Friday, January 28
Matthew 9.9-13: By comparing this story with the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke, we learn that Matthew’s other name was Levi. Much like the previous story of the paralytic, this account of the call of Matthew’s call combines the theme of forgiveness with healing, for Jesus is here portrayed as a physician (9:12). As so often, Matthew’s version of this story includes a reference to the fulfillment of prophecy, in this case the prophet Hosea (cf also Matthew 2:15). Matthew was fond of this verse of Hosea about the Lord’s preference of mercy over sacrifice, and he will quote it again in 12:7.
Hebrews 11.30-40: This summary of the “great cloud of witnesses” may be described as centered on the author’s reference to what he calls “a better resurrection.” In the context, the comparative adjective, “better,” distinguishes this resurrection from the dead from earlier biblical stories in which, as he says, “women received their dead raised to life again.” Those earlier stories include those accounts in which Elijah and Elisha raised to life the deceased sons of the widow of Zarephath and the Shunammite woman.
These true resurrections from the dead may be compared with Jesus’ resurrections of Lazarus, the son of the widow of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus. These were true resurrections, genuine victories of life over death, and Holy Scripture uses the same word—anastasis—to describe them.
For all that, however, those resurrections were not complete, because those who were raised were still obliged to face death once again. When our author speaks, therefore, of a “better resurrection,” he has in mind that definitive victory over death, which was Israel’s most precious hope. “Others were tortured,” he tells us, “not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
This “better resurrection,” the final and highest hope of the Old Covenant, is the major and defining thesis of the New. St. Paul made this claim before the Sanhedrin itself: “I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection” (Acts 24:14-15). Paul finished his defense by declaring, “Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am being judged by you this day.”
The Resurrection is the core substance of the “good news.” It is not just one of the things that Christians believe, but the heart and kernel of the evangelion. For this reason the earliest, shortest version of the Creed asserted simply, “Jesus is Lord,” an assertion explained in the first apostolic sermon: “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:32,36). Peter preached this message to the Jews, because it addressed a specifically Jewish hope. “Let the whole house of Israel know,” he said. What God accomplished in the resurrection of Jesus was the fulfillment of a specifically Jewish hope.
Saturday, January 29
Matthew 9:14-17: The terms of the question point to a feature that distinguished the disciples of Jesus from the followers of John the Baptist. In due course the followers of John the Baptist were absorbed into the Christian Church, a process of which we see evidence in the New Testament itself, notably the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel according to John, and it seems likely that the final stages of this assimilation may have been contemporary with the composition of Matthew.
In His response to the question, Jesus makes it clear that the Christian freedom from fasting was a very temporary arrangement, entirely limited to the time of His earthly ministry, and we know that even prior to the end of the first century the Christian Church had already established Wednesday and Friday each week as fast days. This arrangement would distinguish the Christians from the Jews, who faster on Mondays and Thursdays.
Hebrews 12.1-11: In the Christian life, very much depends of where we look, where we direct our attention. Recall Peter’s attempt to walk on water: “And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid” (Matthew 14:29-30).
This fixation is a function of concentration: “Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” The opening verb here (the only place in the New Testament) is the imperative form of analogizomai, which refers to critical, discursive thought—the labor of the mind.
In fact, one sees in this verb the same root found in the English “analogy.” This is all the more curious inasmuch as our author proceeds immediately to provide an analogy: “It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not discipline?”
These reflections touch the very purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews: to encourage Christians who had become despondent because of the difficulties attendant on the life of faith. The author endeavors to fix their attention on those considerations that provide strength for the struggle. His model, in this respect, is Jesus Himself, who “endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Sunday, January 30
Psalms 79 (Greek & Latin 78): After the four horsemen had appeared, all carried on mounts distinctive in color, and the earth had been ravaged with their fourfold affliction, the Lamb of God reached forth to break the fifth seal of the great scroll. St. John tells us what he saw when that seal was opened: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony (martyria) which they held” (Rev. 6:9).
These are the souls of the martyrs, which means “witness-bearers,” and they are said here to be “under the altar” because their blood, poured out as in sacrifice, lies uncovered at the base of the altar. In the Bible, that is to say, the “soul [or “life”] is in the blood” (cf. Lev. 17:11, 14; Deut. 12:23). Their holy blood, unjustly shed, cries out to God “with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Rev. 6:10).
In a holy impatience that the truth of God should be vindicated, “How long?” is a cry and a question often enough heard from the lips of the psalmist (Psalms 74:10; 79:5; 89:46) and the Prophets (Is. 6:11; Dan. 8:13; 12:6; Hab. 1:2; Zech. 1:12), so it is not surprising that we should hear it too from those whose own lives were with violence cut short because of their witness to God.
“How long?” is not a petition for personal vengeance, for the desire for personal vengeance is offensive to God and therefore forbidden to His servants. It is a prayer, rather, that God’s own justice be validated by decisive fact and that a very important article of the Creed be vindicated with utterly determined finality: “He will come again in glory to judge.”
Even as the saints wait for that hour, they pray with fervor that it might, please God, be hastened: “How long?” A certain impatience, after all, is an essential component of desire. No sincere prayer of faith says: “Lord, we want this very badly, You understand, Sir, but, really, do take Your time about it. We would hate to rush You. It’s quite all the same to us.”
God’s answer to this prayer of the martyrs, nonetheless, is that He has much bigger plans in mind and does, in fact, intend somewhat to take His time in the matter, so they are exhorted to “rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed” (Rev. 6:11). In other words, there are more martyrdoms to come.
Similarly, Hebrews, after listing those who “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off” (11:13), says that even though they were “stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword” (11:37), they are nonetheless obliged to wait still longer, “God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (11:40).
This “How long?” prayer of Holy Church also finds expression in Psalm 79: “Help us, O God our Savior; for the sake of the glory of Your name, O Lord, deliver us, and forgive us our sins for the sake of Your name, lest the nations say: ‘Where is their God?’ Let the vengeance of the blood of Your servants, which was poured out, be known among the nations in our sight. Let the groaning of the prisoners come before You. With Your enormous arm take charge of the children of those who are slain. To our neighbors render sevenfold in their bosoms the contempt with which they have contemned You, O Lord.”
The Bible gives us no reason to believe that a prayer for the vindication of God’s judgment should be a particularly gentle prayer, for the judgment of God really is a judgment. It is not ambiguous or hazy. That is to say, it really does make decisions; it says, clearly and very emphatically, “this but not that.” God’s judgment really does know the difference between sheep and goats. There is no danger that God will mistake Abel for Cain.
Therefore, as our psalm surveys the ravages and wastes of our sinful history, with God’s house laid in ruins and the holy city “reduced to a fruit market,” with the corpses of God’s servants given as food to the fowl of the air and the beasts of the field, and “their blood poured out like water round about Jerusalem,” we join our voices with the martyrs who cry aloud “How long?” to the Lord holy and true.
Monday, January 31
Hebrews 12.18-29: The author of Hebrews outlines a contrast between two mountains: Sinai and Zion—the mountain of the Law and the mountain of the Temple, or the covenant with Moses and the covenant with David.
A similar contrast between these two mountains—Sinai and Zion—was made by St. Paul, much to the same effect: “For these are two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Galatians 4:24-26).
In both texts—Galatians and Hebrews—there is a contrast between the bondage of the Law and the boldness of the Christian. With respect to this contrast, St. Paul writes, “you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:7). In both cases, we observe, Mount Zion is called the heavenly Jerusalem: According to Galatians, “the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” According to Hebrews, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
One suspects that this contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion may have been a rhetorical trope in early Christian preaching. This suggestion would explain why we find it in both Galatians and Hebrews, in spite of the great differences between these two works. This contrast is used in both places and adapted to the theme of each work.
Here in Hebrews, the two mountains are contrasted with respect to what we may call “comfort”: Mount Sinai provokes fear and trembling, whereas Mount Zion inspires boldness, or parresia. In Hebrews, this word describes the spirit in which believers have access to God.
Thus, we read earlier of Christ as “as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the parresia and the rejoicing of a firm hope” (3:6). Or again, “Let us therefore come with parresia to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (4:16). There is an irony in this verse: We might imagine that the way to obtain mercy is not to demonstrate too much boldness. On the contrary, says Hebrews, boldness is the path to mercy!
Mount Sinai inspired a sense of awe and fear, even to the point of cringing. The author of Hebrews will have no cringing Christians. They are to approach God’s presence in a bold and confident spirit. He wrote earlier, “Therefore, brethren, having parresia to enter the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus . . . let us draw near with a true heart in the full certainty of faith” (10:19,22). In this text we observe that Christian boldness comes from Christian “certainty”—plerophoria.
Indeed, for the author of Hebrew, this Christian boldness is a thing to be protected. We must labor not to lose it: “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward” (10:35).
This boldness of Christians pertains especially to worship, as we see in the present text. Indeed, this consideration points to a major difference between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion: the former was as remembered the place where the Torah was given—where the “law was laid down”—whereas Mount Zion was the place of Israel’s worship.
In the present text, therefore, the author of Hebrews describes the components of Christian worship: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (verses 22-24).
This is a description of Christian prayer. It is an account of what takes place when a believer comes to God with confidence in the blood of Christ: Heaven and earth are joined, we are in the presence of the angels and the perfected righteous figures of history, and we have this approach by reason of the eloquent blood of Jesus. It is not the old covenant mediated through Moses, but the new covenant mediated by Jesus. In this final contrast, the author of Hebrews repeats what he has made the major theme of this entire work.
Tuesday, February 1
Matthew 10:1-15: Before sending out His missionaries in Matthew 11:1, Jesus gives a lengthy discourse on the structure and dynamics of mission; this is the second great sermon of the Gospel of Matthew. This initial mission, unlike the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, is directed only “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
The disciples are endowed with exsousia, “authority” (10:10:1), which we have seen to be a characteristic of Jesus’ own ministry in deed and word. Sometimes the shaking-off of dust from the feet has been taken very literally by Christian preachers; cf. Acts 13:51. Among many curious features of this list of the twelve apostles, it is instructive to note that the list includes someone who worked for the Roman government (Matthew) and someone sworn to its overthrow (Simon the Canaanite; cf. Luke 6:15).
Much of this chapter will be concerned with the resistance that the world will offer to the proclamation of the Gospel. This message has been prepared by Chapter 8-9, where Jesus’ own ministry was constantly resisted by those who felt it to be a threat.
Hebrews 13.1-15: Because “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever,” a certain stability should be expected in the lives and conduct of Christians. For example, they should “not be carried away with various and strange teachings [didachai].” That is to say, they must avoid ideas alien (xsenai) to the doctrines handed down from the Apostles. The example given here concerns dietary restrictions based on the kosher rules in the Torah: “foods which have not profited those who have been preoccupied with them.” We recognize this admonition as reflecting the concern of St. Paul.
For the rest, the outline given here for Christian conduct is basic. There is, for starts, the primacy of fraternal love: “Let brotherly love abide”—he philadelphia meneto. This expression suggests that such love should be a constant habit of mind and a sustained pattern of response. Fraternal love, in other words, is the Christian’s “default” preference, the programmatic disposition of his mind and sentiments.
This fraternal love is expressed in hospitality (philoxsenia), described here as the entertainment of strangers. Besides its obvious sense of receiving others into our homes, it also suggests a certain open-mindedness to those who are different from ourselves, the ones designated as xsenisantes. Perhaps we may think of it as a willingness not to impose on others our own cultural and sympathetic preferences. This would mean that Christians, while avoiding “strange doctrines,” should not be necessarily avoid “strange people.”
Our author appeals to the Old Testament examples of those who “unwittingly entertained angels.” The obvious cases are those of Abraham and Tobit, who showed hospitality to angels.
Wednesday, February 2
Our Lord’s Presentation in the Temple: On this feast (exactly forty days after Jesus’ birth) we celebrate his reception in the Temple, in accord with the Mosaic rule cited in today’s reading from Luke.
It is instructive to observe a point of similarity between this, Jesus’ first visit to the Temple, with his visit to the Temple. In his first visit, today’s visit, the price of his redemption wass the sacrifice of two birds. This was the offering of the poor, who could not afford the price of a lamb. These two birds were all Joseph and Mary could afford. They were poor people, and their offering reflected their poverty.
On Jesus’ final visit to the Temple, Luke tells us, there was another poor person, a widow, who possessed only two small coins. These two coins were all she had, says Luke, everything she possessed. She gave it all to the service of God. These two small coins stand in correspondence to the two little birds offered by Joseph and Mary.
In both cases we are struck by the poverty of the offering. These two stories—two birds and two coins—-inform us of what God thinks of the offerings of the poor.
The poor widow in the Temple gives her entire existence to God; she holds nothing back, just as Jesus, when he came to his Father’s house, held nothing back. This scene is also an invitation to us who celebrate this feast day. We too arrive with the baby Jesus, to join with the Lord’s Mother and to hear the prophecy of Simeon about penetrated hearts. With Christ our Lord, we dedicate our own hearts to the true God worshipped in the Temple.
Reflection on Jesus’ final visit to the Temple, just days before his death on the Cross, points to the dark aspect of today’s feast. The prophetic words of Simeon indicate this second aspect. The old man said to the Mother of Jesus: “Behold, this One is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a controversial sign—yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul as well—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
The darker aspect of the Presentation was also conveyed in the appearance of the prophetess Anna. St. Luke says of her that “spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”
Thursday, February 3
Matthew 10:16-26: Four animals are mentioned in the first verse, all of them for their symbolic value.
Although this initial mission is only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” it is significant that the “nations” are mentioned in 10:18; again, this foreshadows the Great Commission given at the end of Matthew. These verses make it clear that the proclamation of the gospel by the Church will be met with resistance, just as we saw to be the case in chapters 8 and 9. Like Jesus, the disciples will be “handed over” to “councils” (synedria).
This description, contained here in prophecy, was very much the experience of the Christians whom Matthew knew when he was writing these words. Similar experiences are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.
Hebrews 13.16-25: The closing verses of Hebrews contain a benediction, which may have been a standard form of blessing. The reason for this supposition is that the benediction introduces two ideas that are not explicit or elaborated in the work itself.
The first of these “new” ideas is that of Jesus as the Shepherd: “that great Shepherd of the sheep.” Whereas the Epistle to the Hebrews is rich in its development of Christological titles—such as Son of God, High Priest, Mediator, Author of the faith, and so on—it does not otherwise speak of Jesus as Shepherd. Nor does our author otherwise describe Christians as sheep. These images, which are introduced, without elaboration, right at the end, remain thematically separate from the core collection of the book’s Christological and ecclesiological motifs. It is reasonable, therefore, to think of these images as simply borrowed from the early Church’s standard forms of closing benediction. As matters of theme, we would associate them especially with the Gospel of St. John.
The second “new” idea is the Resurrection: “the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead.” Except for the brief mention of Isaac’s restoration to Abraham in 11:19, Hebrews does not otherwise speak of the Lord’s Resurrection. On the contrary, his Christological and soteriological emphasis is consistently placed on the Lord’s Ascension into heavenly glory. That is to say, the sudden reference to the Resurrection, at the work’s very end, is better explained as coming from a common benediction in use among the early Christians.
What should be said about the expression “blood of the everlasting covenant” in this benediction? Certainly Hebrews earlier speaks of “the blood of the covenant” (10:29), and it is definitely a theme elaborated in the course of this work. These considerations are not strong evidence, however, that the author of Hebrews is also the author of the closing benediction. The expression ‘blood of the covenant” is hardly limited to the Epistle to the Hebrews (cf. Matthew 26:28 and parallels).
Friday, February 4
Romans 1.1-17: Paul introduces his theme: faith. At its deepest level faith is an act—and then a habit—through which the soul is joined to Christ. Perhaps my point will clearer if I employ the Greek word for soul, psyche. Recourse to this Greek noun prompts us to think of faith in psychological terms. Faith has to do with psychology. Faith is a psychological act and becomes a psychological habit. Faith is that through which I am joined to Christ by way of a transformed psychology.
There is a psychological difference in person who adheres to Christ in faith. Anscar Vonier calls faith a “psychic link” between Christ and the believing soul.
My soul, my psyche, is shaped, is altered by its relationship to Christ in trust, obedience, and gratitude, for these are essential components of faith.
Faith, then, is my foundational relationship to the person of Christ, and in giving Him my trust and obedience I trust and obey God. As my faith grows by serving as the basis of my decisions and choices in life, my soul is altered by faith.
The union of my soul with Christ changes my perspectives and alters my dispositions. I will begin to see things as Christ sees them, because of my communion with Christ’s human soul.
My soul will change by the sustained cultivation of faith, because who Christ is will begin to enter the soul’s activity. This is what it means to be saved through faith.
This does not mean that faith is a merely subjective state. On the contrary, faith constitutes a relational state, by which I am joined to Christ. The transforming force of faith comes the soul’s relationship to the soul to the soul of Christ.
Faith is a relationship of transforming grace. It is a not a merely juridical or declarative reality. It is a psychological reality, because it is an act and habit by which the soul permits itself to be seized and grasped by Christ.