. We focus on external observances that we can carry out despite the fact that our hearts are tainted with a selfishness and jealousy that we cannot overcome on our own. It’s only as Jesus lives within us that God’s justice and mercy will come into the world. It’s only then that we will be able to make the right choices and to act as we should.

Most likely, our actions and decisions will not right wrongs and injustices on a major scale. Nonetheless, what we do in our daily lives really matters. Every time we show kindness to the poor, forgive a debt, or put aside a grudge, great blessings flow. The angels rejoice. Why the celebration? Because not only does our change of heart benefit us: It brings the world yet another glimpse of the mercy, glory, and power of God himself.

“Praise to you, Lord Jesus, for your victory over injustice and evil! Teach me to weigh things as you do and to practice justice by serving and helping others.”

The Coming of the Lord:1-3

The Need for Steadfastness: 14-17

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Commentary:

1-2. The main theme of the letter is given here--the timing of the second coming of the Lord. Some people had been unsettling the minds of the Thessalonians by saying that the Parousia was about to happen.

The phrase "by spirit" is a reference to people claiming to have a charismatic gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit who were spreading their own ideas as if they came from God. Others preferred to pass off what they had to say as coming from St. Paul (orally or in writing).

Those who try to mislead the people of God by teachings contrary to Christian faith often use methods of the same sort. By twisting the meaning of Sacred Scripture (cf. Mt 4:6) they not infrequently promote wrong teaching as if it were a revelation from the Holy Spirit. The Second Vatican Council has reminded us how to identify subjective interpretation of that kind: "The task of giving an authentic interpretation, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ" ("Dei Verbum", 10).

Even in our own day there are sects and impressionable people who put a lot of effort into working out when the second coming will take place, sometimes making specific predictions which the passage of time disproves. They are missing the main point, which is that we should be always on the watch, always ready to joyfully meet the Lord.

"To the effect that the day of the Lord has come": this is literally what the Greek says--or "as if the day of the Lord is here", in the sense of "about to come any minute now". The New Vulgate [and the Navarre Spanish: trs.] translate it as "as if the day of the Lord were imminent", which is faithful to the tenor of the text and reads more clearly.

3-4. Our Lord's second coming is not imminent, for two things must happen first--the "rebellion" and the advent of the "man of lawlessness". It is extremely difficult to make any definite predictions as to the nature of these events because the Apostle says very little about them--and nothing to indicate WHEN they may occur.

The "rebellion" or apostasy seems to suggest that a massive flight from God, affecting a substantial part of the world's population, will signal that time is coming to an end. When speaking about the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (events prefiguring what would happen at the end of the world) Jesus himself predicted (cf. Mt 24:11-13) that this would happen. He said that most people's love would grow cold (cf. Mt 24:12), to such as extent that they would lose all knowledge of God; when their rebellion had run its course, the End would come and the general judgment would take place.

"The man of lawlessness": it is not clear whether this refers to a particular individual, someone uniquely evil, or whether this is a literary device indicating a multitude of people given over to sin and actively hostile to Christ's work in the world. It is more likely to refer to all the forces of evil taken together as a tool used by Satan to pursue his ends. "Man of lawlessness" and "son of perdition" are Semitic expressions indicating that these people have a particularly close connection with sin and with eternal perdition.

The "man of lawlessness" is a declared enemy of God who is systematically hostile to everything to do with the service of God. The Apostle stresses that he is so brazen that "he takes his seat in the temple of God", that is, insists on divine honors. He will go to great lengths to induce people to rebel against God before the end of the world, just as false prophets tried to lead people astray prior to the fall of Jerusalem (cf. Mt 24:4-5, 11, 23-24).

The description of this adversary of God is very like that of the "antichrist" whom St. John speaks of (cf. 1 Jn 2:18 and note on same).

13-14. Although there may be some people who refuse to accept the truth, the Apostle feels moved to thank God for his readers' "sanctification by the Spirit" and their "belief in the truth". This will bring them to salvation. The brethren too should thank God for choosing them, for the election shows that they are "beloved by the Lord". (On the meaning of the expression "beloved by God", see the note on 1 Thess 1:4).

The mention of the three divine Persons reminds us that salvation is the joint work of the Blessed Trinity: "God the Father" chooses the person to obtain the glory of our "Lord Jesus Christ" through the sanctifying action of the "Spirit". Man, who is submerged in sin and unable to free himself by his own efforts, is offered, by the entire Trinity, the means to attain faith, salvation and sanctification: "There was no power great enough to raise us and free us from such a catastrophic and eternal death. But God, the Creator of the human race, who is infinitely merciful, did this through his only-begotten Son. By his kindness, man was not only restored to the position and nobility whence he had fallen, but was adorned with even richer gifts. No one can express the greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls of men. Because of it, men, both in Sacred Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, are described as being reborn, new creatures, sharers in the divine nature, sons of God, deified" ("Divinum Illud Munus", 9).

For the fifth time in these two short letters to the Thessalonians we find the verb "to give thanks" (cf. 1 Thess 1:2; 2:13; 5:18: 2 Thess 1:3 and 2:13). It is good to realize that in these two earliest New Testament texts there is evidence of frequent, spontaneous thanks to God for his fatherly kindness. It is not a matter of a minion thanking his master for benefits received; rather it is an expression of filial, heartfelt, joyful gratitude (cf. Jn 11:41).

"From the beginning": as the RSV note says, "other ancient authorities read "as the first converts", that is, as the first fruits--probably a reference to the fact that the church as Thessalonica was one of the first churches founded by St. Paul in Europe.

15. To avoid being led astray by unsound or unreliable teaching the thing to do is to hold fast to the faith one received and to apostolic tradition.

"Tradition": this term (cf. also 2 Thess 3:6) seems to refer to the Christian teaching St. Paul himself received which he preached to them. Elsewhere the Apostle uses a term with a more specific meaning, the "paratheke" ("deposit") of teachings concerning the Christian faith (cf. 1 Tim 6:20 and 2 Tim 1:14 and notes on same). He makes the point a number of times (cf. 1 Cor 11:23; 15:1-3) that he was not preaching his personal opinions but rather passing on truths given him as revealed doctrine. That is why he cannot allow his message to be tampered with.

"It is obvious", St. Thomas Aquinas observes, "that many things which are not written down in the Church were taught by the Apostles and therefore should be followed" ("Commentary on 2 Thess, ad loc."). Thus, the truth revealed by God is passed on through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Second Vatican Council teaches that both "are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal [...]. Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. Thus it comes about that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the Sacred Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence" ("Dei Verbum", 9).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

Jesus Indicts the Scribes and Pharisees

Commentary:

23. Mint, dill (aniseed) and cummin were herbs the Jews used in cooking or to perfume rooms. They were such insignificant items that they were not covered by the Mosaic precept on paying tithes (Leviticus 27:30-33; Deuteronomy 14:22ff); the precept did not apply to domestic animals and the more common agricultural products such as wheat, wine and olive oil. However, the Pharisees, being so intent on showing their scrupulous observance of the Law, paid tithes even of these herbs. Our Lord does not despise or reject the Law; He is simply telling people to get their priorities right: there is no point in attending to secondary details if one is neglecting what is really basic and important-- justice, mercy and faith.

24. The Pharisees were so scrupulous about not swallowing any insect which the Law declared to be unclean that they went as far as to filter drinks through a linen cloth. Our Lord criticizes them for being so inconsistent--straining mosquitos, being so scrupulous about little things, yet quite happily "swallowing a camel", committing serious sins.

25-26. After reproaching the Pharisees for their hypocrisy in religious practice, our Lord now goes on to indict their twofacedness in matters of morality. The Jews used to perform elaborate washings of plates, cups and other tableware, in line with the regulations on legal cleansing (cf. Mark 7:1-4).

The example He chooses suggests a deeper level of meaning--concern for that moral purity which should characterize man's interior life. What is of prime importance is cleanliness of heart, an upright intention, consistency between what one says and what one does, etc.
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

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