First Reading Commentary
To understand this Reading more fully, it
would be helpful to go back to the Book of Exodus and peruse the passages found
in Chapter 4, verses 22-31, and Chapter 11 verse 4 all the way through verse 14 of chapter 12.
While this Reading basically reflects on
these verses from Exodus, Wisdom is certainly not to be outdone in providing
information as to what these events mean for the future of God's people. These events, although very real in the lives
of the Israelites, were as Wisdom teaches us, symbolic - leading to a divine reality.
It was at night that the Israelites watched
and waited for the Lord to pass over their houses as their doorposts were sprinkled
with the blood of slaughtered lambs. The
prophets watched and waited for the coming of the Lamb of God Whose Blood would
save His people. Those passages in Exodus
tell us that not only were the Israelites required to slaughter the lamb, but
they also had to eat it. The reality of
this symbolism came to us at the Last Supper and has continued at each and
every Mass in which we consume the Lamb of God's precious Body and Blood.
The prophets of the Old Testament watched
and waited for the reality or fulfillment.
With all this mentioning of symbolism, however, it's important to note
that it is only intended as a reference to the rituals of the Old Covenant that
would find their fulfillment in the New and Everlasting Covenant. As God's people crossed over from the Old
Covenant to the New, there was no rupture.
For example, in the Old Covenant ritual of sacrificing a lamb and then
eating the lamb, the people of Israel did not eat a symbol of the lamb that was
sacrificed, but rather they ate the actual lamb. In the New and Everlasting Covenant, Christ
is our sacrificial Lamb; and what we partake of at Communion is not a symbol of
the Lamb but instead the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Sacrificial Lamb
Who is Jesus Christ.
Keeping watch is still very much a part of our
Christian tradition. While the prophets
watched for the coming of the Messiah, today monastics, hermits, cenobites and
those who adore our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the wee hours of the night
keep vigil, waiting and longing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Our Lord asks the question: "When the
Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8). Our Savior
continues: "Watch, therefore; you know not when the Lord of the house is
coming. May He not come suddenly and
find you sleeping" (Mark 13:35-36).
It's interesting to parallel the first born
of the Egyptians being killed with the events at the Garden of Gethsemane
leading to Christ's sacrificial act of love.
Jesus asked His apostles to keep watch, but they fell asleep. Unlike the Israelites of the Exodus story,
the apostles were unable to keep vigil.
But in this case it was not the first born of the Egyptians to lose
their lives so that the Israelites may be freed from their bondage; instead it
was the first born of God Who would be sacrificed so that we may be freed from
the bondage of sin and death. But it is
the mysterious ways of the Lord that challenge our broken nature. The death of the first born among the
Egyptians satisfies a very human desire and longing for revenge – the bad guys
got what they deserved. With the Crucifixion
of Jesus, however, the good Guy is slaughtered so that the heirs of the fall
from paradise may have life eternal. In
the unseen world, however, the ultimate bad guy, the devil, really had to take
it on the chin because Christ broke the stranglehold of death.
While being awake and
at prayer in the middle of the night is not realistic for most of us, we can
still keep watch by fixing our eyes on heaven and staying focused on eternal
riches. If our treasure is in heaven,
there also will our hearts be (cf.
Matthew 6:21).
Second Reading Commentary
For the human will, faith is the glue that
holds everything together. No matter
what happens to us in this life, our faith holds firm the belief of a revealed
but absent end as well as a future with a new beginning in eternity.
There are some biblical examples of faith
in this Reading. It is faith that the
saints held fast to that has led us to honor them. Let's not forget the Virgin Mary's leap of
faith that brought about the radical change in her life which made her the
Mother of God. Her leap of faith also
changed our lives radically. "Yes"
or "so be it" are appropriate synonyms for "faith". Our Lady said yes; Noah said yes; Abraham
said yes; Moses said yes; Peter said yes; Paul said yes; all the saints said
yes. They all said: Yes, I will do what
You ask of me Lord. Yes I believe in You
and I trust You; so be it, so be it, so be it!
This Reading reveals that Abraham was
willing to sacrifice his son Isaac - even though God promised descendants from
Isaac - because Abraham was committed to a personal faith that believed God
would somehow be able to raise Isaac from the dead. Therefore, Abraham said yes. He didn't try to apply logic and figure out
how descendants could possibly come from Isaac if he was about to be
sacrificed. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church teaches that Abraham, because he was strong in faith, became the
father of all who believe (cf. CCC 146).
The Catechism goes on to add that from God we have received the grace of
believing in His Son Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (cf. CCC
147).
Faith is a gift from the Almighty. It is faith that leads us to our church doors
on Sunday. Sometimes it's good to sit
back and reflect on the week that just passed.
Consider the times you exercised your faith. It's good to do this because so often we use
our faith without realizing it. What did
you do this past week that required faith?
What decisions did you make that required a leap of faith? When you wake up, for example, you have no
idea what surprises are waiting for you that could disrupt what you already had
planned for that day. Without even
realizing it, our day begins with us exercising our faith because we're
confident that God will get us through the bumpy road that may lie ahead. We depend on God for so many things and we
trust in Him for so many things and yet it is not often in our recollections. All the money in the world can't buy fruits
and vegetables if God doesn't first command the seed to grow. By faith this truth is known but seldom, if
ever, acknowledged.
In the Church's Night Prayer (Compline) we read from Psalm 4: "As
soon as I lie down, I fall peacefully asleep, for You alone, O Lord, bring
security to my dwelling" (Psalm 4:9). The thought of not being under God's watchful
and loving Eyes is rarely ever considered – it doesn't really occupy the human
mind unless one is faced with something that is life threatening.
It is quite common in
the Christian East to pray the "Jesus Prayer". A simplified version of this is to pray the
Name of "Jesus" through the rhythm of one's breathing pattern. This not only thwarts off evil because of the
powerful Name of Jesus but also is a reminder that God is responsible for each
breath we take. If the Almighty turned
away His gaze from us for one millisecond, we would cease to exist. Jesus, because He is God, is the only
independent Being that has ever walked the earth. In His Human Nature, however, He exercised
dependency on the Father to teach us how much we need God.
Gospel Commentary
The words "gird your loins" are
familiar to the ancient East. It was
their practice to gird up their long garments when they were about to get down
to business. And so, what Jesus is
saying here is to be ready for His return.
In other words, when He returns, will He find us in a state of grace,
laboring for the Kingdom, or will He find us drunk, a metaphor for living
according to one's own design and not accepting or living out the dignity of a
child of God.
Both Saint Gregory and Saint Thomas Aquinas
explain the watches as such: The first watch is childhood, the beginning of our
existence. The second watch is
adulthood, and the third watch is referring to old age.
Realistically, being prepared for our
Savior's Second Coming is only part of the story. As a result of our own death, we could meet
our Lord face-to-Face before His literal Second Coming. And like the Second Coming, when our time of
death will occur is a mystery; therefore, always being prepared is the key.
The Catechism explains: "Everyone is
called to enter the Kingdom. First
announced to the children of Israel, this Messianic Kingdom is intended to
accept men of all nations. To enter it,
one must first accept Jesus' word. This
Kingdom shines out before men in the word, in the works and in the presence of
Christ. To welcome Jesus' word is to
welcome the Kingdom itself. The seed and
beginning of the Kingdom are the little flock of those whom Jesus came to
gather around Him, the flock whose Shepherd He is. They form Jesus' true family. He urges us to vigilance of the heart in
communion with His own. Vigilance is
custody of the heart. The Holy Spirit
constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch.
This petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last
temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance" (CCC
543, 764, 2849).
Saint Paul is a marvelous example of a
heart that was formerly unprepared, and then after his conversion he used every
ounce of his strength to prepare the hearts of others. And after his conversion, he had many things
happen to him that could easily have convinced him to give up the good
fight. Instead his lamp was always
shining brightly, prepared to welcome his Master. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians he
writes: "We do not lose heart, because our inner being is renewed each day
even though our body is being destroyed at the same time. The present burden of our trial is light
enough, and earns for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on
what is unseen. What is seen is
transitory; what is unseen lasts forever" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
Saint Paul points out
that the present burden of our trial is light enough; therefore, by fixing our
gaze on the unseen we are not running away from the culture - instead we're
bringing heaven's point of view to the culture.
