First Reading Commentary
It's best to begin with a little background
leading up to this Reading. The reason
the Lord took “some of the spirit that was on Moses” was because Moses asked
for this as he was feeling overburdened by being God's sole
representative. Moses spent long hours
listening to complaints and making judgments on individual cases from disputes
that came up among the people of Israel.
Moses finally hit a wall and was burned out. God heard Moses' plea and “bestowed” His
Spirit on “the seventy elders.”
With our Lord speaking to Moses from a
cloud, perhaps we are getting some foreknowledge of Eucharistic Adoration. As we gaze at the Monstrance, our Lord is in
a cloud; that is to say, He is hidden under the guise of Bread; and as we try
to listen with the ears of our heart, we hope to hear Him speak to us.
There are absolutely no limits to the Holy
Spirit; no limits to where He can go, no limits to the number of people He can
rest upon, no limits to the number of incredible and miraculous works He can
do. There are many things the Paraclete
does for each of us daily. There are
many things He does through us daily, although the hustle and bustle of daily
life makes most of those works go unnoticed.
There may be something you say that leads someone to conversion, or
brings comfort, or makes them more open-minded.
There may be a neighbor of yours who seldom goes to church but just
happens to be standing at the front door or peaking out the window watching you
go on Sunday; and then they begin to wonder what keeps you going every
Sunday. There are many circumstances and
occurrences daily that the Holy Spirit is responsible for that we are seldom
dazzled by.
Reflect on your own life and think about
the incredible things that have happened that would not have happened if you
weren't at the right place at the right time.
Who knows how many disasters you avoided because you were at another
place at the right time? Think of the
bad things that have happened and the good that came from it.
God brings good out of every evil. In life, for every Good Friday, an Easter
Sunday always seems to follow. We must
be open to God's graces and imitate His sacrificial love for the Mystical Body
of Christ by realizing and accepting that our own personal Good Fridays might
very well end up as someone else's Easter Sunday. But isn't that what happened with our Lord
Jesus Christ? He experienced the pain
and suffering on Good Friday but Easter Sunday was His gift to us.
We are temples of the
Holy Spirit, and as disciples of our Lord the allowance of ourselves to be His
instruments and the taking up of our cross daily may very well be for the good
of the members; and when we can be faithful to that, then we have grasped that
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Second Reading Commentary
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church
this Reading falls under the subtitle, "Love for the Poor" and
teaches that “love for the poor is incompatible with immoderate love of riches
or their selfish use” (CCC 2445).
The theology of material wealth is often
misunderstood. Having material wealth is
not unpleasant to the Eyes of God. It's
actually a gift from Him entrusted to those who have it. It can be the root of sin if those who are
entrusted with it are selfish and deliberately ignore the needs of others. In the words of Saint John Chrysostom, "Not
to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them
of life." If you have material
wealth, more than likely the Holy Spirit has on one or more occasions led you
to individuals or charities that were in need.
It's no accident! Your response
to give makes you a willing instrument of the Holy Spirit. Saint Gregory the Great says that when we
attend to the needs of those in want, we are paying a debt of justice. In this Reading Saint James gives us a very
stern lesson on the result of hoarding material wealth; the material goods will
either be spent or rot away.
In the final verse, “You
have condemned; you have murdered the righteous One; He offers you no
resistance”; more than likely this is a reference to Jesus and what Saint James
seems to be conveying in a no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point tone is aimed at
those who prefer the temporary pleasures of material goods instead of the
eternal treasure that only Jesus can give.
Jesus, likewise, warns us about preferring the rewards of this life
instead of the eternal gifts of heaven and teaches us to store up for ourselves
treasure in heaven; for where our treasure is, there also will our hearts be (cf. Matthew 6:19-21).
Gospel Commentary
In the First Reading Joshua is complaining
that others are prophesying. Joshua,
like Saint John in this Gospel, made the same assumption that either God has
limitations or that perhaps God should limit Himself.
In this Gospel account Jesus says, “There
is no one who performs a mighty deed in My Name who can at the same time speak
ill of Me.” In 1 Corinthians 12:3, Saint
Paul says, "I tell you that nobody speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus
be accursed.'" When studying
Scripture, we find these consistencies often because God is truly the same
always.
“Anyone who gives you a cup of water to
drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose
his reward.” On this verse Nicholas of
Lyra comments, "Here we may find that no one can be excused from good
works; since there is no one who is not able to give at least a cup of cold
water; and we are assured that he will not lose his reward."
The final verses of this Gospel are harsh
and not easy to listen to or read. But
of course our Lord is not literally telling us to put a millstone around our
neck and throw ourselves into the sea, nor is He is telling us to cut off a
hand or a foot; nor does He want us to pluck an eye out. There are quite a bit of scholarly opinions
as to what Jesus means by these chilling statements. The most commonly accepted theory is that our
Lord is telling us to accept our sufferings; that even His most faithful
disciples are being cleansed and purified by the sufferings of this life. Accepting our sufferings is easier said than
done but something to consider is that Jesus accepted His sufferings even
though He came into this world sinless, led a sinless life, was crucified and
died an innocent, sinless Victim; and ascended into heaven as pure as He always
was and ever shall be. In other words,
the perfection of God doesn't quite fit in with such occurrences but He took it
upon Himself for our sakes.
When Jesus speaks of “Gehenna” and “the
unquenchable fire,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us a warning; but
since warnings are messages of what could happen, there is always an underlying
message of hope: "The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell
and its eternity. The chief punishment
of hell is eternal separation from God, in Whom alone man can possess the life
and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the
teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility
incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal
destiny. They are at the same time an
urgent call to conversion" (CCC 1035-1036).
