Friday, January 11<\/b><\/p>\n
Matthew 5:1-12: The Sermon on the Mount begins with two very solemn verses, as though to allow everyone to sit down and get settled for a long discourse. The Sermon functions in more than one way to serve the structure of Matthew\u2019s entire composition. For example, taking place on a mountain at the very beginning of the Lord\u2019s ministry, it is the initial component of a parallel with the mountain at the end of the Gospel, the mountain from which Jesus sent the Apostles to teach what he had taught (28:20).<\/p>\n
Again, the Sermon is the first of the five great discourses—a New Testament Chumash<\/i> as it were—which are the didactic backbone of Matthew\u2019s Gospel. Functioning thus, it stands in chiastic correspondence to the last of these five discourses, the lengthy sermon on the Last Things (chapters 23\u201325).<\/p>\n
Close readers of Matthew have long observed that this Sermon itself forms a commentary on the Beatitudes with which it begins (verses 2\u201310). This commentary is also chiastic, meaning that it reverses the order of the Beatitudes. Thus, for example, verses 11\u201312 form a commentary on verse 10, verses 13\u201316 are a commentary on verse 9, and so forth.<\/p>\n
Genesis 11: In spite of the national diversities outlined in the previous chapter, all of mankind, up to this point, speaks with a common tongue (verse 1).<\/p>\n
The construction of Babel, the second city to be founded in the Bible, prompts us to recall the moral ambiguity of the first city, founded by the world\u2019s first fratricide (4:17). Babel, like that first city, represents the development of technology (verse 3; 4:22). The tower of Babel symbolizes man\u2019s arrogance and his rebellion against the authority of God. Not trusting God\u2019s promise never again to destroy the world by flood (9:15), the men of Babel decide to build this tower as a sort of insurance policy against God\u2019s punishment. Its construction, therefore, is of a piece with all the earlier rebellions against God that we have seen, starting in Chapter Three.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s response is twofold. It is both a punishment against the rebels and a preventative measure against their becoming even worse. That is to say, even God\u2019s punishment is an act of mercy.<\/p>\n
In the more general symbolism of Holy Scripture, Babel also represents Babylon, the city of power and godless rebellion, which is overthrown definitively in the Book of Revelation. There is a symbolic identity, therefore, uniting the present story to the destruction of Babylon described in Revelation 17 and 18. This city represents any political and economic establishment characterized by arrogance and the love of power.<\/p>\n
Saturday, January 12<\/b><\/p>\n
Hebrews 6:1-8: Today\u2019s reading refers to those initiated into the Christian Church, when it speaks of \u201cthose who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.\u201d From the earliest times, believers have joined the Christian Church through the rites of Baptism (still called Holy Illumination among Eastern Christians), the Gift of the Holy Spirit (called \u201cChrismation\u201d in the East and \u201cConfirmation\u201d in the West), and the Holy Communion. All three of these rites take place in the context of the proclamation of the Holy Scriptures, in which we \u201ctasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is striking in this description of Christian initiation is the emphasis on the enjoyment of the things of God and the pleasure derived from sharing them. The things we do in the Church—the experience of prayer, the participation in the Sacraments, the proclamation of God\u2019s Word—are portrayed as events that bring joy to our hearts, matters that only a terribly perverse person would deprive himself of.<\/p>\n
The Sacred Text hints, moreover, that this enjoyment is but a first taste of something greater, described as \u201cthe age to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
How do we explain the thinking of Christians who have never learned to love the things of God? They confess willingly they find no delight in prayer, no joy in the Sacraments, no relish in the singing of hymns, no consolation in the reading Holy Scripture.<\/p>\n
Because these matters demand discipline—they are what we call acquired tastes—it is understandable that some souls do not yet enjoy them.<\/p>\n
What is not comprehensible, at least to me, is why these same souls still want to participate in \u201cthe age to come.\u201d If they do not relish God\u2019s Word, what makes them think that they will care much to meet the Author? If they find no joy on earth from eating the Bread of Angels, how do they imagine it will be more enjoyable in heaven? If they even now here with great reluctance the invitation, \u201cLet us pray,\u201d why would they want to hear the invitation, \u201cEnter into the joy of Thy Lord\u201d?<\/p>\n
If worship and the things of God are not sweet to us now, what makes us think we will enjoy them in heaven? If we find nothing but a burden in the brief time we spend worshipping on earth, how shall we endure the everlasting worship of heaven? If we now find onerous the bare nibbling of pleasures of heaven, what shall we feel when the whole banquet is spread out before us?<\/p>\n
An important task facing us in this life is the development of our spiritual taste buds. The call to repentance is God\u2019s summons to us to take possession of our own hunger. Only gradually will this be done. Day by day, and only as we deliberately cultivate the process, will the Holy Spirit give us a deep relish for God, for worship, for contemplation, for the Sacraments and the inexhaustible wealth of Holy Scripture. Day by day we will learn to taste and see that the Lord is sweet.<\/p>\n
Sunday, January 13<\/b><\/p>\n
Matthew 5:21-32: These contrasts has to do with the Lord\u2019s understanding of the Torah\u2019s prohibition, \u201cThou shalt do no murder\u201d (verse 21). Here, as in the next examples, Jesus responds, \u201cbut I<\/i> say to you,\u201d a formula indicating that His own understanding of the Law is superior even to that of Moses.<\/p>\n
There is an irreducible claim in these sustained assertions\u2014namely, that Jesus, being the very Lawgiver of Mount Sinai, has the authority to speak for the Law\u2019s intention. This claim is based on the standard legal principle: \u201cthe meaning of a law is determined by the intention of the lawgiver.\u201d Moses, after all, was only the promulgator of the Torah, not its author. Jesus implicitly makes the latter claim for Himself, which is the reason He is speaking from the mountain (verse 1).<\/p>\n
Thus, Jesus understands the prohibition against murder not simply as an injunction against taking someone\u2019s life, but as an interdiction excluding all acts of anger and violence, including speech and even thought (verse 22). This teaching is given in detail and at some length, as Matthew portrays Jesus as the Teacher of the Church. He teaches with authority (7:29).<\/p>\n
Genesis 13: When Abram left Egypt, he and his family were very wealthy because of Pharaoh\u2019s generosity to someone he was trying to gain as a brother-in-law! Now Abram and Lot find that the sheer size of their flocks requires them to live apart (verses 1-7). The story of their separation (verses 8-13) demonstrates Abram\u2019s humility in giving his younger relative the choice of the land (verse 9), while he himself takes what is left. This humble action of Abram illustrates the meaning of the dominical saying that the meek shall inherit the earth. Abraham\u2019s descendants, not Lot\u2019s, will inherit all this land. In this story we discern the non-assertive quality of Abram\u2019s faith. He is not only meek; he is also a peacemaker. Meekness and peace-making are qualities of the man of faith.<\/p>\n
Lot serves in this story as a kind of foil to Abram. The meek and peaceful Abram takes what is left, whereas Lot, obviously having failed to do a proper survey of the neighborhood, chooses to live in Sodom. This was to prove one of the worst real estate choices in history.<\/p>\n
The present chapter closes with God\u2019s solemn asseveration to Abram, promising him the land and the \u201cseed\u201d (verses 14-18). Unfortunately the rich ambivalence of this latter noun (zera\u2018<\/i> in Hebrew, sperma<\/i> in Greek, semen<\/i> in Latin) is lost in more recent translations that substitute the politically correct but entirely prosaic \u201cdescendants\u201d for \u201cseed\u201d (verses 15-16).<\/p>\n
Besides Sodom, two other important Canaanite cities are introduced in this chapter, Bethel (still called Luz at this period \u2014 cf. 28:19) and Hebron. Both of these cities will be extremely important in subsequent biblical history, and Abram is credited with making each of them a place of worship (verses 4,18).<\/p>\n
Monday, January 14<\/b><\/p>\n
Psalms 7: The humanism of the Psalter is a humanism rooted in the Incarnation. The Psalter is not human merely because it speaks for man in general, but because it speaks for Christ. The underlying voice of the Psalms is not simply \u201cman,\u201d but the<\/i> Man. To enter into the prayer of this book is not merely to share the sentiments of King David, or Asaph, or one of the other inspired poets. Indeed, in a theological sense the voices of these men are secondary, hardly more important than our own. The foundational voice of the Psalms, the underlying bass line of its harmony is, rather, the voice of Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.<\/p>\n
It is not surprising, then, that we will on occasion come across certain sentiments in the Psalms that are difficult to appropriate as our own. It does not take me long to discover that some of the lines of the Psalter are impossible to pray in my own person. There are cases in which my own \u201cvoice\u201d is inadequate to express the sense of the psalm itself.<\/p>\n
Psalm 7 provides an early example of this phenomenon. How many of us would feel comfortable claiming for ourselves the moral innocence expressed in this psalm? This is the prayer of someone whose hands are clean and mind undefiled, a man whose conscience finds nothing for which to reproach him. The voice of this psalm is His of whom St. Peter wrote that He \u201ccommitted no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth\u201d (2 Pet. 1:22).<\/p>\n
This is supremely a psalm of the Lord\u2019s redemptive sufferings at the hands of injustice. Line by line it inscribes the mounting drama of the Passion. Day by day it chronicles the sentiments of Holy Week: the official plot against the Lord\u2019s life, the growing tension as He daily parries the hostile interrogations, His early anointing in preparation for His burial, the bribe accepted by Judas to betray Him to His enemies, the heavy air enveloping that supper in which He washes the feet of His friends and identifies His betrayer, the prolonged prayer in the garden and its bloody sweat, the lengthy nocturnal trial during which He is thrice denied by yet another of the Twelve, the spittings and the mockery in the court of the high priest, the hailing before the cowardly Pilate, the humiliation at the cruel hands of Herod, the fickle crowd seeking the release of Barabbas and calling down His own blood on their heads and the heads of their children, the brutal scourging at the pillar and the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the Cross and the encounter with the women of Jerusalem, the stripping and distribution of His clothing, the fierce driving of the nails through His hands and feet, His raising on the Cross and the forgiveness of His persecutors, the excruciating distension of His joints and the racking of His entire body, the thirst, the agony, and the death.<\/p>\n
Such is the proper setting for Psalm 7, as mankind\u2019s single just Man suffers and dies to atone for the sins of the rest. To pray this psalm properly is to enter into the mind of the Lord in the context of His redemptive Passion. It is not to give expression to our own personal feelings, but to discover something of His. It is to taste, in some measure, the bitterness and the gall.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, January 15<\/b><\/p>\n
Genesis 15: This, the first of two accounts of God\u2019s covenant with Abram, is arguably the more dramatic and colorful. Here we also find two expressions appearing for the first time in Holy Scripture: (1) \u201cthe word of the Lord came to . . .\u201d (verse 1), and (2) Abram \u201cbelieved (\u2019aman<\/i>) in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness\u201d (verse 6). That first expression will be especially prominent the Bible\u2019s prophetic literature, and the second, which introduces the theme of righteousness by faith in God\u2019s promise, will dominate much of the New Testament, particularly the Pauline corpus. Indeed, St. Paul wrote the first commentary on this verse, Romans 4:1-5.<\/p>\n
At this point in the story, Abram is not called upon to do<\/i> anything. He is summoned simply to live by trust in God\u2019s promising word. Eventually, of course, he will be called upon to do<\/i> certain things, but the important point that St. Paul sees in this passage is that already<\/i>, before he has done anything, Abram is called righteous. From this fact St. Paul argues that godly righteousness consists radically in that profound trust in God known in the Bible as faith. This faith<\/i> is now explicitly spoken of for the first time in Holy Scripture. Hence, the importance of Genesis 15 for Christian theology. This is why Abraham is called \u201cour father\u201d in faith; his faith stands at the door of the history of salvation.<\/p>\n
For St. Paul, Abraham\u2019s righteousness, prior to the works of the Mosaic covenant, became the point of departure for examining the Christian\u2019s relationship to the Law of Moses, which was one of the most difficult and practical questions raised in New Testament times. For example, it was important to St. Paul that Abraham, at this point in the story, has not yet received the command to be circumcised (Romans 4:9-12); that command will not come until Chapter 17. That is to say, Abraham was declared righteous before<\/i> circumcision.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s promise to Abraham involved more than one person. It involved all the children of Abraham. It was the promise a large multitude. What does Genesis say? \u201cThen He brought him outside and said, \u2018Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.\u2019 And He said to him, \u2018So shall your descendants be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That is to say, God\u2019s promise to Abraham was not only Christological, but also ecclesiological. It involved not only a Messiah, but also a Church. It was the promise of a universal, international community. It was the promise of a truly catholic assembly of every tribe and tongue, a church that included all the families of the earth.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, January 16<\/b><\/p>\n
Romans 4:1-12: In the present chapter the apostle illustrates and demonstrates that the principle of justification through faith lies at the heart of the Old Testament. He goes to this Gospel principle as illustrated in the lives of Abraham and David.<\/p>\n
In the case of David, who had violated at least two articles of the Decalogue, justification came from the forgiveness of his sins. David had not observed the Law, but God had forgiven his lawless deeds and not imputed his sins unto him (verses 7-8).<\/p>\n
In this non-imputation of sin, the verb employed is logizesthai<\/i>, which Paul uses with respect to both David and Abraham. Such imputation is not some sort of legal fiction. This verb, in its normal and literal meaning, comes from the practice of accounting, bookkeeping, and the maintenance of ledgers. In the Greek Bible it is used metaphorically in the sense of a recorded account of man\u2019s moral conduct, as though God and the angels were “keeping tabs” on him (Deuteronomy 24:13; Psalms 106 [105]:31; Daniel 7:10; Revelation 20:12). This figurative use of the verb in a theological sense seems to be an extension of its figurative use in a legal and forensic sense, such as in court records and similar official archives (cf. Esther 6:1-3).<\/p>\n
Thus, when David writes that a forgiven man\u2019s sins are not \u201cimputed\u201d to him, the meaning is that those sins are no longer kept on the ledger, so to speak. They have been erased or “whited over.” Our sins are removed from the divine calculation, as it were. Our sins are “covered” (verse 7), not in the sense that they still remain in the soul, but in the sense that God has put them out of His mind. They are over and done with. He remembers them no more. The blood of the Lamb has washed them away, and a man never again needs to remember things that God has forgotten.<\/p>\n
In addition to David, Paul writes of Abraham, “our forefather according to the flesh,” which means “our biological ancestor” (verse 1; Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8). Abraham lived in a period long before the Sinai Covenant and the Mosaic Law. Yet, he was justified in God\u2019s sight, not by his observance of the Law, but through his faith in God\u2019s word, a faith manifest in his obedience to God\u2019s call (verses 2-5).<\/p>\n
When the Sacred Text asserts that Abraham\u2019s faith was “accounted [elogisthe] to him for righteousness” (verse 3), it means that God was never in Abraham\u2019s debt. God did not owe Abraham anything. The initiative of salvation in the story of Abraham was entirely God\u2019s. God sought out Abraham, not the other way around. Abraham\u2019s task was to believe, to trust, to obey. In faith he left his justification in God\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
Thursday, January 17<\/b><\/p>\n
Genesis 17: Genesis 17: This chapter narrates the circumstances in which Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah (verses 5,15).<\/p>\n
This second account of God\u2019s covenant with Abram is the first instance, of three, intimating the source of the name of his son and heir, Isaac. Isaac was named for laughter, because that name, formed from the verbal root shq<\/i>, literally means \u201che will laugh.\u201d When Abram learns that he, at age 100, and his wife, at age 90, will be the parents of this little boy, what else can he do but laugh? (verse 17)<\/p>\n
No one felt the irony of their situation better than Sarah herself, however, who will learn of this divine plan in the next chapter, where she will discover the news while eavesdropping, from within the tent, on a conversation between her husband and the Lord whom he hosted outside. \u201cSarah your wife shall have a son,\u201d she will hear the Latter say. Her response? \u201cSarah laughed within herself,\u201d asserts the Sacred Text, a reaction that she will be a tad too quick to disavow when questioned on the matter. \u201cI did not laugh,\u201d she will insist. \u201cNo,\u201d the Lord will press the point, \u201cbut you did laugh!\u201d (18:9-15).<\/p>\n
Later, right after delivering her son, Sarah will deliver the happy laconism that is the third reference to Isaac\u2019s name: \u201cGod has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me\u201d (21:6). Hers and Abraham\u2019s laughter was prompted, of course, by the sheer incongruity of the proposition, because \u201cAbraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing\u201d (18:11).<\/p>\n
According to the full Christian understanding of the Holy Scriptures, the joy of Abraham and Sarah at the promised birth of Isaac was burdened with prophecy, for his miraculous begetting foretold a later conception more miraculous still. Isaac was, in truth, a type and pledge of \u201cJesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham\u201d (Matthew 1:1). And Mary, mother of this Newer Isaac, having conceived Him in virginity just days before, made perfect her responding song of praise by remembering the mercy that God \u201cspoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever\u201d (Luke 1:55).<\/p>\n
Did not Abraham himself anticipate with joy the later coming of that more distant Seed? Surely so, for even our Newer Isaac proclaimed, \u201cYour father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad\u201d (John 8:56). Like Moses (5:46), Isaiah (12:41), and David (Matthew 22:43), Abraham was gifted to behold, in mystic vision, the final fulfillment of that primeval word, \u201cBut My covenant will I establish with Isaac\u201d (Genesis 17:21).<\/p>\n
Friday, January 18<\/b><\/p>\n
Matthew 5:33-48: Whereas the Mosaic Law prohibits perjury—an imprecation in testimony to a lie (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11)—Gospel righteousness forbids oaths in testimony to the truth.<\/p>\n
The examples given in these verses, particularly that related to one\u2019s own head (verse 36), contain some measure of disguise or subterfuge, to avoid using God\u2019s name explicitly (\u201cheaven,\u201d \u201cearth,\u201d \u201cJerusalem\u201d\u2014verse 34; cf. 23:16-22). This suggests an \u201cunofficial\u201d context for the prohibition. In solemn and more formal settings, after all, such as a courtroom, there would be no such disguising of the references to God\u2019s holy name.<\/p>\n
In fact, this is how the ethical tradition of the Church has interpreted the prohibition of oaths\u2014that is, as pertaining to ordinary conversation, not a more solemn setting in which an oath is reasonable and expected. Thus, we observe the Apostle Paul\u2019s complete lack of scruple in this matter (cf. Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:23; Philippians 1:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:5). The Church has followed suit, not understanding this prohibition in the same strict sense as the prohibition against divorce.<\/p>\n
The point of the prohibition is to avoid frivolous, unnecessary, and irreverent appeals to God, no matter how such appeals may be disguised. Invocations of this sort encroach on the realm of the divine, and the biblical Lord would be treated with the same nonchalance that pagans felt toward the Homeric gods. Oaths of this kind are irreverent to the divine presence, much like the uncovered head of a woman in prayer. Such oaths\u2014frivolous invocations to the divine truth as guarantor of human claims\u2014demean the divine majesty by forcing God to participate in a merely human conversation. Gospel righteousness recognizes the insult implied in such behavior and such an attitude.<\/p>\n
The Lord\u2019s prohibition of oaths extends and perfects the Mosaic proscription against taking the Lord\u2019s name \u201cin vain\u201d (that is, on behalf of a false assertion) and strengthens the Old Testament\u2019s care to reverence the holiness of God\u2019s name (Leviticus 19:12). In this sense Jesus\u2019 prohibition goes to the root of the divine intention in the Torah, much as His prohibition of divorce and adulterous thoughts more profoundly asserts what the Old Testament says of the sanctity of marriage.<\/p>\n
In addition, the Lord\u2019s injunction here forces the believer to assume full responsibility for the \u201ctruth content\u201d of what he says (verse 37; cf. James 5:12; 1 Corinthians 1:19). He cannot evade this moral responsibility by a casual invocation of the supernatural. Such invocations, says Jesus, are far from harmless; they come \u201cfrom the Evil One\u201d (ek tou Ponerou<\/i>), from whom we pray to be delivered (apo tou Ponerou<\/i>–6:13).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday, January 11 Matthew 5:1-12: The Sermon on the Mount begins with two very solemn verses, as though to allow everyone to sit down and get settled for a long discourse. The Sermon functions in more than one way to serve the structure of Matthew\u2019s entire composition. For example, taking place on a mountain at … Continue reading January 11 – January 18, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1360,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions\/1360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}