The Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

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November 11, 2018

1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Today’s Scripture gives us examples of two women who give from their poverty and reveal their integrity. They acted rightly even though it harmed the fragile stability of life. The widow at Zarephath risks starvation as she gives her last morsels of food to a stranger, and the widow at the Jerusalem Temple gives all that she has to honor her obligation to the Temple fund. They honor God by doing making just and right choices for the common good. The Temple, the Church, has been built on people of goodwill who strain to make ends meet in order to fulfill their religious obligations.

Contrast these women with the cultured scribes who seek honor and riches while wearing flowing costly garments and eating expensive dinners. This Gospel ought not be used to shame people into making greater contributions to the church, but it can be used to reveal a difference in attitudes in the way we honor others. Jesus reminds us that sin arises from our attitudes, and our sins are our failures to not even try to love.

         With this Gospel in mind, the bishops of the U.S. will gather in Baltimore to discuss how to proceed with sanctions and punishments against bishops who have not complied fully with the standards created at the Dallas Charter in 2002. Observers will see the bishops wearing long robes, eating expensive dinners, and jockeying for the seats of honor and influence in the hierarchy. Other bishops will be there to steady the course and represent the needs of the people of God who have given their all to the church.

         The crisis in the church can most directly be called a crisis of attitude, in which elitism, privilege, and clericalism dominates the leadership. The harm that we, the People of God, sustain is a moral injury. The crisis is marked by bishops who seek their own protection and status while knowing there are no standards for sanctions against their noncompliance. When a bishop’s authority is above the law, it is easy to disregard what is right and proper to do, and he loses sight of the widows, orphans, and people of goodwill who have lived faithfully and have toiled hard to build the church they love. It is an attitude that fails to bother to love the very people they are called to serve.

         However, I interpret the Gospel incorrectly if I merely praise the women and condemn the scribes, and I am not helpful to the conversation or part of the solution if I only assess the actions and attitudes of various bishops. This Gospel is designed for me to reflect upon my own choices and to correct my attitudes lest I fall into a crisis of authority and privilege. These readings are placed near the end of the liturgical year to help us think about our own salvation and our own end times. If I fail to bother to love because of malformed attitudes, then I better ask you and the Lord for help.

Daily, it is important for me to examine my attitudes to ask where I might need to develop greater awareness in my unconscious world. I might need to ask how I regard the law and the common good, for if I think the law does not apply to me or that my position is above it, I surely need to adjust my attitude. If I am not even open to speaking with someone who has offended me, then I am seeking how to claim my own honor, and I am failing to see the needs of the person in front of me. In short, I have a lot of work to do each day, and I best not criticize or condemn the failings of others, especially if I am not willing to put in my two mites as part of the solution.

         This is all about right relationships. The prophet Elijah needed the widow, and she needed him. The Temple needed the widow’s contributions and she needed the faith of her leaders. We need the bishops and the bishops need our two contributions to rebuild the church. We have collectively experienced moral injury and suffered from misguided attitudes, but rather than withdrawing or turning away in the church’s time of need, we have to give all that we have, to give our two mites, to really bother to love our leaders because our mercy is what changes hearts and adjusts attitudes. Our mercy, that God planted in our hearts, will heal the church and lead us all to salvation.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (Timothy 1) For a bishop as God's steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine
and to refute opponents. 

Tuesday: (Timothy 2) For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age.

Wednesday: (Timothy 3) Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities, to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise. They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate, exercising all graciousness toward everyone.

Thursday: (Philemon 7) I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment, who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.

Friday (2 John 4) Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.

Saturday (3 John 5) Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey. For they have set out for the sake of the Name and are accepting nothing from the pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such persons, so that we may be co-workers in the truth.

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 17) If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, 'I am sorry,' you should forgive him."

Tuesday: (Luke 17) When you have done all you have been commanded, say,
'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.

Wednesday (Luke 17) As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"
And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests."

Thursday (Luke 17) The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, 'Look, there he is,' or 'Look, here he is.' Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.

Friday (Luke 17) On that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left." They said to him in reply, "Where, Lord?"

Saturday (Luke 18) There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'

Saints of the Week

November 11: Martin of Tours, bishop (316-397), became an Roman soldier in Hungary because he was born into a military family. After he became a Christian, he left the army because he saw his faith in opposition to military service. He settled in Gaul and began its first monastery. He was proclaimed bishop in 371 and worked to spread the faith in at time of great uncertainty and conflict. He divided sections of his diocese into parishes.

November 12: Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623) was a Ukranian who entered the Basilian order and was ordained in the Byzantine rite. He was named the archbishop of Polotsk, Russia and attempted to unite the Ukrainian church with Rome. His opponents killed him. He is the first Eastern saint to be formally canonized.

November 13: Francis Xavier Cabrini, religious (1850-1917) was an Italian-born daughter to a Lombardy family of 13 children. She wanted to become a nun, but needed to stay at her parents’ farm because of their poor health. A priest asked her to help work in a girls’ school and she stayed for six years before the bishop asked her to care for girls in poor schools and hospitals. With six sisters, she came to the U.S. in 1889 to work among Italian immigrants. She was the first American citizen to be canonized.  

November 13: Stanislaus Kostka, S.J., religious (1550-1568) was a Polish novice who walked from his home to Rome to enter the Jesuits on his 17^th birthday. He feared reprisals by his father against the Society in Poland so we went to directly see the Superior General in person. Francis Borgia admitted him after Peter Canisius had him take a month in school before applying for entrance. Because of his early death, Kostka is revered as the patron saint of Jesuit novices.

November 14: Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Superior General (1917-1991) was the 28^th Superior General of the Jesuits. He was born in the Basque region of the Iberian Peninsula. He is considered one of the great reformers of the Society because he was asked by the Pope to carry out the reforms of Vatican II. November 14^th is the commemoration of his birth.

November 14: Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., religious and Superior General (1737-1811) was born in Zaragosa, Spain and entered the Jesuits during a turbulent era. He was known as the unofficial leader of the Jesuits in Sardinia when the Order was suppressed and placed in exile. He worked with European leaders to continue an underground existence and he was appointed Novice Master under Catherine the Great, who allowed the Society to receive new recruits. He secured the restoration of the Society partly in 1803 and fully in 1811 and bridged a link between the two eras of the Society. He oversaw a temperate reform of the Order that assured their survival.

November 15: Albert the Great, bishop and doctor (1200-1280), joined the Dominicans to teach theology in Germany and Paris. Thomas Aquinas was his student. With his reluctance, he was made bishop of Ratisbon. He resigned after four years so he could teach again. His intellectual pursuits included philosophy, natural science, theology, and Arabic language and culture. He applied Aristotle's philosophy to theology.

November 16: Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo, and Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1576-1628) were Jesuit priests born to Paraguayan nobility who were architects of the Paraguayan reductions, societies of immigrants based on religious faith. They taught the indigenous population how to plant farms and other basic life skills that would protect them from the insidious slave trades of Spain and Portugal. By the time the Jesuits were expelled, 57 such settlements were established. Roch was a staunch opponent of the slave trade. He, John, and Alphonsus were killed when the envy of a local witch doctor lost his authority at the expense of their growing medical expertise.  

November 16: Margaret of Scotland (1046-1093) was raised in Hungary because the Danes invaded England. She returned after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and sought refuge in Scotland. She married the king and bore him eight children. She corrected many wayward abuses within the church and clarified church practices.

November 16: Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) was placed for childrearing into a Benedictine monastery at age 5 in Saxony. She lived with two mystics named Mechthild and as she developed her intellectual and spiritual gifts, she too became a mystic. Her spiritual instructions are collected into five volumes. She wrote prayers as a first advocate of the Sacred Heart.

November 17: Elizabeth of Hungary, (1207-1231) was the daughter of Andrew II, king of Hungary. She married Ludwig IV of Thuringia and as queen supported many charities. When her husband died in a crusade in 1227, she entered the Third Order of Franciscans.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      Nov 11, 1676. In St James's Palace, London, Claude la Colombiere preached on All Saints.

·      Nov 12, 1919. Fr. General Ledochowski issued an instruction concerning the use of typewriters. He said that they could be allowed in offices but not in personal rooms, nor should they be carried from one house to another.

·      Nov 13, 1865. The death of James Oliver Van de Velde, second bishop of the city of Chicago from 1848 to 1853.

·      Nov 14, 1854. In Spain, the community left Loyola for the Balearic Isles, in conformity with a government order.

·      Nov 15, 1628. The deaths of St Roch Gonzalez and Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez. They were some of the architects of the Jesuit missions in Uruguay and Paraguay.

·      Nov 16, 1989. In El Salvador, the murder of six Jesuits connected with the University of Central America together with two of their lay colleagues.

·      Nov 17, 1579. Bl Rudolph Acquaviva and two other Jesuits set out from Goa for Surat and Fattiphur, the Court of Akbar, the Great Mogul.