You Have the Words of Eternal Life

Reflections on the weekday readings for the liturgical year 2020/2021

Martin Hogan

• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781788122771
• eBook ISBN: 9781788122788
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

Many people feel drawn to basing their prayer on the Scriptures, in particular the gospels. These short reflections attempt to listen to the gospel text on its own terms while showing how it can continue to speak to our church and our world today. The book will appeal to priests in parishes who may wish to prepare a short homily for the weekday Mass, as well as to parishioners who wish to prayerfully reflect on the weekday gospel readings, as well as Lectio Divinagroups in parishes. The calendar of the book helps the busy presider, as the reflections are linked to the readings by calendar date rather than the church calendar.

INTRODUCTION

This book contains a short reflection on the readings for each of the weekdays of the liturgical year which begins with the first Sunday of Advent 2020, and concludes with the feast of Christ the King 2021. The reflections relate primarily to the gospel readings but they also embrace the first reading at times. On the weekdays of any liturgical year, we read from a large proportion of all four gospels, with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke featuring especially in Ordinary Time, and John’s Gospel featuring more prominently in the seasons of Lent and, especially, Easter. I hope that these reflections will be of help to priests who like to share a short reflection on the weekday readings at Mass and that they will also be a resource to parishioners who like to base their daily prayer on the weekday readings of the liturgy. I have been told that in parishes where a Liturgy of the Word occasionally replaces the daily celebration of the Eucharist, the Minister of the Word reads aloud the corresponding reflection after the readings.

The apostolic exhortation issued by Pope Benedict XVI after the Synod on the Word of God in 2010 states that ‘the liturgy is the privileged setting in which God speaks to us in the midst of our lives; he speaks today to his people, who hear and respond’ (Verbum Domini,52), and it goes on to state that ‘Christ, truly present under the species of bread and wine, is analogously present in the word proclaimed in the liturgy’ (VD, 56). At every Mass we are fed both from the table of the word and the table of the Eucharist. Prayerful reflection on the readings to be proclaimed at Mass disposes us to receive the word as bread of life more fruitfully when it is offered to us in the liturgy. In this regard, the post-synodal exhortation states, ‘prayerful reading, personal and communal, prepares for, accompanies and deepens what the Church celebrates when she proclaims the word in a liturgical setting’ (VD, 86).

The title for this book of reflections is taken from what is often referred to as ‘the Bread of Life discourse’ in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. As that discourse progresses, it is clear that the language of ‘bread’ acquires clear Eucharistic overtones, as when Jesus says, ‘The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (John 6:51), and then goes on to declare that ‘those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life’ (John 6:55). However, earlier in the discourse Jesus’ way of speaking of himself as the bread of life evokes the figure of Woman Wisdom in the Wisdom Literature of the Jewish Scriptures, which is also the background to the portrayal of Jesus as the Word of God become flesh in John’s Gospel. It is as the Wisdom or Word of God that Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35). The words of Jesus, including those words that are explicitly Eucharistic, are truly life-giving, satisfying the deepest hunger and thirst of the human heart. As Jesus goes on to declare, ‘the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life’ (John 6:63). At the very moment when some of Jesus’ disciples ‘turned back and no longer went about with him’ (John 6:66), Peter, as the spokesperson for the Twelve, acknowledges the life-giving power of Jesus’ words, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (John 6:68).

As so often in the gospels, Peter speaks for us all here. It is my hope that these reflections will help you, in some small way, to appreciate the Word of the Lord as words of eternal life.

30 November, Feast of Saint Andrew

Matthew 4:18–22

In the list of the twelve apostles, Andrew always comes second, after his brother Peter. He is overshadowed somewhat by his more prominent brother, who became the leading member of the church that was formed after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel reading refers to Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother, Andrew. The siblings of well-known people can easily become defined by their relationship to the better-known member of the family, ‘the brother or the sister of … ’. Yet, in the Gospel of John, it was Andrew who brought Peter to Jesus. According to the first chapter of that gospel, Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, and he and one other disciple of John the Baptist were the first to spend time in Jesus’ company. Having spent a day with Jesus, Andrew found his brother Simon Peter and declared excitedly to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’. He then brought Simon Peter to Jesus who, looking upon Simon, said to him, ‘You are Simon, son of John. You are to be called “Peter”.’ Even though Peter went on to have a more significant role in the Church than Andrew, it was Andrew who had the more significant role at the beginning. Indeed, without Andrew’s role in Peter’s life at that time, Peter would not have gone on to become the great pastoral leader he was. The Lord has a role for each one of us and that role is vitally important, even if it seems less prominent than other people’s roles. There is something that the Lord wants each of us to do that no one else can do. Sometimes, the role he is calling us to take on is that of the enabler, as in the case of Andrew, who enabled Peter to begin his faith journey, which went on to bear such rich fruit for the Church. Even though Andrew lived in the shadow of Peter somewhat, without Andrew the Church would not have known Peter. The role of enabler is one of those modest, humble roles in the Lord’s work that is, nonetheless, hugely significant. If we find ourselves being called to play that role at some point in our lives, we are indeed blessed.

1 December, Tuesday, First Week of Advent

Luke 10:21–24

In the gospel reading, Jesus draws a contrast between ‘the learned and the clever’ and ‘mere children’. He says that children are better than the learned and clever at grasping what he has come to reveal about God. Jesus came to reveal God’s hospitable love for all. He is uniquely placed to reveal God, because, as he says in the gospel reading, ‘no one knows who the Father is except the Son’. The Son knows God the Father intimately, yet Jesus struggled to make God known to those who thought of themselves as learned and clever in the ways of God, such as the experts in the Jewish Law. In contrast, those who would have been considered ignorant of the law of God, the ways of God, responded to what Jesus had to say about God with delight and excitement. Many of those went on to become his disciples, like Matthew the tax collector, and various fishermen, all of whom would have been thought of as ignorant of God’s ways as revealed in God’s Law, mere infants in the faith. Addressing these disciples, Jesus says in the gospel reading, ‘Happy the eyes that see what you see … to hear what you hear’. These are the people who have seen what Jesus was showing them, and heard what Jesus was saying, in contrast to those regarded by themselves and others as learned and clever in the ways of God. The first beatitude Jesus speaks in Matthew’s Gospel is, ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. Elsewhere Jesus says that unless we become like little children we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. There is a poverty of spirit, a childlike quality, that is needed if we are to receive and welcome all that the Lord is offering us. What is the Lord offering us? According to today’s gospel reading, he is offering us nothing less than a share in his own intimate relationship with God, ‘no one knows … ’. We need something of the openness of the child, of the poor in spirit, if the Lord’s amazing desire for us is to come to pass.

2 December, Wednesday, First Week of Advent

Matthew 15:29–37

Today’s first reading from Isaiah is often chosen as the first reading for a funeral Mass. It is a vision of a great feast on a mountain at which the Lord is host and from which all mourning and death have been banished for ever. It is truly a feast of life. It is a vision that anticipates much of what we find in the gospels. Jesus often spoke of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God’s life, as a great feast to which people from north, south, east and west would come. In today’s gospel reading Jesus provides a feast of life in the wilderness. It was an unexpected feast because the resources available for the feast were so few, seven loaves and a few small fish. Yet, Jesus worked powerfully through those meagre resources. The evangelist understood that feast as an anticipation of the Eucharist, where again the Lord works powerfully through meagre resources, offering us his body and blood under the simple form of bread and wine. The Church has always understood the Eucharist, in turn, as an anticipation of the great banquet of eternal life to which people from north, south, east and west will come. The Eucharist, like the banquet of the first reading and of the gospel reading, like the final banquet of God’s kingdom, is a feast of life, and we are sent from the Eucharist to promote life in all its forms. Sometimes this will mean working with what seem like scant resources. Yet, today’s gospel reading reminds us that the Lord can work powerfully through the little we have, if it is given to him with a generous spirit.

3 December, Thursday, First Week of Advent

Matthew 7:21, 24–27

In more recent decades we have become more aware of how houses can easily get built in places where they should never have been built, such as the flood plains of rivers. When houses are built on flood plains, it can often give rise to flooding further down the river. We have also become aware that faulty material has gone into the foundations of houses, resulting eventually in walls cracking and the whole house becoming unstable. It is vital to get the foundations of a house right, both in terms of the materials in the foundations and where the foundations are laid. It was no different in the time of Jesus. Houses were sometimes built in a way that was suited to the dry, hot, summer climate of the Near East, but left them exposed to the winter winds and rains, because their foundations were not laid down with winter conditions in mind. The foundations rested on sand rather than rock. Jesus sees in this shoddy building practice a message for our lives. Not just our houses, but our lives need to be built on firm foundations. Jesus declares his word to be the firmest foundation we can build our lives on, not just listening to his word, but putting his word into practice, living by his word. When we heed Jesus’ words and live according to his teaching, we are building the house of our lives on the firmest foundation imaginable. Then, when the storms of life come, as invariably they will come, we will have a firm footing. Our lives will hold together in bad times as well as good.

4 December, Friday, First Week of Advent

Matthew 9:27–31

The image of blindness and light connects all of today’s readings. In the first reading, the Lord, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, declares that ‘the eyes of the blind will see’. The responsorial psalm proclaims that ‘the Lord is my light and my help’. In the gospel reading Jesus restores the sight of two blind men. Most of us have reasonable sight, even if some of us need to wear our glasses all or most of the time. Yet, even when we can see with our eyes, we are probably aware that there are areas of blindness in us as well. Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we can be blind to the Lord’s presence to us, especially in times of great loss and pain. We fail to recognise him, even though he is journeying with us. We can be blind to each other too; we can fail to notice each other, to receive one another fully. Jesus received the two blind men fully; he engaged them in conversation; he showed great awareness of them. He saw them, in that attentive sense. He sees each of us in the same way. He is very aware of us; he engages us in conversation; he responds to our cry for help. He is always working in our lives to bring us towards a fuller light, towards himself, who is the Light of Life. Our calling is to grow in our capacity to see the Lord in the same attentive way that he sees us, and to see others as attentively as he sees them.

5 December, Saturday, First Week of Advent

Matthew 9:35–10.1, 6–8

Pope Francis often speaks of the Church as a field hospital. He is thinking of the hospitals that are set up in the vicinity of a war zone where the wounded come to have their wounds tended to. It is an image of the Church that reflects the ministry of Jesus. He tended to the wounded in body, mind and spirit. Today’s readings highlight that dimension of Jesus’ ministry. The ending of the first reading from the prophet Isaiah looks forward to a day when ‘the Lord dresses the wounds of his people’. In the gospel reading, Jesus proclaims the presence of the kingdom of God by curing all kinds of diseases and sickness. He has compassion on the crowd, whom he sees as harassed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. In response, he sends out the twelve as labourers to a rich harvest, with authority to proclaim the closeness of God’s kingdom by curing disease and sickness. The ministry of Jesus’ disciples, the ministry of the Church, is to be a continuation of Jesus’ own healing ministry. The Lord, present in the community of disciples, the Church, calls to us to come before him with our wounds of body, mind or spirit, and to open ourselves to his healing presence. The Lord continues his healing ministry among us today, which is why the image of the Church as a field hospital is so suitable. There will be times when we need the Lord to minister to us in our brokenness, when we come before him in need of his healing presence. There will be other times in our lives when the Lord will send us out, as he sent out the twelve, to bring his healing presence to others who are wounded. We are always wounded healers. We need the Lord to heal our wounds, and he needs us to be channels of his healing presence to others.

7 December, Monday, Second Week of Advent

Luke 5:17–26

There is a striking image of community in today’s gospel reading. A paralysed man wanted to get to Jesus. However, he was completely dependent on others if he was to get close to Jesus. On this occasion, his community did not let him down. They went to great lengths to get him as close to Jesus as possible. Having carried him to the house where Jesus was teaching, they saw immediately that they would never be able to get through the crowd to Jesus. Far from being put off by this obstacle, they went around it. Indeed, they literally went over the obstacle, bringing the paralyzed man up onto the roof of the house, removing some tiles and letting him down in front of Jesus. Here was an interruption that could not be ignored! Jesus recognised the faith not just of the paralysed man but of those who carried him, ‘seeing their faith’. The man was not just being physically carried by others, but he was being carried by their faith. We are part of the community of faith that we call the Church. Within that community we are called to carry each other. We can do that in very practical, concrete ways, such as physically taking people where they can’t go themselves, as that little group did in the gospel reading. We can also carry each other spiritually, by our faith. Whenever we live out of our faith in the Lord, we carry others spiritually. There are times in our lives when, like the paralysed man, we need to be carried by others, and there are other times when, like the man’s helpers, we have the strength and the faith to do the carrying. The gospel reading suggests that whenever we carry others or allow ourselves to be carried by others, we will encounter the Lord. The Lord will be there in all his healing and life-giving presence.

8 December, Tuesday, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Luke 1:26–38

John Henry Newman was canonised last year. After his conversion to Catholicism, one of the people that he received into the Church was the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, in 1866. Hopkins became a Jesuit two years later; he went on to teach in the Jesuit-run University College that Newman had started on Saint Stephen’s Green in Dublin. (Hopkins died there in 1889.) He wrote a poem on Mary entitled, ‘The Blessed Virgin compared to the air we breathe’. He speaks of air as the nursing element of the universe. What he calls ‘the world-mothering air’ speaks to him of Mary. The poem was composed a couple of decades after Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. In his poem, Hopkins makes reference to Mary’s Immaculate Conception: ‘Mary Immaculate, / Merely a woman, yet / Whose presence, power is / Great as no goddess’s / Was deemed, dreamed; who / This one work has to do – / Let all God’s glory through’. Today’s feast celebrates Mary as one who let all God’s glory through. If saints are people through whose lives shines the light of God’s glory, this is especially true of Mary. There was nothing in Mary to block the light of God’s glorious presence. In his poem, Hopkins, addresses Mary, ‘Be thou then, o thou dear / Mother, my atmosphere; / My happier world, wherein / To wend and meet no sin’.

The pope’s proclamation of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854 articulated what had been the faith of the Church since earliest times. It was understood by the faithful that Mary was preserved by God from sin because of her unique privilege of being the mother of God’s son. In the words of today’s gospel reading, she was ‘highly favoured’ by God, because ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Chapter 1